By now everyone is likely familiar with the hilarious children’s story book Go The Fuck To Sleep. For some reason people who know me constantly direct me to the book and Samuel L Jackson’s reading of the book. Hmm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIBqd1kxoQk

The reality is that by the end of the day of dealing with children you crave silence, solitude and some time without someone asking something of you. Beyond that, it might be nice to have an actual conversation with your spouse without being interrupted. Mind you, those conversations are usually tactical discussions about the children and managing their behaviours, menus, or schedules. Sometimes a discussion about something not related to your kids pops up – those are nice moments and you treasure them because they are so rare.

It’s gotten pretty pathetic that much of my interaction/information sharing with my wife comes via cc’d emails or in awkward moments when a neighbour tells me something about what my wife (or even I am up to):

“So, that was a hilarious story Carolyn told me about being trapped on the elevator at work the other day.”
“What are you talking about? Carolyn wasn’t trapped on any elevator”
“Oh, sorry, not sure who I’m thinking about”.

And then, about a week later, I mention to my wife in passing about the weird way gossip travels – for instance:

“Christina told me that you were trapped on an elevator at work. I mean, how did that get started?” “Oh. I was. Didn’t I tell you that? I was sure I had.”

We have a saying now, “We don’t talk, we’re married.” It’s funny because it’s true. Ha ha.

There used to be a time (when we had fewer and younger children) when we would have a small life raft of time between their finally going to sleep and our bedtime. As we have grown increasingly exhausted (and our children older and more demanding), that time has shrunk to almost nothing. Our bedtime routines, begun in youthful and new parent enthusiasm and naivitee, are always in danger of consuming us.

For instance, in the giddy rapture of new fatherhood I made up a series of “special songs” for my eldest (and at the time, only child) which I would sing to him along with other songs I knew (which when I began mostly consisted of the Gilligan’s Island and Mary Tyler Moore theme songs) after reading a score of storybooks. Equity demanded the same consideration for my second and third boys. What begins as a wonderful bonding time with your children can easily becomes more of a time of bondage (not in the 50 Shades of Grey meaning, sickos). As I now I have three boys, even divided by two parents, it breaks down to nearly a two hour bedtime routine with songs and stories and so much more (Polka Dot Door reference) for all three. I sometimes feel like a struggling singer songwriter facing a hostile crowd who reject my song choices and bark out demands. I have yet had to have to perform Freebird but it’s only a matter of time.

I’ve had to scale back the bedtime performance time and again as it naturally tends to become more ornate, complicated and baroque. Sort of a Punk rock reaction to overblown Prog rock excesses. No more last minute requests for water allowed. No more trips to the toy box to get that critical stuffie. Only two songs. Only two books. No more pyrotechnic light shows complete with masks and props. Back to basics.

Even with extreme vigilance at keeping the time in check, there have been evenings when, exhausted and trying to get through the last story with the last kid, I enter into a waking dream state and start to read and say things which make no sense. Trippy stuff that confuses and exasperates my kids:

“There’s no green rapping elephant in this book, Daddy!”

This usually ends with me passing out, drooling, beside them. Waking up with a start hours later, I stagger into the hall often to find my wife similarly blundering out of another bedroom where she had passed out.

All that said, it can be a great experience to introduce your kids to favourite books of yours as a kid and to discover new ones that you can share. Some of them lend a different meaning to the phrase Bedtime Routine in that you develop an almost classic vaudeville comedy routine with certain jokes and songs and books. Those are great moments.

As a dad who wonders often if this parent thing is a zero sum game designed solely to reveal my failings and weaknesses, I do hold onto those moments where I feel we’ve created something genuinely fun and cool together. One of the unexpected side-effects of being an involved and home-based dad that I enjoy most are those moments when I would be reading a picture book with one of my boys and, upon seeing a picture of what is supposed to be a mother animal and her cubs, my son points out excitedly:

“Look, it’s a daddy and his babies”.

That rocks me to sleep, I can tell you.

I was recently working with a friend on a project when he had to stop and take an email. He read it through and then snorted in disgust and started swearing.

“What’s up? I asked.

“Ethan’s snowboarding for this week is cancelled because of the rain,” he answered.

“That’s too bad. Piss you off?”

