By Matthew Dujnic
The illustration at left should tell you everything you need to know about the Week that Was at DadWagon. It was created by the excellent illustrator Matthew Dujnic, as DadWagon’s rejoinder to the piss-poor Photoshop skills of our new frenemies at Die Hipster. Yes, they claimed that their version was ironically bad, but really, if you’re going to spend the time it takes to craft comments like “I’ve got your fucking picture and if I ever fucking find you I will staple your balls together to protect whats left of our gene pool,” then you can at least not suck at Photoshop.
So what did DadWagon do that requires us to have our balls stapled?
Well, Matt went public on CNN.com with his desire to occasionally bring Sasha along while he gets a beer in a bar. Thus began an enthusiastic exchange of ideas so sophisticated that it makes the TED 2010 conference seem like a rerun of HeeHaw. Many insightful things were said about the nature of modern parenting, the importance of child-centered play, and societal acceptance of the changing definitions of fatherhood. Oh, and go die in a fire, Matt, because I hate your stupid fucking glasses. Queef.
If you know anything about Theodore and his native New Yorkers’ love of conflict, you know that this was a very happy time for him.
But although the CNN story got over 2700 comments, and our humble repost on the issue had over 100 commenters sublimating their anger issues, there was more to DadWagon this week.
We fear that Nathan is developing an obsession with pre-K that will be shared only by his wife and oldest child. His anger toward Michael Douglas’ dope-dealing son and his attack on Slate’s advice columnist seemed at least a little more mainstream. More of that, please.
We were glad, on the other had, to see Christopher get a little contrarian, celebrating the fact that the Gowanus Canal has the clap and defending the right of an air traffic controller to have a very special Bring Your Child to Work (and Get Fired) Day.
Theodore–whom we should remind you is divorced–needed to take an online survey to confirm that he wasn’t a great husband.
Not to be forgotten among those posts and the (admittedly insipid) brawl over babies in bars was the remarkable Q&A Matt did with Joel Johnson, a well-known tech blogger who came out on his own blog with a brutal and brave recounting of the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. We are grateful to Joel for sitting down with us, and to the other sites–particularly those aimed at survivors of sexual abuse–that reposted and linked to the interview.
Work on that uppercut; we will be back Monday.
aint no upper cut takin’ you guys down.
a great week for the wagon. i’ll be by every day of the next one!
Wow! you guys are really thin skinned.
You really do have a very thin skin, but you have to admit that you brought this upon yourself by taking your baby to the bar and agreeing to be interviewed.
You should have been prepared for the comments that were almost guaranteed to follow.
You were quoted in the article as saying that you were being responsible. and that it was responsible adult behavior.
No, no it isn’t.
Babies don’t belong in bars.
There are laws that say that you must be 21 to drink.
Bars don’t allow anyone under the age of 21 to enter, they card people to make sure no one underage is getting in.
So why are babies and small children allowed in?
Just because they can’t try to order a drink themselves?
When we become parents we have to sacrifice a lot to make sure that our kids have everything that they need to be taken care of, to get a good education, housing, food, etc.
We also have to sacrifice some of the things that we used to do for fun because our kids should always come first.
Some of those things include going to the bar and knocking back a few beers every week.
If you really have to go throw some down, hire a sitter.
Spend the money to make sure that your child is in capable hands while you get your buzz on.
Yes, babysitters are very expensive, but remember, they are caring for the most valuable thing that you have, your child, when you are away and unable to care for them yourself.
You need to remember that everything we do and say in front of our kids the entire time that they are growing up and living with us, they are learning from us.
They learn everything from us.
Doctors and educators have been saying for years that children learn 90% of everything that they will ever know in their entire lives, in the first 5 years of their life.
We teach it to them, they hear our conversations with them and others, the news is on the tv every night, or CNN all day long.
Books we read to them, and after they learn to read, they start glancing at the paper as Daddy reads it at the table every morning.
They glance at Mom’s magazines too.
They learn 90% of EVERYTHING that they will ever know in the first 5 years of their lives.
What is Sasha learning from you?
We teach them how to speak and they say their first words which are the words we kept repeating to them over and over until they finally said it.
We teach them how to walk, clap, sing, play, learn their colors, numbers, and letters.
We teach them all kinds of things by teaching them directly or indirectly by just living our lives as adults, behaving like adults, doing adult things, our daily lives with them with us.
You take your baby to the bar every week and knock back a few beers to relax, you enjoy yourself, you get a happy and mellow buzz on.
Your daughter Sasha is with you.
She sees you order and drink a few beers every week.
She is learning from you.
So think about it, I mean really think about it.
What is Sasha really learning from you?
I don’t get why you don’t just ignore them. They’re going to get bored eventually and leave you alone, but you’re just adding fuel to the fire by reacting.
Thank you Kat and Duckie and e for your concern about our thin skin! Trust us, though, we always having fun dusting it up with folks who disagree with us on this and any other issue. We are New Yorkers; conflict just turns us on.
We’ve already made our best defenses here and elsewhere, but I will point out that it is LEGAL in New York to have a minor (under the age of 16 I think) in a bar if they are accompanied by an adult (h/t Dustin). Seems to me that’s almost a legal endorsement of our baby-in-bar socializing, no?
As for whether we are teaching our babies to drink–or otherwise damaging them by bringing them infrequenty into a place where alcohol is *gasp* consumed–there’s really no way to say whether that’s actually true. That’s just gonna be a matter of opinion. I think it doesn’t hurt them, but I certainly won’t judge other parents who disagree. That’s why we all get our own kids–so we can raise them how we see fit.
Anyhow, thanks for being part of the conversation. We will see y’all out on the playground sometime, though I guess not in the bar.
Hi guys,
I didn’t see an email address which may be a side effect of having this fercockteh eye infection. Anyhoo, we included you in the Festival of The Fathers- you can find it at my blog.
We take our 18 month old with when having a drink around Park Slope and we do take care with our child. I think it makes our family stronger. As pointed out in previous threads, it is common practice in far more civilized societies in Europe and its legal in New York City. So why all the fuss?
Matthew Dujnic’s illustration is the best, LOL! I admit I’m not familiar with the diehipster folks, or Brooklyn politics (I just relocated from Cali)but I don’t get why dads here would link to these antisocial racists. These people hate Sasha for being biracial! They are truly spreading hate in our community and you all seem to be legitimizing them.
It takes a real moron to argue with a horse’s ass, right?
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Sad thing is it were a Hispanic, Italian or Black kid in a bar the progressives would have child services take the kid away. For rich white people we get the front page of the New York Times. Ahh, AmeriKKKa….