Goldberg: Sweet child of mine

By Tod Goldberg

Dear Parents,

I apologize. Really. All of the bad things I've said about you over the years, I take back. To my own mother, I tip my cap to you for the 29 years of hard work you did in raising my three siblings and me. To my dad and all the other deadbeat dads out there, I totally empathize with your absence physically, emotionally and financially in your children's lives. To all the parents the world over, I salute you, because I've learned this week that I am not cut out for your job.

It wasn't as if I had a specific epiphany. Quite the contrary, in fact. You see, Parents, what occurred was a simple accident. My brother Lee was walking out of a McDonald's last weekend when he suffered a rather cataclysmic fall, breaking both of his arms in the process, which isn't the kind of thing you wish on anyone, much less a writer, which my brother also happens to be. After it was learned that he would require a rather lengthy surgery and awkward convalescence (one word: wiping), we offered our services to my brother and his wife, telling them we'd be happy to take their 8-year-old daughter for the week while he figured out how to do the things we all take for granted (one word: wiping). Our offer was accepted and we lovingly took our niece home with us.

Over the course of the past week, I've learned that being a parent, or at least a guardian, is a 24-hour job that involves complex psychology, nutritional acumen, time management experience, the iron will of a soldier and an advanced knowledge of what the real meaning of the term "I'm bored" is. Often, I've learned, "I'm bored" means "I'm hungry." Other times, it means "I'm tired." Or: "I'd really like to go to the pool." Or: "I'd like to watch TV so that I can inadvertently watch Cinemax porn while you're sitting in the bathroom reading magazines just for the moment of peace and quiet." I've also figured out that an 8-year-old girl has the same basic skill set and smarts of your average 18-year-old boy, which means she's smart enough to detect bullshit, but not quite alert enough to actively fight against it.

You see, Parents, for all these years I thought the problems rested in you. When I saw kids running under tables at restaurants or screaming in grocery stores or talking loudly in a movie theater, I assumed you were bad parents. I assumed you had no institutional control over your spawn. I assumed you were trying to ruin my restaurant/grocery/movie experience wantonly. During my own childhood, I remember being equally annoyed by this type of behavior in other children, mainly because it was expressly forbidden that I do likewise--there was no threat of beatings or bed without dinner to stop me, merely the admonishment from my mother that children weren't supposed to act like that, which I bought into. And so I assumed other kids' parents were subpar. I'm rethinking that. In fact, I've learned you're probably one of three things:

1. Exceptionally tired.

2. Depressed by the knowledge that you may never have sex again.

3. Devising a plan to abandon your children in a fashion that wouldn't alert authorities.

My niece, it should be noted, is a model child. Or, well, she is at the moment because she realizes she's not at home and, thus, is on a vacation of sorts where she's allowed more leeway than her parents likely give her. I am, after all, Silly Uncle Tod. Not that I've seen her act like a demon around her parents, either. Still, even under perfect behavior, I see the twinkle of indifference in her: a benign unwillingness to go immediately to bed, a desire to eat candy for dinner, a specific need to know "why" things happen. All normal, I'm told, for growing homo sapiens, but potentially tiring for the parental units, I'm sure.

Which is why, again, I apologize to all of you.

I'm not entirely sure how a father is supposed to act, or if there is a good cop/bad cop thing that works with most parents, mainly because my parents divorced before I had cognitive recognition and then didn't exactly remain on a co-parenting level, but what I've seen in myself is a desire to have my wife pretty much do...everything. I'm good for fun things--a game or two, some fun in the pool, an episode of "SpongeBob," and then I'm trying to figure out how, possibly, my brother manages to write all day and also take care of his child without falling asleep in traffic. Loving a kid is some tiring work and I've only been doing it for a week.

My brother's arms will heal. My niece will go back home. The smell of graham crackers will dissipate. Life will return to normal. I will dredge my libido back out, toss it around the house like a football, allow my wife to admire it, and then begin a systematic measure of monastic birth control.

In parenting,

Tod