In my last blog, I wrote about the fact that I’m about to become a Dad. (http://www.alexbarnettcomic.com/parents-are-like-a-football-team/).

 

It is a daunting prospect.  How does one go from single, without real responsibility to becoming a Dad?  In part, there’s seems to be some instinctual element.  For example, recently my girlfriend and I watched the movie Life as We Know It –  a somewhat predictable movie with Josh Duhamel and Katherine Heigl in which they become parents when their best friends pass away and leave them in charge of their surviving child.  As I watched, I wasn’t just thinking that this is a roundabout way for these two to get together and have sex.  No, I found myself worried about the kid in the movie.  Not the kid in the story, the actual kid — the actor.  Is someone watching her?  Is being in a movie at this age good for a child’s development?  Is it safe for Josh Duhamel to carry her like that?  Because, apparently, when you have a kid (or are having a kid) it totally changes your investment in movies with kids.  It’s the difference between watching a football game and a football game that your favorite team is playing in.  And, I didn’t make myself think that way.  It just happened.

 

But is instinct enough?  How can I ensure that I become the good Dad, the great Dad?  Well, fortunately, I have a good role model to start with.  And, having studied my own Dad from up close and far away, as well as other dads, I’ve noticed certain things that are important to be a good Dad.

 

1. DADS BUY FOOD IN BULK: First, you have to take great joy and pleasure in buying food in bulk.  Maybe it’s because men are, by nature and biology, hunter-gatherers.  Regardless, what I’ve observed about my Dad and other Dads is that Dads always have an extra freezer in the garage to store meat, which they keep in vast quantities, like they’re  planning to feed the Elks Lodge or a horde of Vikings.

 

2. DADS HAVE WEIRD HABITS: Second, to be a good Dad, you must have idiosyncracies and weird habits.  One weird habit is okay, but it’s better if you have several or, indeed, an entire constellation.  Tilting to one cheek to fart, singing off-key in public, wearing strange hats, these are all excellent examples of this.  My Dad, for his part, excelled (and continues to excel) in this category.  His favorite weird hobby — unloading the dishwasher at 6 am.  Why dishes needed to be put away this early (or in the morning for that matter) always eluded me.  But, apparently it has to do something with setting a good example of organizing the house — setting the table as it were. In addition, I suspect — although I can’t prove this — that Dads take a perverse pleasure in waking everyone up by clanging pots, pans and silverware — a cookware “reveille” if you will.

 

3. DADS ASSAULT CHILDREN WITH PETS: Third (and this applies only to families with pets), you must figure out a way to assault your children with the pets and/or upkeep and maintenance of same.  For example, many Dads seem to favor having their children walk the dog in the rain.  Of course, that is a somewhat pedestrian example.  My Dad was an expert, a surgeon, a maestro at this brand of control over the family.  His favorite gambit — having the three giant, German Shepherds jump into bed with me at 6 am after they had run through the wet, freezing-cold, snow-covered fields of Vermont in January.  If you want you to see a teenager whine, squirm and complain, having giant canines step on his groin, dampen the sheets with their wet, muddy paws, and generally crush and harass his still half-asleep corpus is one of the best ways to achieve this goal.  And, more importantly, via this maneuver, Dad will have asserted that he is the master tactician and strategist in the house.  He cannot be bested, because the beasts are at his command.

 

4.  DADS HAVE DIETARY FETISHES: Fourth, Dads must have at least one dietary fetish.  Every Dad has one — whether it’s steak so rare it still moos, a special brand of cheese, or pasta that Dad had “this one time in Italy” — every Dad has this trait (Author’s Note: I have a special and unnatural affinity for clementines, Clif Bars and hummus, so I suspect I will do well in this category).  In my family, this trait gave rise to what we now affectionately call the “Thomas’s Toaster Cake Episode.”  However, to protect the innocent and in the spirit of forgiveness, I shall not go into further detail on said episode.

 

5.  DADS HAVE DISDAIN FOR DOCTORS: Fifth, Dads must believe that they know more than any doctor who ever lived.  This is not optional.  In order to protect your brood, you must adhere to the belief that your child’s doctor is an idiot.  In short, a good Dad knows that the doctor “may well be board-certified, but everyone knows that doctors don’t know shit.  All they do is prescribe pills and move you through their office like it’s an assembly line.”  Doesn’t matter if Dad is an airline pilot, a lawyer or a garbage-man, whether he is a man of letters or dropped out of school in the third grade, he will adhere to this belief more tenaciously than almost any other (except for his belief that he was Mom’s one true love, her best boyfriend ever, and the only one who knew how to make her orgasm).

