DadCentric

A Sunday Still

Would you mess with this?

DadMomCentric

As you may have heard by now, men having babies is all the rage.  It was only a matter of time before science quit worrying about such frivolous pursuits as cures for AIDS and cancer and concentrated on the real (relationship) killer of our time, pregnancy.

Women have unfairly had to do all of the hard work in regard to developing, and in my case, creating, new life.  Then they have been obligated to follow the process with 18-80 years of worrying and creative criticism, while men get off with, well, getting off.  Men have felt really guilty about this for a long time.

That is why we here at DadCentric have decided to bridge the gap.  We are opening ourselves up to you, the readers, to help us make amends.  One of our writers will undergo the proper procedure(s) to become fertile.  Which one?  That's where you come in.  Vote in the comments below.

There are links in the sidebar.  Check everyone out and decide which dad is man enough to get knocked up.  All it takes is your vote, a dash of science and 7 lemoncillos.  Anal sex is optional.

Two Peas in an iPod

Sometimes I sit here on the stump of some giving tree and look down upon all I've sewn and think that it is good.  At other times, I stand and walk the sandy beaches of my own Kitty Hawk, searching for lost keys and shakers of salt, and I think such things as sometimes two rights can make a wrong, and I fight the desire to fly.

You see, my two boys, wonderful as they are, tend to drive me crazy when thrown together.  They grab, poke, pull and whine.  It's enough to drive me to wine.  Is 8:30 in the morning on a Thursday too early to start drinking?

What compounds my frustration is how well-behaved they each are on their own.  They are sweet and good.  I'm happy to be with them and miss them when we're apart.

Yet, like some evil spin on the Wonder Twins, the slightest touch between them creates the form of a raging bull and a bucket of tears. I won't even get into Gleek.

As I write this they are playing together by my feet.  Well.  They are being cute and loving and making me regret the inevitable submission of this post.  Damn ratings week.

What it usually boils down to is that the youngest, Thing 2, wants to be around Thing 1.  Always.  Thing 1, like Francis in Stripes, doesn't want anyone touching his stuff.  He doesn't want any meathooks on it.  He also doesn't want anyone calling him Francis. 

Thing 1 has limits.  He does not like them pushed.  Thing 2 is a pusher.  He is Ice-T, he don't ask, he just bogards, which I understand is slang for bogarts.  Which of course is also slang.  New slang when you notice the stripes.  I don't know what that means, but I thought it was nice of The Shins to tie everything together for me.

To be honest, Thing 2 gets in my stuff too.  He has rearranged my CD collection many times a day, every day, for months now (he is really into David Gray right now).  The only difference is, that unlike Thing 1, I don't knock him the head for it.

I just pan him off on his brother.

Then I sit on my stump and watch the apples that have fallen from my tree.  It is good.

Boys on the Side

My wife and I have recently engaged in a trial run of life sans meat.  It's not very hard, and at times can be quite entertaining, as I have to go to greater and more creative lengths to fill my stomach with something other than Sweetarts and whisky.

The challenge has been cooking for the kids.  Neither my wife or I have any delusions about us becoming full-fledged, dues paying vegetarians, and for that reason we have decided not to force even a temporary flax-seed diet on our boys.  It's bad enough we're making them Yankees fans.

However, if I am preparing a meal for the entire family, which with my wife working long hours usually consists of just me and Things 1 and 2, respectively, it becomes less a matter of creativity and more an issue of laziness and time management.

Like any man in a meatless marriage, I have found myself searching for fulfillment on the side.  In this case sides, plural.  Our meals have become more about what surrounds the now vacant space on our plate than what was once in said space.

For instance, we just had mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and a lightly buttered english muffin for lunch.  Last night we had salad, strawberries and about a dozen chocolate chip cookies for dinner and the subsequent dessert.  Basically, we eat on the side.  On the side of what? Caution.

Our kids, specifically the 3 1/2 year old, eat fairly well.  He has equal amounts soy and cow juice.  He eats more apples than candy. Relatively speaking, the kids have a more balanced diet than I do.  Plus, they get more exercise.

I'm just afraid that a lack of meat, or to be more precise, the growth hormone found in meat, is going to keep my boys off of the basketball team.  I need my boys to get scholarships.  I haven't saved a dime for their eduction.

For the time being we're going forward with our current menu status, and that is going to mean preparing additional items for the kids or discovering more creative combinations of non-meat items.