“No I was expecting that, given the weather.”

“Why the swearing then?”

He handed over his phone with the email. “Have a look at that sign off and tell me if you can figure it out.”

I had a look. The instructor listed his name, his contact details, his professional accreditations and then I saw it. On a line of its own. Right below the accreditations. It may have even been in all caps but I could be imagining that:

FATHER.

Oh, *#%& off, I thought and then laughed. “Father?” I hazarded.

“Yes! Am I right?” he asked. “What a wanker. I mean, piss off.”

It was a funny reaction because neither of us are particularly old school dads. My friend is a very involved, divorced dad, with shared custody and was the first guy I know to take an extended paternity leave. He in fact was one of my inspirations to try it myself. He is a creative guy, a teacher and writer too. So, what was it about this sign off that pissed us both off?

I played Devil’s Advocate (I know, unusual for me but, what the hell?) “Well, isn’t it a greater accomplishment to be a father than to have your B.Ed.?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I guess. Sure. You’re supposed to say that. It’s just so sucky. And self-congratulatory. And like it qualifies him somehow to be the instructor.”

I also think it goes to the insecurity of what it means to be a father these days. It`s certainly in the news a great deal about how dads are an endangered species and how they may soon be irrelevant and unnecessary. First of all, my main response to that is: Crap.

Apparently kids raised by two lesbians are the happiest. This again strikes me as pop science glossy magazine ‘reportage’ based on and geared to an extremely small subset of people i.e. neurotic N. American bourgeois paralytically self-aware parents. I mean, COME ON, how can it possibly be a fair claim to say this – just how many lesbian parents are there in the world? Where do these kids come from – The stork? Men are involved in some fashion here and it`s certainly not realistically going to be affordable or all that common for IVF world wide EVER. I`m sure they`re all super happy and that`s just awesome but to go from this small sample to say that dads are unnecessary and of growing irrelevance is absurd. The fact it seems to be taken up by the media with solemn seriousness just makes it more infuriating.

So I see FATHER`s goad here to establish that he`s an involved dad who cares and is proud of that role. Great. Still it rankles.

Sure, some men are not pulling their weight – they are absent dads, never involved in their kids’ lives and not providing any kind of support. In those cases the Mums have to make do on their own and in the men are irrelevant and unnecessary – and maybe they are all better off without the men. But I don`t think this is a fair representation of most dads out there either. Lots of us are flawed, not very good dads but we`re there putting in our share and doing our best – coaching, working long hours to help pay the bills, transporting kids to various play dates, schooling and sports also counts.

So maybe this is another problem with FATHER`s declaration. I mean, so what, that you`re a father?Any baby-daddy can make that claim. It is simply biology to father a child. My friend and I were joking you could instead insert other nouns: SPERM-DONOR. IMPREGNATOR. FERTILISER.

The title implies that FATHER is a good father and who’s kidding who – he is tipping his hand to indicate he’s a GREAT FATHER. And, just maybe, likely, better than YOU. So is it this level of Daddier-Than-Thou which is the most galling?

Sidebar – is it a bit rich that I am complaining about FATHER? After all, I write a blog and column about being a Dad. How am I different than he? Maybe I’m not. I hope no one is taking cues on how to do a good job from ME. Other than maybe a nod – oh yeah, I’ve done that. I’ve thought that. Or wow maybe I’m not so bad after all, reading about what THAT guy thinks and does. Still, does my criticism of FATHER mean that I think I’m a better Dad than he is? Hell no. He’s likely way better at it than I am but seriously, so what? Keep it to yourself. It’s so self-aggrandising.

And maybe that’s a generational thing. For some reason I think that FATHER may be a lot younger than me and my friend. The generation who posts pictures of their dinners on Facebook or Tweets about the inconsequential details of their lives. Maybe what offends us is the implication that to be an involved Dad one must reject classic male/father attributes. FATHER’s seeking validation, attention and praise for being a good father instead of demonstrating good ol’ manly values like duty, responsibility, self-sacrifice, toughness, discipline, and hard work. And not asking for a gold star or a pat on the back afterwards.

