by Jim Lindberg
The truth is we’ve made some lifelong friends in our parenting groups, and to be honest, it’s great having friends who aren’t from the same walk of life as I am, and who may have differing views from my own pessimistic outlook on life. They all thought it was funny that I was in a punk band and joked that they wanted to quit their jobs and come work as roadies for us. It’s great getting together with people who, although they may not have grown up going to punk shows and sporting Mohawks like I did, have the exact same frustrations, concerns, and funny diaper stories as we do, and this commonality we share transcends the barriers of political opinion and taste in music. Hopefully I’ve opened some of them up to some alternative ways of looking at the world, and they’ve taught me not to be such a self-righteous asshole.
Although some parents are more open-minded and willing to accept the friendship of the punk rock family, others aren’t as accommodating. Unfortunately for her, my somewhat shy conservative wife is usually the one who has to bear the burden of me being in a patently offensive, left-leaning punk band in an area that is becoming more and more of a Republican stronghold. A while back, a new family moved into the neighborhood with a daughter close in age to daughter number one, and they immediately had a few play dates and opened a lemonade stand together. When the other mom inevitably asked what I did for a living, Jennifer gave up the information piecemeal, “He’s a musician,” “It’s a punk band,” and when prodded for the band’s name, reluctantly added, “It’s called Pennywise, but I’m sure you’ve never heard of it,” knowing the information would probably scare her off. The wife, of course, responded that she would look us up on the Internet, and the next day there were no more play dates, the lemonade stand was closed down, and now we only get a forced wave when we drive by their house.
I could act like this attitude is totally reprehensible, but the truth is, if my kid came home and said she wanted to have multiple play dates with a kid whose parents were into some religious cult I didn’t agree with, it might be hard for me not to censor who they are allowed to play with. This is unfortunate because without all of their parents’ dogma getting in the way, most kids just want to play and sell lemonade together. I’ve slowly come to find out that instead of reinforcing my initial feeling that punk rock moms and dads would be completely different and stand out from all the rest, most of my interactions with other parents have actually shown me how much we’re all the same.
6
WE’RE A HAPPY FAMILY
We were all in the grocery store a while back and the two-year-old was cranky because she didn’t get a nap, and the other two didn’t want to be there because they wanted to be home watching TV or playing with the kids up the street, but the problem was, we had to eat, so dragging everyone along to make sure we all get what we want seems to be the best way to accomplish this. Daughter number two, who is lactose intolerant, needed Lactaid milk, daughter number one, who won’t eat meat, needed beans and cottage cheese and almonds so she could get enough protein to continue to grow, and Jennifer, the near-vegetarian, needed enough vegetables and salad ingredients to feed a large army of rabbits. I needed to go along so I could get the junk food my wife won’t buy for me and TV dinners for the nights when, because of our peculiar dietary habits, I need the familiar comfort of a tray of Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes just to feel somewhat normal.
The problem occurred when we took our bulging cart to the checkout stand and the two-year-old saw the gum display near the register and started absolutely freaking out for it. Daughter number three is a complete gum junkie. She needs her fix several times a day, everyday, and comes waddling up to me when I’m on the computer, playing guitar, or watching TV, crying, “Daddy, I need guuuuuuuuummmm,” pulling on my shorts and giving me a mournful look like a desperate addict unable to kick the habit. When I said no she started arching her back and turning red and pulling her hair and making a total spectacle of herself. Now the checker and people in line were giving me dirty looks and shaking their heads like I was the worst parent in history because I couldn’t control my kid. I thought to myself that it wasn’t my fault that of all the millions of sperm in my sack, only the superspastic one was hyper enough to pierce the egg, but now I just wanted the spectacle to end so I could get my life back and buy my Hungry Man TV dinner in relative peace. So I gave up and handed her the goddamn stick of gum, and then, of course, Jennifer immediately said, “Now she’s going to do that every time she wants something.” Knowing that spousal abuse would get me five to ten at Folsom, I wanted to crawl into a cooler in the frozen food section and slowly freeze to death.
When I’m not touring, my wife and I get to spend a lot of time together. The most common argument we get into is over what I call “armchair parenting.” One of us will observe the other person doing something with the kids and when something goes wrong we point out how we would have handled the situation better. You go on to say how you can’t understand how you partner could be so stupid to do it that way, like you’re the world’s foremost child-rearing expert, when in reality you’ve probably done much stupider things, like putting the baby’s sleeper on upside down.
Everyone knows the officially sanctioned right thing to do in most cases, but a lot of times there are circumstances that make it so that doing the right thing will cause you such emotional trauma and extreme social embarrassment that you may have to ignore a few pages from the parental handbook momentarily just to survive. This is real life, not a parenting book. There are many times when you just plain screw up royally. No one wants to be told in the heat of the moment they’re doing a horrible job of parenting. You know this better than anyone and probably don’t need to be reminded. I do this every time my wife has trouble negotiating a conflict with the kids, and I should be brought up on charges at the next parenting group meeting for it.