Who knows, this could be broccoli's chance to redeem itself.

Rejuvenile: The DadCentric Review

Young at heart has come of age. Rejuvenile, the latest book by author Christopher Noxon, is an interesting and often humorous look at the proverbial inner-child and the increasingly common practice of letting that kid run. 

I must admit, I don't feel like a grown-up.  Seriously.  I still feel about the same way I did when I was in my twenties.  Early twenties.  I'll be 36 in a couple of weeks and while I am a married, home owning, bill paying, handsome son of a gun with two small children, I am not, according to the experts Noxon sites, a grown-up.  Some say my penchant for hours of playground activity is a menace to the way of western civilization.  Some say it is only natural (and a hell of a lot more fun).  Noxon tends to hold with the later. 

The rejuvenile embraces fun.  That fun can be in play for the sake of play, in collecting items often considered marketed for younger people, or interacting with one's own child.  In the introduction he states, "By loitering in territory established as the exclusive dominion of children, rejuveniles are challenging a rarely examined assumption: that one's age should dictate one's activities, social group, and mind-set.  Adults...are blithely shredding those scripts to confetti, giggling as the pieces float to the ground."

He continues, "Traditional adulthood didn't do us any favors... mostly a remnant of the Industrial Revolution, a set of standards established to encourage regularity, stability, steadfastness, and other virtues that aren't worth half as much now as one hundred years ago."

While the nay-sayers, labeled "Harrumphing Codgers" are pretty much cast as sticks in the proverbial mud, the term "rejuvenile" is not "meant to be entirely celebratory", rather it is "value-neutral."  He lists among them Walt Disney, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs. They are "geniuses, mavericks, oddballs, and crackpots."  Which one are you?

The roots of the movement, that being the resistance to the rigors of growing up, is attributed by Noxon to the turn of the twentieth century and most notably, the first flight of the eternal child, Peter Pan.  For play, to the rejuvenile, "is indeed the whole point of life."  Pan embodies a passion for fun that is infectious and inspiring, and sometimes downright dangerous.  Most rejuveniles are able to incorporate this spirit and balance it within the confines of an otherwise adult life, meaning one with responsibility and consequence.  Others, not so much.

There is a saying of disputed origin that embodies the modern rejuvenile:  We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.  What does this motto mean today?  Adults are more and more subject to the "trickle-up effect of childhood play".  Otherwise "normal" people have either picked up extreme habits from the youth, or they never let it go from their own childhood.  Skateboarding, snowboarding, and the like have helped maintain a level of youthfulness that no cubicle can confine.  The lines between the hoods (child and adult, respectively) has become more and more blurry.

So the rejuvenile is what? The love-child of the Industrial Revolution and Peter Pan? Yes and no. 

A generation ago, adults could expect to finish school, get married, and start a career all within a few years.  Now people are living together before getting married, working while in school...and taking full advantage of their immunity from the expectations inherent in being a parent, husband, or wife.  They are, to borrow a sociological term, on "role hiatus," free to try things out, screw up, move back home, and try again.  Along the way, they're forging a new sense of adulthood-one that has less to do with what they've achieved than how they feel.

What's required of the rejuvenile, then, is a careful, deliberate, and yes, mature accounting of those qualities that come naturally to kids that can also contribute to rich and meaningful adult lives-and a weeding out of those qualities that are best consigned to childhood.

The book is a comprehensive study of what makes this movement a movement and not just a load of shit.  It examines the beauty of romantic ideals and the failures of ignorance, fear, and the embarrassment associated with trying too hard- often in the same sentence.

Chances are, like me, you are somewhere within the labels and examples given. I'm a little from  Column A and little from Column  B, a mixed-nut of adult and parental responsibilities with the carefree lust for fun expected of someone half my age (maybe a third).  Hello, my name is Whit, and I'm a rejuvenile.  I've been called worse.

Noxon, himself an admitted rejuvenile, does have some concerns which he voices throughout the book; among them the role of the media and corporate America in creating an adult-sized appetite for all things kid-like.  Yet, he concludes, "in the end, though, I don't think the rejuvenile impulse is ultimately rooted in any of those things.  When you boil it down, I think we rejuveniles are attempting to hang on to the part of ourselves that feels most genuinely human.  We believe that there is more value in what we came in with that what we are taught."

Amen to that brother.  Amen.

