If someone held a gun on a women, her husband and her children and told this women that she had to choose one of them to die, she would look at the person with the gun and say, “I want you to know one thing … I’m really gonna miss my husband.”
Now for those of you without a sense of humor (and you know who you are), let me just say that I'm not advocating gun voilence or suggesting that this sort of thing happens a lot. I'm just making a point. Women love their kids beyond reason, and they're not going to let a little thing like their husband stand in the way of the kids' survival.
And just for the record here, I want you to know that I’m actually okay with this. I can see the natural advantages. Facing the chiseled reality of survival, a woman can always find another husband. On the other hand she also knows in that deep reptilian part of her brain that – when it comes to her kids - she can’t be replaced. By sticking around she’s ensuring the survival of the species. So the husband is a dead man. May he rest in peace.
I mean, say what you will about today’s father’s being capable, reliable, talented and every inch the woman their wives are. I’m here to tell you that this just ain’t so, Joe. We are not women. We might be a bit better at raising our kids than our father’s were – it’s not hard to compete against a man who’s idea of taking care of his kids for the night meant having the ten year old make dinner for the four and seven year old while he called his bookie and then took a nap on the couch. But let’s face it, even with decades of society’s unrelenting, forced-march toward sexual equality (with everyone from Sigmund Freud to Dr. Phil training us to find that sensitive little girl inside us while still allowing our inner ape to come out and beat his chest once in a while), not one of us guys could do all the things our wives do for our kids without eventually winding up in a corner swinging a baseball bat at anyone who got too close.
Are you, my fellow dads, going to be able to whip up breakfasts, lunches and dinners the kids will eat day after day after day … while watching over them to get their homework done … while staying up all night with the one who is vomiting into a bucket … while putting your daughter’s bed-head into a French braid … while driving the middle one to karate, the little one to ballet and the older one to the mall to find the perfect mate among that fine crop of mumbling 15 year old boys she has to choose from? Are you going to be able to do all that on your own? On top of that, will you have the endless empathy, eternal patience and rock solid unwavering ability to support your child no matter what, no matter when? In short will you be able to do all the things your wife does to make sure this generation lives long enough and well enough to take their place in the regenerative order? I think not, my manly cohort. If you face the facts of this and think about all that our children’s mothers do for our kids that we could never hope to do on our own, you yourself might even tell the nut with the gun to choose you when he pulls the trigger.
Okay. Sometimes women can take this save-the-child-at-all-costs instinct a bit too far. For instance, when mommy thinks daddy’s been too hard on the kids and mommy suddenly feels like she has to protect the kids from daddy, and then the kids know that they’ve got daddy just where they want him and daddy ends up locked out in the garage, alone, beating his head on the hood of his car wondering what the hell just happened. Well I obviously don’t like that. I don't like it one bit. But killing me to save my wife and my kids I can kind of understand – maybe I just started a book I’m really into or I have a business trip coming up that I shouldn’t miss - but I’ll understand.
Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that my wife and my daughters and my women friends are going to have a really hard time with this idea. And some of my guy friends aren’t going to like it much either.
Well to those women who find this difficult to swallow I say, let’s face it girls, this is a tribute to your gender. You know in your heart that you wouldn’t waste a second before you’d save your kids over your husband. And you also know that’s exactly how it should be. Men can help you make the children and we can coach you with sympathetic Lamaze breathing when they’re being born. We can bring in money and lift heavy things like nursery furniture and warehouse-sized cartons of baby food. We can lend a hand in raising the family and in feeding them and tucking them into bed at night. Heck, we might even be able to watch over the kids for a few days and make sure they don’t get hurt before you get back from your trip (well they might get hurt a little but it wouldn’t be anything that a quick trip to the emergency room couldn’t fix). But if you asked any Vegas odds maker to give you the probability of a kid turning out okay if he or she were raised by their father alone, you’d be looking at odds of a thousand to one … at best. If you think about this, it actually gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “lady luck.”
And to my guy friends out there I would tell them to all just calm down. This is just a hypothetical argument after all. Nobody’s really out there gunning for you. No matter where you are in your fathering, I’m sure your wives still love you and need you. We all know you are important to your family and none of your wives really want to see you die. Just avoid any dark alleys or the homes of any reputed, gun-toting psychopaths when you’re with your family and everything will be just fine.
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Quite a take, dad.
ReplyDeleteJust last night I was talking about how I remember things you told me when I was very little, as I was going through rough patches in life or needed someone to talk to. The things you said always stuck with me. When I look back on the same time, I can't remember any words from mom. It's probably because while you were talking to me, telling me a story, or explaining to me my feelings, she was thinking about my future, researching high schools or colleges for me, and making my lunch for the next day.
Loved this post, very witty and unique perspective on the dynamics of family life
-Kristin
True, true KDT! Or perhaps I was catching up on my sleep . . . dreaming about what size typeface to use for your resume or in younger years sewing your halloween costume.
ReplyDeleteAnthony- This is hard to take in yet perhaps I should thank you for the acknowledgement? I have two question though: Why did the gunman ask the mother/wife who to kill? and, If the question was posed to the father/husband, would you have said yourself?
To your first question, it's a hypothetical case I'm using to make a point; we of limited intellect often use corse anologies to make ourselves understood above our grunts and groans. The gunman could have asked any of them, but that would be a different blog wouldn't it? (Perhaps you should write your own and have the gunman ask the husband just to see how it turns out.) For the second question, if you can't figure out what I would say if the question was posed to me as the father, then you need to read the piece again. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
ReplyDeleteThe whole piece is dad's opinion about the dynamics between a wife and her husband, a mother and her children, and father and his children. In order to try to allow us to understand this point of view, he used the analogy (with an a, woman is singular and women is plural) of the gunman asking the wife. It's a segway from nothing to something, from blank to spark.
ReplyDelete-kristin
Thanks for the lesson on what is an analogy.
ReplyDeleteAt first we'd all (men/dads) would like to try and defend ourselves against this seemingly attack, by one of our own no less. But let
ReplyDeletes face it folks, for all of us out there who have raised our kids to be the best they can be in life, we know that this is a tough gig. It's tough for Mothers to go it alone themselves, which is why there is a much higher crime rate in African American communities, mothers having to handle raising their children alone. So, it's not something that they do better, or more well equipped to do,both parents are needed in the raising of healthy children.
Are we commenting on the particular question posed to us as readers,or are we commenting on story and word composition?
ReplyDeleteAny comments are welcomed. All points of view appreciated. Dads are no doubt needed to raise a complete child. The ideas in the piece are exaggerated to make this point: most mothers will protect their children at all costs - above anyone and anything. Dads are a critical part of the mix, and the ideal is to have two parents to raise and love you, but I believe that if you asked any dad who he'd choose among himself, his wife or his children - if he had to make that choice - he would choose himself every time. Even dads know that moms are hardwired by nature to do more, give more, be more for their children than any other creature on earth. This doesn't diminish the role that dads should take, nor does it let dads off the hook when it comes to being there for their children, it's just a comment on the nature inside of us. No matter how much we think we've evolved in our species, there are certain instincts that our highly evolved brain that just can't ignore.
ReplyDeleteTony, I really enjoyed this piece. You have a deceptively easy style that humorously uncovered a difficult truth. Count me in the same boat my man and keep the posts coming. Orion
ReplyDelete