Hey Howdy Daddy - The Mall

I’m a dad now. It happened pretty suddenly. I say suddenly as though someone just said, “Here. Raise this.” We had warning. Training, even. Training where they told us every possible scenario that might happen when The Kid shows up. At least that’s what it seems like when we were in training. As soon as The Kid arrived, everything I’d learned just jumped out of my head and now I just kind of stand around, dumbfounded by what’s going on. You can see this in the faces of fathers everywhere, especially new fathers. I guess that’s why many Dad’s on TV are a bit… stupid.

Dad’s aren’t stupid, though. What we’re stupid about is what to do. Like, when a child (and here, I’m totally making this up and not using a real example from my own life) decides to throw a laying-down-in-the-floor-screaming-and-kicking-in-the-store fit over my answer to the question, “Can I have this automatic soap dispenser?” My answer was "no," and definitely not the answer that The Kid was expecting. I stood there for a second, wondering what happened. He asked a question. I answered it. That’s the end of it, right? No. No it’s not. What fathers sometimes forget is that little kids don’t know what on earth you’re talking about. When you say “no,” for instance. The only answer that makes sense when the 5-year-old asks for something is “Yes.” And the 5-year-old, being 5, hasn’t yet grasped the fact that he or she can have a rational conversation about their wants and desires. And that confuses the heck out of a Dad. So we just kind of stand there, with that look. Mouth slightly agape, eyebrows knitted into a very concerned-yet-confused wrinkle. We just don’t know what to do.

And that’s why we found women to tell us what to do. (Men who happen to be in a same-sex relationship… who tells you what to do? Is that why some people call you confused?)

I may have my Man Card revoked for this, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. On the day before a wedding, men have a Secret Meeting. In that meeting, sometimes called a “bachelor’s party,” the married men tell the about-to-be-married man The Rules. Yeah, I know, THE MEDIA and other liars try to tell you that men get all raunchy and obnoxious at bachelor parties. That is an outright lie. “But Brandon, I’ve seen pictures!” Yeah, what you saw was fabricated nonsense propagated by The Rules Committee so as to contain their long held secrets. There are no strippers, zany antics, or even alcohol. The married men sit the groom down and lay out The Rules to Survive Life From Here On Out. The most important rule is: Women Are Right. Always.

There may be some misguided, college-aged feminist reading this, and that young woman is probably laughing, Starbucks Soy Latte sloshing in her hand, pointing at her screen or iPhone and screeching, “You misogynist fool! You simpleton! Women are blah blah blah” and she’ll go on yelling at her screen or iPhone, thinking that I can hear her. She’ll say something about gender roles or some other such nonsense, all the while trying to make me realize that I’m wrong and she is right. And here’s the thing: I’m not even arguing with her.

Honest men know they’re wrong. That’s why we got married. After moving out of the house, men just kind of… drift. Looking for a woman to tell us what to do. And the lucky among us find a woman who is willing to endure our constant inability to know what we should be doing next. And then we have kids in some form or fashion, and then we REALLY don’t know what to do. Because we forget. Like, everything. We forget everything. And we really forget that kids know even less than we do.

So there I stood, watching The Kid slobbering and shouting in the floor. I looked at my wife, who looked very concerned for both The Kid and me, and I’m not sure who she felt more sorry for. “You’re going to have to pick him up,” she said. And suddenly, my brain snapped back to working order (for better or worse). So I picked him up.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to pick a child up that is determined to 1) stay upset about whatever it is they’re upset about, and 2) not be picked up. I would liken it to picking up snot that has been coated in teflon and baby oil. We trotted out of the store, smiling at passersby in order to assure them that this is totally normal and that there was no reason to talk to us for any reason because we might start crying. The Kid was really into this tantrum, by the way. Squirming, yelling, crying, determination. That’s what I held that day.

And then I experienced a bit of magic. As we crossed the breezeway from the mall to the parking garage, The Kid finally relented, transforming back into the sweet child we knew before. Being a man, I of course trumpeted my victory to myself, inside my head, because I was too exhausted to talk. My wife, being intelligent and way better at being a mom than I am being a dad, talked calmly to the 5 year old. Women are incredible. I say that because he listened to her. And so did I.

Because that’s The Rules.

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