Introduction

New BookReleases for 2016 - Comedy, Satire and Humor
 
This isn't where Nick Owen thought he would be by this point in life. He used to be a busy web programmer. Now he spends most of his energy trying to stop his three-year-old twins from playing in a dirty sand pit. Nick thinks of himself as Daddy 3.0, a stay-at-home-dad--but he just wasn't programmed for this.

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Excerpt

DON’T EAT THE SAND

My attitude about most everything was lousy. This negativity placed me on the wrong side of Supermom. Supermom was everything I was not. She was a walking checklist of desirable qualities: tall, skinny, tan, blond, blue eyed, and attractive. She wore stylish clothes, hailed from a well-heeled family from Connecticut, was married to a rising-star orthopedic surgeon, had graduated from Harvard with a degree in English, was an avid skier and tennis player, was a great cook, and was fluent in French. Her five- year plan, after her son and daughter, ages four and three, reached school age, was to start and run a charitable foundation directed toward issues of poverty among women in sub-Saharan Africa. Supermom was the rare person who required no more than four hours of sleep a night, and she was able to utilize the extra hours each day for things such as keeping up correspondence with a seemingly endless list of people who often visited her. She was also the type of stay-at-home parent who would actually do rainy-day activities with her kids, such as painting, clay sculpting, and messy glue projects with feathers and glitter. Before the park incident, I had been on cordial terms with her, placing her in the category of being otherworldly—like a two-dimensional superhero character, ready to take on the world and never requiring a potty break.

Supermom was slow in meeting us that day, but she did unfortunately come. It was late afternoon, and the twins were fighting over a broken sand scoop. I said several times, “Claire. Maude. Can you play nicely and share?” Unfortunately, three-year-olds have short memories. My patience ran thin. Around me were packed kids, moms, and nannies, all of us trapped in a hot asphalt park, not yet ready to return to our cramped Upper East Side apartments. At any point in time, at least one kid could be heard crying or screaming. I had nowhere else to take the girls that didn’t cost money. In Manhattan, circling the block cost five bucks. I had an hour to kill until Liz finished up at the hospital and we could go to our Friday dinner at Mandarin Deli. She had been working a boatload of hours since starting her surgical fellowship at the Hospital for Special Surgery on July 1. It was one of those days—a crab-apple day. The problem was that now most ev- ery day was a crab-apple day.

The novelty of being a stay-at-home dad had worn off. I was still looking for work but had few job leads. That day, I had received an- other rejection call from another second interview. While I was feeling sorry for myself, a grimy boy, maybe four, peed in the sandpit. I looked around for his keeper, but no one seemed to be with the kid. The kid pissed for about five seconds before other people started to notice. The sandpit cleared. “Whose kid is this?” I shouted. “He can’t do that here.”

Ignoring me, he finished his business. Suddenly, a grandmotherly woman pushed through the crowd that had formed and screamed at the kid in a language with many hard consonants. She tugged at his arm and dragged him away. Eventually, kids began to settle back into the sandpit, keeping clear of the area of drainage until it dried. I suggested to my girls that they move on to the jungle gym. I got no argument.

My friend Good Heart had finally gotten to the park with her daugh- ter, Sammie. “Some kid just peed in the sand pit. Do you believe it?”

“Our pediatrician told us to avoid the sand boxes in the parks. Rats play in them at night,” Good Heart said. “Do you let your twins play in the sand?”

“Not now, I’m not.” Good Heart had a gap-tooth smile, which she hoped to rectify as soon as her husband completed his medical fellowship and they could afford cosmetic dental work.

I lost sight of Claire and Maude, as they blended into the swarm of kids on the jungle gym, despite having distinctive curly blond hair. No mat- ter what I was doing in the park, I instinctively looked for the kids every thirty seconds. The thought of not knowing where the kids were scared me. Good Heart understood my need to chase after the kids. I was learn- ing that it was rare to have a full conversation with another adult.

Maude and Claire were hidden beneath the jungle gym, arguing with a slightly older kid over a bike with training wheels. Maude was straddling it, demonstrating her imagined ownership of it. She pulled against the boy’s grip on the handle bar. Her loyal sister yelled, “Our bike.”

I said, “This bike doesn’t belong to you. You have to ask him for a turn if you want to ride it.”

Maude kept pulling on the bike. She was not going to yield. The little boy started to stutter-cry.

“Can they have a turn for a little bit, please?” I asked. “It mine,” he wailed.

