From the National Center for Men:
‘….Women now have the freedom and security to enjoy lovemaking without the fear of forced procreation….But men are routinely forced to give up control, forced to be financially responsible for choices only women are permitted to make, forced to relinquish reproductive choice as the price of intimacy.’
Above is an excerpt from the National Center for Men’s press release regarding their lawsuit, so-called ‘Roe vs. Wade…for Men‘ - not to be confused with the Hair Club for Men. This little gem alone is worth a rant or three, but here’s where my daddy hackles rise:
‘We will argue that, at a time of reproductive freedom for women, fatherhood must be more than a matter of DNA: A man must choose to be a father in the same way that a woman chooses to be a mother.’
Despite what Maury Povich would have us believe, fatherhood has precious little to do with genetics. As far as spotlights go, DNA’s is narrow and short-lived. An instant of chemical collaboration, a passing of notes in class, and the 15 milliseconds of fame is over.
And though my experience as a father is thus far limited, let me say that the contribution of DNA is the least challenging part of fatherhood.
The National Center for Men proposes that fatherhood is also about choice. Well and good. What, then, is our choice? The choice to ‘enjoy lovemaking without the fear of forced procreation’?
Where to start?
By its very nature, sex is enjoyable regardless of its outcome. Is anyone complaining? Enjoyment is not a choice - it simply…is. But I understand their point - how can one fully enjoy the act of lovemaking if conception is a very real possibility?
The answer must be self-evident, because people do it all the time. When it comes to sex, conception is always a possibility; that is its purpose. Even our most effective birth-control methods allow for a small percentage of ‘error’. Life is persistent, and we choose to ignore that. In this sense, a father’s choice begins and ends with his decision to have sex. Anything else is wishful thinking.
Which brings us to ‘fear’. To this, all men can relate. Children are intimidating, and more so when they’re your own. Even - especially - before they’re born, we fear. Our practical side fears for financial security, our paternal side for competence, and our selfish side for everything else. But fear, properly placed, is more often a strength than a weakness. Fear urges prudence and patience; fear demands discretion and foresight. Those without fear move without caution, and without thinking.
‘Forced procreation’? If only sperm were so easily intimidated.
Yes, fatherhood is a choice. It is a choice of accountability and maturity. It is a choice of love. I chose to change my son’s diapers, and to rush home during lunch for a snuggle. I chose to work, so that my wife and son could be together. I choose to take my son to the park, to bathe him, tickle him, feed him, sing with him, read books, tell stories, discipline, laugh, brush his teeth, pick his nose, and hug him when he’s sad.
We don’t choose our responsibilities, but we can choose to ignore them.
the grand canyon was
shaped by its son; echos of
why? why? why? why? why?
The truck rolls down the ramp, and the incline splits in two. Useful for storage, but frustrating if your excavator is waiting for its load of dirt.
You frown and try to join the pieces back together. They both fall from the platform, and you have to start from scratch. To your credit, you’re relatively calm while you try to fit the pegs of the ramp into their respective holes, but it’s a cheap toy. Time and again they fall, and with each failure you get more and more upset.
Dramatically, slowly, you lift your fist, clenched around one half of the ramp. You slam it into the platform, and the entire bridge topples. If you can’t play, no one can.
And I remember Mega Man, and the Rock Monster. He just kept flying across the screen, again and again, back and forth, and I couldn’t beat him. I threw the controller across the room.
Or my parents telling me to leave the room when I couldn’t get our printer to work, and the message they printed on the PrintShop greeting card, after they did: ‘Patience is a virtue.’
Or, years later, Kelly’s surprise at my lack of audible swearing as I replace a bathroom faucet.
You and I, we’re good at the big stuff; it’s the little things we can’t ignore. And Goliath was felled by a very little thing.
Last night Kelly had parent conferences, so Ian and I had a night to ourselves. Since I’m at work for most of the day, and we spend our weekends as a family, he and I don’t get much one-on-one time.
Yes, I ditched choir rehearsal. But choir is weekly; time alone with my son isn’t.
I don’t have any embarrassing anecdotes or poignant observations. We went to Applebee’s, ate macaroni n’ cheese and fries, colored, danced, and snuggled. He was well-behaved, I was patient and attentive. I had my son back, Ian had his father.
Afterward we went to the mall playground. We came home, I gave him a bath. We ate cookies and snuggled.
I can’t express how badly I needed last night.
I’ve said it before: parenting is an adventure in psychological experimentation. And I’m okay with that. Any honest father will admit that the motivation behind some of the things he does with his children is simple curiosity. What will happen if I do this? If the result is good, we’ll try it again. If it’s bad, we won’t.
Unless it’s really, really funny.
I rinse Ian’s hair with buckets of water. Yes, it would be better for everyone involved if I’d just let him lie in the bathtub. But, for the longest time, Ian was terrified of doing this. He no longer minds, but it’s too late - the routine has been established.
So I dump water on his head. It’s 50/50 whether or not Ian likes a facefull of water; it depends on his mood, which can change between buckets. Sometimes he coughs and sputters, sometimes he laughs and begs for more. The other night, he was far from pleased.
‘Don’t do that!’
‘Sorry, kiddo, but I have to rise your hair. I’l be more careful.’ A bucket.
He shook his head. ‘You’re making my angry!’ He scowled and looked at me from beneath dripping hair.
‘Oh, yeah?’ A bucket.
‘Yeah!’ He clenched his fists.
Enter the cat-killing curiosity. I couldn’t've stopped if I’d wanted to. Which I didn’t. Instead, I laughed. ‘Well, what are you going to do?’ A bucket.
Quicker than I’ve ever seen him move, Ian grabbed the bucket and wrenched it from my hand. ‘I said no!’
