Father's Day 2020 vision

Po-boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Users Manual

Or

Dad’s Dilemma

            To paraphrase Shakespeare: “Some are born Fathers, some achieve Fatherhood and some have Fatherhood thrust upon them”, and when some of us find ourselves in the role of fatherhood, some of us (although cute, smart, witty and pretty) haven’t a blessed clue as to what baseball bat just blindsided us with a blow of intimidation, impotence, insecurity and total ignorance to how to deal with a biped that we’re gonna be responsible to/for, perhaps for the remainder of one of our lives. It can be a lot of water to carry.

            Sure it’s fun to be with someone who you knocked up and go through the nine months of chaos that the carrier of this little-miracle-to-be experiences; you’ll run the gamut of emotions and physical upheavals that accompany that little angel on its trip from innocent zygote to uterine ripping Howler monkey and then, it’s yours… forever. Red faced, breast sucking, crying and orifice expelling little bundle of joy. You didn’t realize that it’s gonna take months before the little cherub can even look you in the eye, hopefully by that time they turn cute; mine, at birth, looked like a cross between the inside of a boxing glove and Edward G. Robinson.

            Sure, everyone around you says they’re cute and precious but they’re not woken up every two hours until Babykins is able to sleep the night through. Forget about a sex life, that’s way down the road; your ballroom days are over. At first I thought my bundles of joy were willful, spiteful and selfish until I got hip to that behavior being inherently a human rite of passage from uterine to university, self examination taught me that in fatherhood all bets are off. Have more than one child and your confusion expands exponentially. Three or more will drive you sober.  

            You see, nobody explains to you how to be a Dad, I got my clues from television shows, movies and the confusion of fathers around me who were making mistakes on a daily if not hourly basis. What I imagined was that somewhere Dads were cowboys, office workers, shopkeepers, cops and firemen, who never went to the bathroom or smoked unfiltered cigarettes, never smelled like booze or had the body odor of a gorilla and the worst thing that could happen was they would look sad and say “son, I’m very disappointed in you”.

            The Dads around my way would knock you into next week for looking cross-eyed at them. Where was I headed? All the kids around me were little monsters that were sly, crafty, cunning and out to get away with mayhem, mischief and if possible murder; was I going to fit that ‘Dad as Storm Trooper’ mold and would my kids turn into the Brady Bunch or a chapter of Hells Angels?

            Well, I threw all the balls up in the air, I threw caution to the wind, I sailed the spaghetti at the wall and watched what stuck and what hit the floor, in short I tried everything. I was an authoritarian, best friend, mentor, gang leader, wise guy and sage; it didn’t make any difference, they loved me anyway and I came to find them precious and unconditionally ensconced in my heart. We were good, we were bad, we had fun, we cried and yelled and threw things; got dressed up and dressed down--I’m certain that their mother thought that she was raising me as well. I used to say “I can’t help it; nobody issued me The Dad Manual!”

            These days there is rarely a thing called a ‘stay at home’ parent so we all have to do our part; you have to keep those Coke suckers busy; ballet; soccer; music lessons; arts and crafts. There are trips to the zoo; the beach; the park and that awful thing that they call a ‘play date’ until they get old enough to get to school on their own, be sent to camp or let them have a sleep over at some unsuspecting and less seasoned parent’s house.

            Then they start to grow up. From the terrible twos to the terrorist teens; by this time you’ve become a workaholic and let their mother raise them. You become the chauffer, the money bags and that guy that burns things on an outside grill while they play in the kiddy pool or Slip-And-Slide. You become the “Wait ‘til I tell your Father!” father.

            All the while you have given up your privacy, and your relationship with Mom can really become strained. There may be spats when that glass of wine at dinner turns into a bottle; you take up jogging just to get out of the house; you stay later and later at work and Mom is left holding the bag and now she is heading for a nervous breakdown. Face it, kids can drive you crazy and being a Dad is not like you see on television where nobody seems to have money problems and dinner appears miraculously as you sit around and wisecrack waiting for the laugh track and another character to barge through the door and amuse everyone.

            Then they learn to drive and then they drive away from home to start their own lives and families. You reminisce about the good old days and frame old photographs in which everyone is smiling. Then you become friends and when they have a little bundle of joy of their very own, they’ll ask you for advice and tell you that they don’t know how you ‘did it’; and if you’re really really honest, you’ll give them a big hug and say “Listen Kid, don’t ask me, I never had a clue. Ask your Mother.”