 

6.  DADS HAVE DISDAIN FOR POLITICIANS: Sixth, and similarly, Dads must know in their very fibers that the President, all of Congress, and, in fact, politicians everywhere are mindless, soul-less, corrupt morons who couldn’t govern if they were elected to govern a Lego Village.  When Dads read the newspaper or watch the news, they are apt to say things like: “Are you fucking kidding me?”  “Jesus, what a clown!” or “Yeah, right, I’m sure he feels my pain.”  To be a good Dad, in short, means knowing that you and you alone have the solution to all of the World’s problems, and if only the White House would follow the advice in one of your many emails or letters, “we could just get this shit straight and move on with our lives.”

 

7.  DADS ARE PACK MULES: Seventh, Dads are pack mules.  There’s a reason that God gave men short hairstyles, made men’s fashion with many pockets, and gave men the ability to “bulk-up.”  It’s so that nothing will prevent Dad from carrying all the crap that Mom and the kids want to take wherever the family is going.  Like mules, Dads will sometimes sit down on the job and attempt to shirk responsibility.  In the end, however, Dads are victim to that unwavering law of the universe – i.e., that shit won’t move itself, and the kids aren’t gonna do it.

 

8.  DADS YELL AT THE T.V.: Eighth, Dads believe with religious fervor that yelling at the television will actually affect the outcome of sporting events.  Even if your Dad is an engineer who went to M.I.T., he will not be able to comprehend that a television is merely a picture and that the coaches and players cannot hear him.

 

9.  DADS HAVE BAD FASHION SENSE: Ninth, Dads have a predilection for wearing mismatched, ill-fitting, or odd-looking apparel in public.  Every Dad has at least one piece of clothing or one outfit that’s so rough on the eyes it makes your teeth hurt, makes your hair stand on end, and makes his kids hide in shame.  Every Dad has  a Cosby sweater with one too many colors, a Hawaiian shirt made in Ohio, or a plaid pair of pants that’s even out of style at the Madras golf-clothing convention.  My Dad had two signature outfits: (a) a sky-blue Adidas track suit, with which he would wear brown leather dress shoes while picking me up from Hebrew School; and (b) a rope belt, which he wore with tremendous self-satisfaction having eliminated the need to spend money on leather belts.

 

Turns out the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  I have a difficulty telling between dark blue and black.  Accordingly, on any given day, I am apt to wear a dark blue sports coat and black jeans.  It looks good in the dim light of the bedroom, but on the street – well, it looks as if I got dressed with my eyes closed.  So, I tried to mix it up, add some contrast.  This week I tried leaving the house in a  4-button suit jacket (dark gold/brown with black flecks, paired with black jeans).  My girlfriend stopped me at the door.  She claimed it was like watching an unnecessary car accident happen.  A third point of contention – my Timberland casual shoes.  They’re comfy and durable.  She says they look like orthopedic shoes for a 90 year-old man.  But, the cream of the crop — one of my favorite pair of pants are brown velvet, and I wear them frequently.  They are warm and go well with brown shoes. My girlfriend, a fashion designer, insists that they are not velvet but are no-wale corduroy and insists further that by wearing them in public I am marking myself not as a comedian but as a clown.  I don’t care if she is a fashion designer and works with fabric all day.  She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.  And, that’s the point.  As a Dad (or Dad to be) you have to own your look.  No matter how horrendous it may be.  Being a Dad means being a fashion iconoclast.  A trendsetter, even if only one person follows that trend – i.e., you.

 

10.  DADS HAVE HIGH EXPECTATIONS: Tenth, Dads believe and hope that their kids will be better than Dad – will be smarter, stronger, more compassionate, higher-achieving.  It is this that causes Dads to exclaim “Are you f’ing kidding me?!” when the child errs.  For it is not that Dads are so much mad at the child as they are mad at themselves for not having been able to teach the child better so as to have been able to avoid the mistake.  That, and Dads love to curse.  It is the only vice left to them.

 

So to all you Dads out there — and to mine especially — thanks for establishing the ground rules of Fatherhood and thanks for passing them on to me.  I am thrilled to be joining your Fraternity, and I hope I will make all of you proud to have me as a member.