Fearing a confrontation with my spunky little Maude, I bent down to speak to the boy, thinking he might be more reasonable than my own child. “My kids are younger than you and don’t understand what it means to share. Can you be a big boy and show them how sharing is done?”

As soon as I said it, I knew I had screwed up. I had failed to heed the prime directive of parenting: do not impose your parenting style on an- other person’s kid.

“That’s my son’s bike,” a woman yelled. “And don’t you lecture my boy.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t want ‘sorry.’ Just get your kids away.”

“You don’t have to be nasty. Everybody knows that when you bring a toy to the park, you kinda of have to be willing to share it.”

Second mistake. Do not impose your parenting style on other parents.

What followed was a verbal volley that not only started to draw the attention of those around us, but also caused me to say, “Don’t curse in front of the kids. It’s just a bike. Let me buy you and your son an ice cream. No hard feelings.”

Third and fourth mistakes, simultaneously—don’t tell a person who has clearly gone off the deep end to stop cursing, and never say “no hard feelings” to soften a situation.

She cursed not only in English, but also in Spanish. She was so com- plete in her litany of expletives that surely none was left out in either lan- guage. Her final threat upon leaving was that I should never come back to the park again or her boyfriend would tear my arm off and beat me senseless with it

In an instant, I became the buzz of the park. Fortunately, since I was a guy, I’d be forgiven for not knowing the rules of park etiquette. Stay-at- home dads get a lot of free passes in the world of moms.

Good Heart and I met back up at the swings. Our kids swung as we talked. Good Heart had been dragged from the bowels of the Midwest by her spouse, who was in his second year of a three-year oncology fellowship at the prestigious Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. (Reader note: try saying Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center while gargling with mouthwash.) Good Heart was a tall woman, big boned, but not heavy, who still held the athletic physique of her time in college basketball ten years earlier. Her long, dirty-blond hair was forever in a ponytail, while her typical attire drew heavily from her collection of exercise clothes. Her narrow eyes and thin lips gave the trace impression of melancholy, which was tied to her open and freely discussed desire to be back home, with a tight network of family and friends. She was six months into her second pregnancy; the twenty-week ultrasound had hinted that it might be a boy.

“Rough day, Nick?” she said.

“I’ve got to learn to keep my mouth shut.” “Especially in New York. What were you thinking?”

“I didn’t say anything bad. That woman was a nut job.”

“But even if she’s wrong, just keep apologizing. You’ve got to think about the safety of your girls.”

“Things didn’t get that bad. She was just blowing off steam. Normal people don’t go postal.”

“You don’t know that in New York,” she said.

Good Heart was dramatic. Her world was filled with lurking fears. I just knew she was a “defensive driver,” even though I had never been in a car with her

Just then, Nifty-Fifty Wife and Supermom joined us in the swing- set corral. Nifty-Fifty Wife’s daughter, Sofia, was asleep in her stroller. Supermom’s kids, Mitch Jr. and Hillary, circled the crowded set of swings, waiting for a turn. Mitch Jr. was not a patient little cowboy type

“Where are you coming from?” Good Heart said.

“Mitch Jr. wanted to watch the feeding of the sea lions over at the Central Park Zoo,” Supermom said.

Good Heart seemed disappointed. “You should’ve called me to go.

Sammie’s been asking for Hillary all day.”

“I called you, but it rang and rang,” Supermom said.

“I’ve got a lot of cell phone problems in this city. I never had these is- sues back home. What service do you guys use?” Good Heart said.

I loved the “I tried to call you, but you didn’t get it” excuse. It was the modern equivalent of “the check is in the mail.” Supermom was clever— my guess was that she didn’t want to be with Good Heart at the zoo. Supermom tended to hang with the well-dressed, “sophisticated” moms. Good Heart was a hick from armpit junction.

After stalking the swings for several minutes, Mitch Jr. made his move and tugged on Claire’s swing chain, hoping to slow her. “It’s my turn,” he said. Mitch Jr. was about a year older than the girls. And he was a little

Claire tumbled from the low swing and hit the rubber playground mat below. It was a slow-motion fall. It didn’t seem too bad—more drama than actual pain. She starting crying, holding her elbow.

I bent down and kissed her elbow. “Are you okay, Claire Bear?” “Mitch Jr., can we be a little gentler?” I asked. Again, I failed to heed

the prime directive of parenting.

Maude stopped swinging. She shoved Mitch Jr. to the ground as he tried to climb into Claire’s empty swing.

“Maude just pushed Mitch Jr.” Supermom said.