There are times under the stress of parenting that can bring out the best and worst in all of us, and we all have different personalities when it comes to handling it. My particular personality profile seems to feel that blaming my wife when something goes wrong is the most rational thing to do in most situations. My wife has termed this habit “Asshole Behavior,” or “Being an Asshole,” but I’m working on it. We’ve found that the best ways to deal with these marital conflicts are short periods of bad vibes and general avoidance therapy. Being the consummate blamer, whenever I’m in another room and hear my child cry out in pain or fright, I come storming in, pick up the poor child, throw my wife an icy stare, and say, “What did you do to her?” Like she was in there pinching her or something. Fingers slammed in the door? Why didn’t my wife lock it? Baby falls down and bonks her head? Why wasn’t she watching her? Baby catches cold? Why the hell did she take her out of the house in the first place? Luckily, at least I know when I’m being an a-hole, and a few moments later I usually come back and sheepishly apologize, to which my wife responds with a raised middle finger. We’re working on our communication skills.
A lot of parents constantly differ on the way kids should be disciplined. If you were brought up in a very strict disciplinarian household where you were spanked and locked up in a cage on the weekends, you’re either going to feel your kids should be raised the same way or you’re going to remember how awful it was and not want to put your kids through the hell you went through. Chances are better it will be a mixture of both. Sometimes you’ll want to do it the nice way, but other times, the idea of a nice, comfortable toddler kennel won’t seem that irrational.
The new parenting will be hard for some of the more militant dads out there to swallow. These days we don’t spank, yell, threaten, ridicule, or criticize. We reason with our children and talk to them like we’re the Dalai Lama in a calm, reassuring voice so we don’t dent their fragile psyches. This type of discipline doesn’t leave a lot of options for guys who were raised knowing that if they socked their sibling in the mouth, or stole money from their mom’s purse, they’d be spending some quality time with the business end of their dad
’s leather belt when he got home from work. We knew that particular form of deterrent worked perfectly well when we were young, and not having it as a last resort when your kid sorely deserves it leaves us feeling a little de-fanged in the discipline area. Although, for the most part, my wife and I agree on the acceptable means of disciplining our children, I still complain that I’m not allowed to use the one foolproof method when none of them work.
Parenthood isn’t solely about your kids. As they get older, we have to work even harder at getting along with our partner by communicating and presenting a united front and all that other garbage, when, in reality, it seems like we disagree on every detail of how our future Mozarts should be raised. There are a plethora of parental conflicts to be negotiated here, not the least of which is the issue of resentment that the wife can form when she’s left home taking care of the kids while dad is out working at some job where he gets to take three-hour martini lunches and go golfing with the boss on the weekends, just because he’s the breadwinner. For me, it’s when I go on tour and she’s home breaking up fights and trying to put three kids to bed and cleaning up after them all day, while I’m on a tour, drinking beer and playing video games on a tour bus, that things begin to seem a little one-sided. When dads get home and are ready to relax after a hard day of work, their wives are expecting them to step up and do their share of parenting and crowd control, which they’ve been covering single-handedly when the dads were not around. This is the eternal conflict of parenting that, without good communication and an active sex life, can easily lead to bad vibes, shouting matches, and divorce court.
SHARING HOUSEHOLD DUTIES
The sharing of household and family duties is an issue that can create a lot of tension and conflict, but we’ve found that with a little advance work it can sometimes be handled with a modicum of civility instead of open hostility. Some jobs traditionally fall along gender lines if everyone is okay with it. I take out the trash and do most of the heavy lifting and jobs that require scaling ladders, unclogging toilets, killing spiders, and doing gross things, while she usually handles the cooking and laundry and dressing of Barbies and braiding of hair and things that require smaller hands and a more feminine touch. Some may see these gender-based delineations as being sexist, but if a couple is more gender confused, where, for example, the guy likes to drink wine, listen to the Smiths, and read French poetry, while she chugs 40s, cranks up the G.B.H., and starts her own one-woman mosh pit in the living room, I’m sure it’s okay to reverse the assignments.
There are a couple of trade-offs with household duties that seem to work well for us. One is that at dinnertime, whoever cooks, the other cleans. I rarely cook so that means I spend a lot of time with my hands in the suds or loading and unloading the dishwasher. That’s fine with me because it’s a great time to practice my transcendental meditation, unless we had something for dinner that stuck melted cheese on the plates or greasy sludge to the sides of the pots and pans because then I tend to forget all about the Buddhist nonsense and lose my shit completely. I think my wife knows she has it easy because who doesn’t like to cook? It’s basically just experimenting with food and making a huge mess for someone else to clean up and pretending you’re on one of those cooking shows “reducing” and “sautéing” instead of just cooking things. Afterward it’s my job to try to put the kitchen back together. I think everyone prefers this because they’ve all had my version of meat loaf, where it looks more like a burnt meat cracker and tastes like an old mattress, so no one’s complaining about the arrangement.
COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
When a guy is just sitting around not saying anything, most women will have to ask them what they are thinking about. You should never tell them the truth: that your mind is a swirl of pornography, sports scores, food, and a constant running down of a list of people you’d like to punch in the mouth. They want you to say that you’re thinking about her and how wonderful she is, and that you were trying to come up with ways to make your relationship more romantic, and just wishing you two had more time to talk and cuddle.
My wife has to tell me things a hundred times because she knows I’m usually not listening. Sometimes it seems that what she’s saying is just an endless list of things she needs me to remember to do and eventually my mind just shuts down and doesn’t hear her anymore. I don’t think I’ve ever gone to the store and made it back with everything she asked for. I always end up taking two trips. She starts running down her list for me as I’m walking out the door, and about halfway through, after broccoli, diapers, and toilet paper, my brain goes on autopilot. It’s gotten to the point now where she has to say, “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” like I’m a child, but I can’t really blame her.
There’s a difference between talking, communicating, and discussing. I love talking with my wife. We’re best friends and talk to each other all the time. “Talking” consists of agreeing with each other what a bunch of complete psychopaths all our friends and family members are, and bantering about what we’re going to have for dinner, and includes all the pleasant conversations we have where no one goes away angry. “Communicating” is done when one of us has a problem or issue and needs the other person to agree with whatever we are saying. If the conflict isn’t resolved when we are “communicating,” this can lead to a “major discussion,” which is basically how most people communicate just before couple’s therapy.
When Jennifer comes to me with a problem, my natural instinct is to want to solve it. She complains that there’s too much laundry around the house, so I offer to buy her a bigger washer or build more shelves in the closet. One of the moms at school is a total psycho? I offer to have the person “rubbed out.” Everything she complains about I want to take to Home Depot and find a quick-fix repair kit for it so I don’t have to hear about it. The real problem is that most women just want to have someone to listen to and commiserate with all the frustrations they have to deal with every day, and be sympathetic to what they’re going through. It probably does suck dealing with the pressures she’s put under, just like it does for me, and sometimes just having your soul mate listen and encourage you might be all you need to get through it. I tell my wife all the time that I couldn’t have picked three bigger morons to share a band with if I lived under a moron band member tree, and she just listens and probably thinks they have the exact same problem. The best part is, she listens to me, or at least I think she does. I tend to bitch a lot.
THE SOPHOMORE SLUMP
At one point after our second daughter arrived, I realized that I was staying home being the dutiful dad all the time, while my friends were going out every night and seeing shows like I used to before we had kids. Feeling envious and thinking my life was passing me by and that I was missing out on all the fun, I started to go out with the boys a few weekends in a row, coming home drunk and obnoxious at 3 A.M. and being hung over the entire next day. Jennifer wasn’t too impressed with this behavior and let me know about it. Of course I got resentful and told her she was just trying to bring me down and turn me into a eunuch like my friends said she was.
After years of being a great dad and being responsible, a lot of dads feel they deserve a reward and sometimes end up rewarding themselves for a decade or more. There’s no doubt that one thing that has suffered since I’ve become a dad has been my social life, although if I was so concerned with that, I would never have agreed to have kids in the first place. The great thing about your friends is that they’ll always be there for you to call up the next day and tell you what a great party you missed last night, and how they had the best time ever, and you blew it by not going, and hope you had fun staying home and watching TV with the kids and changing diapers all night.
There are plenty of other areas for turmoil when you have kids, but with some forethought, you can avoid all the stupid arguments that end up splitting some families apart, families that with a little bit of structure might have pulled it off. The problem lies with learning to argue f
airly, if such a thing exists. In parenting books they always say, criticize the behavior, not the child. We parents should do the same. Look, if I forget to bring the stroller to the walk in the park, or the snow jacket on the snow-boarding trip, or the sippy cup on the three hour drive, let’s plan to make a checklist next time, instead of calling me “Rain Man,” or “Shit for Brains.” This doesn’t set the best example for the kids. I will then promise not to whisper to the children that Mommy’s an escaped mental patient when she somehow finds a way to burn three bowls of oatmeal in a row. None of these negative responses are conducive to effective role modeling. When someone in an argument responds with an insult about someone’s personal appearance or character, it’s called an “ad-homi-nem retort,” and it’s not really fair, and frankly, I’m getting tired of the times when I have a complaint about my wife’s house-cleaning skills that I’m told that my “feet stink,” or that my “ass smells.” Reducing the amount of these hurtful remarks goes a long way in keeping the marriage harmonious.