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Had to pay a visit tonight up in North Park, so got in the car and left the driveway, pulled up to the intersection. To my right, standing on the corner, was a young father and his son, waiting for the light to change so they could cross the street. The child was a little over a year old, the father in his mid-twenties, small but well-built, Mexican. You could tell by looking at him that he loved his wife and his child, that they were happy. The light changed, and the man and the child stepped into the street. The child was at that age where they are walking but they still don’t quite walk, they sort of toddle and sort of run and sort of trip with their arms in the air, and every little thing distracts them and they are looking around at the world, their brains puzzling it all out. It’s a lovely age, if you have the patience, and you aren’t in a hurry. This father wasn’t in a hurry and he was patient. He held the baby’s hand with such tenderness. He was aware of the child. He was keeping his pace to the baby’s pace. God bless their cotton socks.
Sometimes, at a store, or at a park, you see these big handsome guys carrying their bitty babies or their toddlers and the men look perfectly easy in their role of father and protector. It’s like they are in the right place in their lives. They gave up something but got something in return and were satisfied with the bargain. I had, via the children’s father, a young female relation who was crazy in every way, including crazy attractive to men. When I saw her last, we were at a family party, she was with the father of her second child and pregnant with her third, his second. He was a big tall strong gorgeous white guy who was just starting to grasp his girl’s craziness, and the extent of it. They had a baby that was the cutest little thing. While mother was being crazy, father was being mother. He was clearly madly in love with the baby; his girl exasperated him, but the child was all to him. As good looking as he was, there was nothing about him that wasn’t about the baby.
Most men are kind of distant from their kids. They leave most of the caring of the kids to the mothers. Everything from diaper changes to getting up at night to bathing and making bottles, all falls on the mother. The father might watch the baby in a pinch, play with the child for a minute if they’re in the mood, but basically their whole gig was making the kid. Pregnancy onward, it’s the mother’s lookout. I was watching a couple coming out of a childbirth class over at Mercy Hospital, and the young mother-to-be had a bunch of papers in her hand and was looking pretty grim; those classes sober you up fast as to the reality of what you are about to face, but what they don’t tell you is it is ten times worse than what they let on. I remember an episode of Northern Exposure where Dr. Fleischman goes into a LaMaze class and the first thing he says is, “Ladies, here are the four words you'll need to know when you go into labor: I want my epidural.” Truer words were never spoken. In any case, by the time you are in those classes, if you’re the mother, it’s not like you got a choice. You can’t just hand off the job to someone else. The young mother may have been scared, but she couldn’t change her mind now. The guy she was with was looking like he was thinking of an excuse not to be there that day. Hands in his pockets, and in his own little world.
I often see men at the grocery store with kids in the cart, or hanging off them, and the man isn’t even looking at the kids or listening to them when they talk to him, every once in a while muttering or grunting a response or telling them to move or stop or sit down. You look in those men’s faces and they look like they don’t know what hit them. One day they were badass mofos and the next day they are pushing a freakin baby stroller. This was not the plan.
Had to pay a visit tonight up in North Park, so got in the car and left the driveway, pulled up to the intersection. To my right, standing on the corner, was a young father and his son, waiting for the light to change so they could cross the street. The child was a little over a year old, the father in his mid-twenties, small but well-built, Mexican. You could tell by looking at him that he loved his wife and his child, that they were happy. The light changed, and the man and the child stepped into the street. The child was at that age where they are walking but they still don’t quite walk, they sort of toddle and sort of run and sort of trip with their arms in the air, and every little thing distracts them and they are looking around at the world, their brains puzzling it all out. It’s a lovely age, if you have the patience, and you aren’t in a hurry. This father wasn’t in a hurry and he was patient. He held the baby’s hand with such tenderness. He was aware of the child. He was keeping his pace to the baby’s pace. God bless their cotton socks.
Sometimes, at a store, or at a park, you see these big handsome guys carrying their bitty babies or their toddlers and the men look perfectly easy in their role of father and protector. It’s like they are in the right place in their lives. They gave up something but got something in return and were satisfied with the bargain. I had, via the children’s father, a young female relation who was crazy in every way, including crazy attractive to men. When I saw her last, we were at a family party, she was with the father of her second child and pregnant with her third, his second. He was a big tall strong gorgeous white guy who was just starting to grasp his girl’s craziness, and the extent of it. They had a baby that was the cutest little thing. While mother was being crazy, father was being mother. He was clearly madly in love with the baby; his girl exasperated him, but the child was all to him. As good looking as he was, there was nothing about him that wasn’t about the baby.
Most men are kind of distant from their kids. They leave most of the caring of the kids to the mothers. Everything from diaper changes to getting up at night to bathing and making bottles, all falls on the mother. The father might watch the baby in a pinch, play with the child for a minute if they’re in the mood, but basically their whole gig was making the kid. Pregnancy onward, it’s the mother’s lookout. I was watching a couple coming out of a childbirth class over at Mercy Hospital, and the young mother-to-be had a bunch of papers in her hand and was looking pretty grim; those classes sober you up fast as to the reality of what you are about to face, but what they don’t tell you is it is ten times worse than what they let on. I remember an episode of Northern Exposure where Dr. Fleischman goes into a LaMaze class and the first thing he says is, “Ladies, here are the four words you'll need to know when you go into labor: I want my epidural.” Truer words were never spoken. In any case, by the time you are in those classes, if you’re the mother, it’s not like you got a choice. You can’t just hand off the job to someone else. The young mother may have been scared, but she couldn’t change her mind now. The guy she was with was looking like he was thinking of an excuse not to be there that day. Hands in his pockets, and in his own little world.
I often see men at the grocery store with kids in the cart, or hanging off them, and the man isn’t even looking at the kids or listening to them when they talk to him, every once in a while muttering or grunting a response or telling them to move or stop or sit down. You look in those men’s faces and they look like they don’t know what hit them. One day they were badass mofos and the next day they are pushing a freakin baby stroller. This was not the plan.