My friend and I are likely older Grizzled Dads. And even though we’re pretty different than our own dads in our involvement in child rearing, we carry forward those things our own fathers taught us about being men. Like that generation’s idea of Actions Speak Louder than Words. Calling yourself a FATHER means nothing. It’s what you DO and how your kid thinks of you at the end of the day – “Did my dad help me to be a better person?” It doesn’t have anything to do with what some stranger thinks upon reading your email signature.

We recently went through a  kinda sorta teachers’ strike last Friday. The teachers weren’t allowed to strike so they called it a one day protest and everyone across the province scrambled to figure out what to do with their kids for that day. As a home-based dad, I had it covered though it meant I would get nothing done that day and planned accordingly. I have found that one of my most effective parenting strategies is low expectations. I assume I won’t get anything done when my kids are around and as a result I don’t try to – thus avoiding the frustration of trying and failing. I also try and raise my kids in having low expectations of me as a parent which, though socially disapproved of, means I rarely disappoint and even occasionally impress.

Then after all the brouhaha, the Labour Relations Board told the teachers that they could call what they were doing Chicken Noodle Soup if they wanted but it was clearly an illegal strike and they had to get their butts back to work. I mean, come on, this is a group of people who daily get “the dog ate my homework” stories – did they think anyone else would be fooled by their lame relabelling exercise? As well, in two weeks they had a PA day scheduled – they couldn’t protest on this day? Please.

Anyway. We of course only found this out on Friday morning as my kids and I settled down for a morning of cartoons. They were devastated to find out that they’d have to go to school. Yet again I have to question the unions’ strategy through this process – they are alienating their core support group (parents) and by removing their support of after school and club activities they lessen their role and importance in kids and parents’ lives. I would also guess it makes their jobs less fun. It would be too much to expect kids to be happy to go to school, I suppose, but when you threaten to remove your services and most of your “clientele” is ecstatic you maybe have an image problem you need to manage.

After I thought about it for a minute, I realized that getting them all to their various schools at that point would be very difficult. I also could exploit my low-expectations strategy and cash in for some easy “Good Dad” points. Time for a Tactical Strike of my own. I told them they could stay home but at the first hint of trouble I would take them all to school. Joy. Christmas in July. Found money. Etc. My oldest even hugged me and said, “Thank you, Dad.” That felt really good even though it was not clearly a good parenting moment – in fact it was arguably the rough parenting equivalent to eating an entire bag of potato chips and drinking a gallon of root beer for dinner or (in my single days) cheap and meaningless sex with a stranger. Bad for you but, not only did it feel good at the time, it left you strangely elated and feeling pleased with yourself at random moments for days after. I am, sadly, basing that more on my experiences with potato chips than with willing and wanton women. Sigh.

I know from experience that a completely unstructured day with the three of them in the house was a recipe for infanticide, fratricide or at least me standing on a window ledge being “talked down” by a crisis negotiator. So we watched cartoons together and then played a engrossing game of the Settlers of Catan (so much so that I burned the pot of Kraft Dinner – spawning “Chris’ Smokey Campfire Style KD”. I have to confess to that being a parenting ‘fail’ – ruining Kraft Dinner (who thought it possible?) – but it did help re-establish those low standards I mentioned earlier.) After lunch, we walked to the library. Moan. Groan. Outside time for boys, however, is non-negotiable. Without it, life is just not worth it.

Sadly, winter also elected to go on an unexpected strike that day, so the piles of snow I could have counted on to entertain the kids were rapidly melting into the gutters in the light rain and warm weather. We were able to however have a mother of a snowball fight on the way to the library and which we continued on the way home. A friend of mine driving by actually witnessed me being attacked by all three at once in a barrage of snowballs. He expressed concern later that it seemed unfair – though I note he simply locked the cars doors and sped off rather than offer assistance. No worries though, I schooled my boys in a variety of lessons. Ones that they certainly won’t learn in school these days, which forbids such dangerous objects as snowballs. Such lessons as using street furniture as shields, always having at least one snowball in hand and of course, the importance of tactical strikes.

We came home very wet, well exercised and in extremely good moods. You hear a lot about the important work teachers do, and how it is difficult and how most people wouldn’t want to be stuck with a bunch of kids all day long. This is all true and I deeply respect good teachers but something is left out of the discussion about spending the day with kids – it can be a hell of a lot of fun.