Her regal holier-than-thou tone pissed me off. “Pushing happens with little kids. Don’t you think he kind of deserved it a little bit?” I said.

Maybe I should have delivered my response with humor. Or maybe I could have been more charming that day. More sleep the night before might have helped me to be more patient and tactful. Or maybe I should have been as uptight and neurotic as Supermom and admonished Maude for her defense of her sister. Any of these actions might have averted her newfound displeasure of me. I noticed the soft clench of her jaw and the slight narrowing of her eyes after I spoke. I had screwed up big time.

“Mitch Jr., please apologize to Claire. We do not ever put our hands on other people in anger,” Supermom said. “Say you’re sorry,”

Mitch Jr. mumbled an apology and again climbed onto the swing.

Good Heart spoke. “It’s been a long day for everybody. The kids must be getting their late-afternoon grumpies. I certainly could use a nap and a snack.”

Good Heart was becoming a dependable apologist for me. Whenever I did something boneheaded, she seemed to know when I needed a lifeline. I guess she felt sorry for me because I sucked at the whole stay-at-home parent thing. Supermom smiled at Good Heart. She helped Hillary into the swing that had been abandoned by Maude. I roped my arms around the girls so that no more altercations could occur.

Nifty-Fifty Wife concurred with her English-as-a-second-language skill. “This time of day is very hard for the little ones. Today, I am thank- ful that Sofia take a nap in the stroller. Matías do not like it when Sofia acts bratty with no nap.” I had not spent a lot of time with Nifty-Fifty Wife. She seemed to be part of Supermom’s orbit of stay-at-home women. She was married to a neuroradiologist who was in the middle of his second fel- lowship. They were from South America. I forget which country.

Supermom said, “Mitch Sr. likes the kids bathed and fed before he sees them. But most nights it doesn’t matter, because he’s in the OR late and misses them altogether.”

To break the awkwardness I had created, I fumbled into the conver- sation. “I’m lucky that Liz is a snake charmer with the kids. She’s able to change their mood pretty quickly, so the night goes smoothly. If she gets home early enough, she even gives them their bath.” Why I felt the com- pulsive need to chat up my spouse, while they were running down their husbands, I’ll never know, but Supermom’s haughty vibe affected me.

“Does she do the cooking too?” Nifty-Fifty Wife said.

“She’s too busy. She and Mitch are in the same program and have the same crazy schedule. I do the cooking, the cleaning, and the dragging of kids to activities and playdates,” I said. Truth be told, my cooking con- sisted of boiling pasta and nuking canned pasta sauce. As for cleaning correctly—forget about it.

“I thought you had nanny. You make program of web things or some- thing?” Nifty-Fifty Wife said.

“Back in San Francisco, I was a senior programmer.”

The economy had turned crummy. The web start-up company that I had worked for had had more fun pretending to be a company than ac- tually being a company that cared about profits. Any economist will tell you that a firm that provides three meals a day, fat salaries, and endless hours of free play to recharge employee morale, without actually having any sales, is not destined to stay in business very long. It was a lot of fun while the $20 million of venture funding lasted. I had had a good time, even if my stock options were now worthless. It didn’t make sense to rattle around Silicon Valley like the Ghost of Christmas Past while Liz had a place at a top-notch program.

“So you don’t have a job?” Nifty-Fifty Wife said.

It was embarrassing to be a guy without a job. I had thought staying home with the kids would be a part-time gig. Getting a job in New York seemed like a cool idea, but after a few months of hunting during a hiring slump, I discovered the number of job openings to be about the same as the number of hairs on my bald head. It seemed that the dot-com compa- nies had finally decided to be prudent and control expenses. Go figure.

“He’s one of us,” Good Heart said.

“You’re like that guy from the movie Mr. Mom,” Nifty-Fifty Wife said.

I didn’t like when someone made the Mr. Mom crack. But I did like the movie. Nifty-Fifty Wife made me uncomfortable about being the only guy from the building who was home with the kids. I felt like a screw-up when people realized I was no longer the breadwinner.

Until we had come to New York, the childcare issue had been very manageable. Most of Liz’s immediate family lived in the Bay Area. Liz’s homemaker mom had watched the kids during the day. At night, if both of us had been late coming home, Liz’s nearby cousin had picked up the slack. We had been able to avoid the whole nanny-versus-daycare issue. As soon as we had moved to New York and Liz had hit the floors of the hospital for her one-year surgical fellowship, we had lost our safety nets. We had been forced to figure out the childcare strategy in a hurry.