WWTDD: The Only Celebrity News You'll Ever Need

I don't know how it is with you all, but my wife loves her some celebrity gossip. Me, I could give a rat's ass about who Jessica Biel is dating or how Reese is doing post-Ryan. Entertainment news is worthless (unless George Lucas or Batman are involved). So when she told me about her new favorite web site, What Would Tyler Durden Do, I rolled my eyes. Audibly. I humored her, and read a couple of posts. And was hooked. The site's introduction says it all: "What Would Tyler Durden Do is a blog focused on on bringing you the latest gossip and news about rich and famous celebrities. And then making fun of them. Why? Because fuck them, that's why."

George Budabin

I get letters. That's part of the deal; when you run a site like this, you get emails from all parts, from all kinds. I read them all; that's also part of the deal. I don't usually share them, but in this case, I'll make an exception. Andru Edwards, a guy I've never met, sent me a letter requesting that I post a link to a particular blog post. I'm honored - and saddened - to answer that request. Here's the link.

Reflection is not uncommon during the holidays. We look out our windows at the snow and lights and think of possibilities, of the world we'd like to see, of the ways we'd like to move through that world, of the way we'd like that world to see us. We'd all do well to strive for that particular and profound state of grace that George reached.

Oh Crap - I Forgot Our Anniversary

526 posts, 3266 comments and a couple hundred thousand visits - DadCentric is one year old today. Crazy!

Change is good, and I'm happy to announce that we've gotten some new blood. Everyone, meet Whit. Whit, everyone. Whit's been a frequent commentor, and also writes for, like, 25 other websites. We dig him, plus he's a bartender, so free drinks!

As we venture forth into Year Two, a reminder: suggestions, comments, praise, and naked pictures of Scarlett Johansson are always welcome; please email me at petcobra@gmail.com if you have any of the above. Thanks to all of you for reading!

FLAME ON!

Remember back in sixth grade, when a couple of kids would engage in fisticuffs, the cry would go up - "FIGHT! FIGHT!" - and kids from miles around would flock to the scene. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd, Soul Asylum once said, and clearly the blogosphere likes a bit of the old rhetorical pugilism. I'm not astride a high horse, folks; I'll jump in on occasion, though it usually takes some pretty blatant hypocrisy on a blogger's part to set me off (and for the record, yes, making fun of Sweetney's kid was a shitty thing to do, but one would think that if one suffered so from a cruel "joke", one might be less inclined to make cruel "jokes" about others - or if one chose to make fun, one should probably be prepared to take a few shots).

What's interesting about the recent Flame Wars (artwork by Jack Kirby, story by Warren Ellis) is that it points out one of - perhaps the greatest - difference between mommybloggers and their male counterparts.

Us guys, we noble few, we band of brothers, we don't flame each other.

To be sure, we may have some disagreements (these typically involve the ethics of shopping at WalMart, or the current state of affairs in Iraq, or who would win in a fight - a new BSG Centurion or an Imperial Stormtrooper), but look at all of the daddyblogs out there and you'll be extremely hard pressed to find the cattiness and vitriol present on many of the mommyblogs. Hell, the guys on this site alone rip on a lot of people and lampoon a variety of topics, but the comments section has been refreshingly free of bitchy comments (though I'm sure that'll change once Pierre reads Whiff's take on George Lucas below - MetroDad is a HUGE Jar Jar Binks fan).

Now, normally this would be the part where one might say "We're all parents and we're all in this together and we should all be nice to each other and let's all hold hands and sing Kumbayah". Please. One of my favorite sites is Trainwrecks, and frankly there are few things more amusing to me than reading a snide blog post, wading through the return-fire comments, and then reading the inevitable mea culpa from the offending martyred blogger. It's unintentional comedy on a Grey's Anatomy scale. I'm by no means calling for us to all get along; just wondering why it's the moms that seem to call down the airstrikes.

So, readers, what's your take? Are dadbloggers more civil than mommybloggers? And if so, why?

Attention, Citizens of Tokyo! DadCentric Is Approaching! Run For The Hills!

Check this out, dear readers: our patron, Federated Media, has launched a new Parenting Metamechagodzilla Blog. The site features some of the blogosphere's best parenting blogs, including Amalah, Dooce, Laid Off Dad, ParentHacks, Suburban Bliss, Finslippy, Celebrity Baby Blog, The Mommy Blog, and Paper Napkin. And us. On the same page. Pretty sweet. Go visit. Right now.