Chastised, I raised my hands. ‘Okay, okay. No more. I’m sorry.’
Not a textbook example of demonstrating correct behavior, I admit. But how many years do I have before he’s bigger than me?
odd, how we find each other.
there are words which join me
to you to him to her, degrees of seperation
that would make kevin bacon blush.
anonymity is never total,
and i know more about you than, maybe,
you’d like.
‘britney spears.’ my mother-in-law’s name. ‘diaper overflow.’
you’re searching, and i hope you find;
for now, you’ve found me.
‘5 month old thrashes head side to side’
is sixth, between ‘missey’ and
a ‘paradise of child depravity’.
you’re searching, and i pray you find.
This past weekend, Kelly and I were out late at a fund-raiser. Ian had been long in bed by the time we returned home, so we crept upstairs to kiss him goodnight.
We’ve had a rough few weeks with Ian; especially me. Lately he and I just seem to rub each other the wrong way, him infinitely defiant, my patience very much finite. Things have been improving, but for a while I was terribly frustrated and depressed. Ian and I have been best buds for so long, that I didn’t quite know how to handle his anger toward me. Actually, anger I can handle. It was the disdain and dislike that was tearing at my heart.
All of that vanishes when Ian’s asleep. With his eyes closed, and breathing deeply, Ian is once again the little boy who loves me. I forget that he’s about to start school and that his 3T jeans are too short, or that his bed seems cramped. More importantly, I forget his flashes of anger and tiny, pummeling fists.
It’s even better when he’s only half-asleep. He likes to read before bed, and he usually falls asleep cradling a book, its corner digging into his face. We try to be quiet as we slip into the room, but sometimes Ian’s eyelids flutter, and he lifts his head.
‘You turn off my light?’
‘Yes, honey. Shhh. Go back to sleep.’ I kiss his cheek and bring the covers to his chin. ‘I love you, kiddo.’
‘I’la you too, Daddy.’ By this point he’s on autopilot, and only we can decipher his sleepy mumbling.
There is a balm in Gilead.
When we walked into Ian’s room on Saturday night, his light was on but he was off. Way off. People talk about sleeping like the dead, but these people never had children. As I knelt to adjust his blankets, I thought of Kelly’s grandmother.
Nearly three years ago, she knelt to see her newborn great-grandson who was, as I recall, blissfully and finally asleep. Her eager hands were quick to rearrange his blanket, because ‘he looks like he might be cold.’ Ian woke, screaming, and his great-grandmother just happened to be there, to soothe and coddle and coo.
My eager hands tugged on Ian’s blanket. It was wrapped around his legs, so I had to pull fairly hard. Then, of course, I had to make sure he was entirely covered. There’s nothing worse than cold feet. And I couldn’t just tug the blanket this way and that - I might have woken him. No, the best thing is to pull back the blankets completely, and cover him all at once.
Two or three tries later, and Ian was finally covered. Then I noticed that he was sleeping a little crookedly. I didn’t want him to wake with a sore neck, so I carefully shifted his body. That, of course, also shifted the blanket. I didn’t exactly see an exposed toe, but you can never be too careful.
Finally, assured that Ian was comfortable, warm, and sleeping soundly, I had no choice but to concede defeat, and kiss him goodnight. I certainly didn’t mean to slam his bedroom door.
Jason has tagged me with the latest, so, in true Total Depravity style, I’m shoe-horning this (ugh) meme to fit my son. Who cares about me, anyway?
Four Jobs He’s Had
Night Crier
Daddy Maimer
Overeater
Trained Monkey
Four Movies He Can Watch Over and Over
The Incredibles (’Bebibles’)
Monsters, Inc. (’Monster Movie’)
Veggie Tales: Ultimate Silly Song Countdown (’Begie Tales’)
Jonah
Four Places He’s Lived
Our bedroom
Hotel bathroom
Laundry room
Bedroom closet
Four Shows He Likes to Watch
SpongeBob Squarepants
Thomas the Tank Engine
Sesame Street
Blue’s Clues
Four Foods He Likes
Peantus
Pizza
Noodles
Shrimp
(Yeah, there’s more. But I’m lazy, and it’s Friday.)
Last night, we let Ian snuggle in our bed for a while before heading off to his own. After Kelly finished his bedtime story, a few minutes turned into a few more minutes as we all burrowed into the pillows and huddled together, under the blankets.
Ian lay on his side, toward me, and put both hands under his cheek. He smiled and started talking, as if we’d been in the middle of a conversation. Neither Kelly nor I could understand a word. Strike that. We understood the words, we just had no clue what they meant. Like me, looking at our circuit breaker.
First, there was a big to-do with a policeman and his garbage. I wasn’t sure if it was the garbage of a policeman, or policemen’s garbage. Threadbare leather gloves, splintered night sticks, rusty handcuffs. That sorta thing.
Then some bad people started a big fire. Really big. Big, big, big, biiiiig, biiiiiiig, big, big…He trailed off, and lost his train of thought. Finally he told me that some people are bad, but that they don’t mean it.
Ian went on like this for a few minutes before Mommy finally took him to bed. On his way out, Mommy asked Ian to give Daddy a hug-n-kiss. Ian turned, crawled across the bed, and kissed me, ever so softly, on the lips. After the hug, he pushed himself onto his knees, looked at me concernedly and asked, ‘Do you have your nipples?’
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Melissa has announced that Missey, a fellow home-schooling mother of five, unexpectedly passed away yesterday during an emergency c-section.
Dads, Tom needs us. Please keep this family in your prayers.
Update 3.6.06: Those so inclined may donate to the memorial Missey Gray Fund.