There had been several facts to consider

. I was unemployable until the job market was taken off its respirator.

2. Liz’s surgical fellowship was more than a full-time commitment.

3. Fellows don’t make a lot of money.

4. Fellows don’t make a lot of money.

5. We had no friends or family in New York that could help full-time with the kids

6. Due to the abovementioned salary cap, the nanny option was out.

7. Daycare was a budget stretch since we could not count on signifi- cant financial help from either set of our tightwad parents. Liz’s parents especially would not help, since they had not yet recovered from the shock that their daughter had chosen to marry me. They still held a grudge over my arrest for rappelling down a wall during college graduation. (I had wanted to impress Liz and march with her in the ceremony. One would think her parents would have been touched by such an act of devotion.)

The conclusion had been clear: logic dictated that until I was able to get a job in my field, I would watch the kids. The only problem with this childcare solution was that that the caregiver—me—was not in tune with kids. I was an only child and had never babysat for kids growing up. We all

know that only children tend to be self-centered. And I had never found the kids of others to be particularly interesting or amusing.

As a kid, I had not liked growing up. As far as I’m concerned, grow- ing up sucks and if you liked it, something is wrong with you. After our twins were born, nobody, including Liz, really had any big expectations that I would be an extraordinary parent. I never got up with the kids in the middle of the night. Because Liz breastfed them, she was already up, right? Liz was always with the twins on weekends or, if not, would get a babysitter to help out. I rarely was alone with the twins.

Pretty much, I had coasted through the first three years of child rear- ing. It had been quietly understood that I was the primary breadwinner. No one had ever penalized me for not being around. I had been the fun- time parent, coasting in for story time after their bath.

“This is just temporary. I’m looking for a job,” I said.

Supermom said, “I love being home with the kids. My career is fine on hold. I’ll never regret the time.”

All the moms nodded

“It makes such a difference in a child’s development. It certainly beats a nanny or the daycare option,” Supermom said.

“I’ve heard of so many problems with nannies,” Nifty-Fifty Wife said. “Like what? Not many people I know have nannies,” Good Heart

said

“You see it in the park. Nannies ignore the kids and talk on their cell phones,” Nifty-Fifty Wife said. “Or they let the kids cry in their strollers while they run personal errands. Back home, a friend of mine got a nanny cam and found out that her nanny left her daughter in the crib for hours so she could keep up with her soaps.”

“And, what about when the nanny leaves abruptly to go to another family? Kids get upset. And you have to take time off from work,” Supermom said.

“And forget about getting an au pair. It’s like raising another child. Or you’ve got worse problems if she’s skinny and pretty,” Good Heart said.

“There are lots of good nannies. It’s just the bad ones that stand out,” I said

RO B A R M S T RONG

“When you start working again, we will watch your nanny,” Nifty- Fifty Wife said.

“And maybe Liz could slow down a little at the hospital and help out some more too,” Supermom said.

I almost told Supermom to grow a hump and die. It amazed me how little support successful women got. Liz was competing in the macho zone with a wolf pack of orthopedic surgeons. Supermom’s husband, Mitch Sr., was one of the alpha wolves, and he was a platinum-plated asshole. You could bet that none of Liz’s male colleagues were berating each other over who was spending more time with his or her kids.

This time, I kept myself somewhat in check, but I probably should have done a better job. I didn’t want to totally piss off Supermom twice in the same day. She could put a choke hold on my social network for Claire and Maude. Except for my friend Wolfie, whose kids were slightly older than mine, we didn’t know anybody in New York. The families of other medical fellows were our only source for playdates. Plus, we all lived in the same building, and Supermom was the president of the family association. And everybody seemed to idolize her. When I went back to work, I wanted the girls to still have friends. So I made nice—but with a little twist of lemon

“Your hubby is really good with the kids. You’re lucky,” I said.

No one except Supermom seemed to get my sarcasm. I knew she had because she validated my comment with too much enthusiasm.

“Mitch Sr. is a dear. The kids just love when he’s around. They just forget about me as soon as he’s home. Daddy this and Daddy that. I couldn’t ask more from him.”

Except for Good Heart, I don’t think any of the stay-at-home moms in the family association had any real comfort with me. I was a male interloper into their world, and awkward in my new role. I should have done many things better that day. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1 - What new thing did you learn about a male stay at home parent?

2- Can men be an effective stay at home parent?

3 - Do you think that Nick was too harsh on Supermom? Do you think he could have been more tolerate of her style of child rearing?

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