Whew. They’re back at school (and in my wife’s case, work). Now my holiday begins. Ha ha. Right. I now scramble madly to get back on top of home based stuff as well as dust off my computer and get back to writing tasks that took a serious back seat to family holiday stuff. I was joking with other parents that there were a lot of long faces in my house Sunday afternoon and Monday morning – except for mine. No. Really. Joking I was.

It WAS actually a great holiday for us this year and I can honestly say that I was less happy to have them all leave me yesterday morning than usual after a long school break. I told my wife this in a rare show of tenderness and sharing. Huh. Well, now I know why men don’t share their tender thoughts and sharing much. It did not get the reaction I thought it would – AT ALL. What made it such a good holiday and start of a New Year? Below I outline some discoveries, reflections and resolutions.

SNOW IS A GREAT BABYSITTER
I am even more upset by global warming because of the reminder this holiday about how awesome snow is and how someday we might not have it. Not only is it pretty and reflect the low light levels of our northern winters and provides important hydration and protection for plant life, it makes a great place to stick a kid. Nothing kills the holiday spirit like kids dragging themselves around the house moaning that they’re bored and nagging me to play on the computer/Wii/watch TV etc. Toss them in their snow gear and even a normally lame city backyard presents endless amounts of entertainment. There is groaning and complaining while you push them out the door with a snow shovel but minutes later they are happily throwing snow at each other, themselves or a squirrel. They come back in pink cheeked, all their yayas worked out, in much better moods and they sleep well. Even better if you go out with them you can throw snowballs at them yourself and toss them into snowbanks all in the name of good clean fun and working out some of your own frustrations. RESOLUTIONS: Contribute to Environmental Advocacy groups, invest in snow making equipment and keep the kids outside as much as possible in all kinds of weather.

HIGH-LEVEL SUMMITS
I think that once I’m done this dad gig I might hie myself over to the Mideast and sort those numbskulls out. We’ve have some very fierce negotiations around here – mostly about how much electronic “screen time” each is entitled to, and when, and on what device… essentially about the shared use of scarce resources or territory. I have to say we worked out some very successful strategies that were mutually acceptable. I am not one normally inclined to such an approach. I am more of the tactical strike type but, hat tip to my lovely wife and consigliere, who just happens to be the daughter of a diplomat, I have seen the benefits of the negotiated settlement. That said, a strategic “wardrobe malfunction” accidentally displaying my arsenal helps focus the minds of the disputants and speed a solution.

ROAD TRIPS, IN JOKES and BONDING
On the road again. Sedan packed to the roof with toboggans (sleds to my US friends), presents and a gross of homemade Christmas cookies, we did the annual (5 hour minimum) migration to Ottawa AKA “The Land of Ice and Snow and In-Laws”. As my friend Jason recently dubbed it, we did a “Full Griswold”. These trips can be fraught affairs, especially if you run into holiday traffic or snowstorms. They were something I used to dread and would make me crabby but, a couple of summers of multiple road trips have turned them into an important and (sometimes, mostly) enjoyable experience. One of the big benefits is my wife and I actually get to talk to each other for hours at a time – when the kids are asleep or watching a movie – which is something I enjoy but is rare these days.

These road trips also employ the standard dramatic device of putting a bunch of people in a confined space and forcing them to interact. The results obviously can be unpleasant but lately we’ve found a pretty good balance. Families only get stronger if they spend time and do things together. In the “regular season” parents and kids are often so busy they can’t do this and often the kids do not even want to spend time with their siblings. The “boiler room” experience changes this.

Many parents’ strategy is putting on the DVD as soon as they put the car in gear. We’ve done it but this results in extremely snappy and brain-shrunken children unable to deal with each other in any way other than violence and rudeness when the player is off. We hold the DVD player in reserve, dependant on good behaviour, which includes participation in old fashioned road trip games. These build the family relationships leading to various in-jokes that come up every time we go on the road trips. Even the eventual DVD watching can be relationship building as we insist the kids negotiate which shows they will watch and in what order. They then all watch the same show which results in them sharing other experiences and having other references and in-jokes. RESOLUTION: Watch more DVDs with the kid to understand what they are talking about and find ways to replicate this experience in the “regular season” i.e. family games night.

NAME CALLING
I am a prime offender at this. It’s a slippery slope from terms of endearment and teasing and joking to nastier stuff. This was brought home during a game of Catchphrase with the in-laws after the kids went to bed when in one interaction I said, “This is what I call my kids” (meaning “Knuckleheads”) when my wife chirped in, “Idiots?”. Er. Hmm. Yeah. Knuckleheads to me sounds OK, like Nitwits, or Goofballs but once you start on that it doesn’t end well. Part of this has to do with the fact I can never remember their actual names in moments of kid-induced crisis. Having a loving short-form nickname like Numbskull comes in handy.

Spending a lot of time together ultimately results in friction. But when the kids refer to each other in those insulting terms, how can I take the moral high ground when they do? And, believe me, I love the Moral High Ground. I might build a retirement home there; the view is fantastic. So we’ve instituted a new no name calling policy at our house for the kids or NC for short. This is grouped with a no Acts of Violence policy (AV), no Deliberate Provocation (DP), no Personal Remarks (PR) policy with a subgroup of that we call no Personal Insults (PI). I came up with that one after my youngest called me fat and my wife chided him saying that it was a PR. “Wait a minute,” I said, “PR implies something that is true but mean to say and the real problem is he called me fat. Which I am not and so we need to have a subgroup called PI because I’m not fat. Right?” Everyone went very quiet after that which I am taking as agreement not an adoption of the PR policy.

Of course I’ve broken most of those rules myself already but I’m trying to improve. RESOLUTION: Call them by their proper names and stop eating Christmas cookies.

BIG REALIZATION
I really like my kids. And the holiday reminded me of this in many ways and we had a lot of fun. But I am glad they are back at school.

The last time she saw her husband, he was “stepping out for a smoke”. Two weeks later, Sandra Irving, 39, now knows that her husband had more than tobacco on his mind. The two had been sitting in the waiting area of an outpatient vasectomy clinic, Snip N’ Go, in a strip mall near their suburban home in Oshawa , ON, when Jack Burrows, 40, announced that he was going to buy some cigarettes and have a smoke outside while he waited. The time is estimated at being roughly 1 pm.

“I’ve been trying to get him to quit for years,” Ms. Irving said, “So I wasn’t happy about it. I told him to hurry up, I think.”

Mr. Burrows’ appointment was in fact scheduled for 1:15. His failure to return was not immediately remarked upon as his name was not called for his procedure until 2 pm. Ms. Irving had failed to notice his absence as she was engrossed in a back issue of House and Home.

“It was the Clutter Buster issue,” Ms. Irving explained, “So I didn’t notice right away. When they called his name I thought he’d come in but there was no sign of him. I stepped outside and he wasn’t there. I walked over to the little convenience store just down the way and he wasn’t there either. I was on my way back when I noticed the minivan was gone.”

The couple’s blue Astro minivan was no longer parked in the parking lot. Resting in the spot where it had been were the child booster seat and the infant car seat which had previously been secured in the van. Through evidence pieced together from security cameras at the mall, it appears that Mr. Burrows did indeed buy his cigarettes and at the same time he appeared to pick up a men’s magazine, Boyo. He then stepped outside and smoked a cigarette and flipped through the magazine. Suddenly, he threw down the cigarette, stuffed the magazine into his back pocket and strode off. Cameras lost sight of him briefly but he is later seen filling up the minivan in a gas station a few kilometres down the road.

His trail goes cold until two days later when news footage of a WWE wrestling match tailgate party in Buffalo NY shows a crowd of men and boys dancing around the smoking ruins of what appears to be the remnant of a burned-out minivan in the stadium parking lot. One of the shirtless men has his face painted crimson and blue and bears a remarkable resemblance to Mr. Burrows. Subsequent investigation has revealed the minivan to be the one Mr. Burrows left in but there is no further sign of him.

“If he was going to leave why did he have to set the minivan on fire?” Ms. Irving asked. “Shrek 2 was still in the DVD player and that’s the kids’ favourite. They’re going to be devastated.”

I have fallen behind on my Pop Culture posts given the holiday season. In place of new material, and in the spirit of holiday leftovers, I offer the above, a piece published in a previous blog of mine, Whiskerrub, that touches on fatherhood in a personal way. Enjoy. A new piece should be posted soon.