Chris Erskine - Daditude: The Joys and Absurdities of Modern Fatherhood

ADVANCE PRAISE

Chris Erskine hits nothing but home runs. His work is replete with wit, context, perception, and almost always a healthy dose of compassion. Ive loved his columns for years. You will, too.

Al Michaels, legendary sportscaster

No one writes columns like these. They have the warmth of family life columns from the sixties, but they are fully modern and encompass so much of life as we live it right now... There is a haunting doubleness to these essaysalways there is something elegiac. They are about the passing of time in your own family, but they stand also for a passing kind of American life.

Caitlin Flanagan, contributing editor of The Atlantic and former staff writer at The New Yorker

Copyright 2018 by Chris Erskine

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The columns in this book have been previously published by the Los Angeles Times, as well as other newspapers, and are used with permission from the Los Angeles Times.

Published by Prospect Park Books

www.prospectparkbooks.com

Distributed by Consortium Books Sales & Distribution

www.cbsd.com

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress

Erskine, Chris | Daditude

Humor; parenthood/fatherhood; essays; family life

Ebook ISBN: 9781945551314

Design & layout by David Ter-Avanesyan

To dads everywhere

CONTENTS

Table of Contents

There are certain things you can count on. Everything is better with bacon on it. Whipped cream is best right out of the can. Yogurt is a lousy substitute for sour cream.

And laughter is lifes secret sauce.

Of course, Im indebted to my familythe coal that stokes my furnace, privately and professionally. Im also fortunate for the encouragement of readers, friends, and colleagues.

No one writes columns like these, wrote Caitlin Flanagan, a contributor to The Atlantic and former staff writer at The New Yorker. They have the warmth of family life columns from the sixties, but they are fully modern and encompass so much of life as we live it right now... There is a haunting doubleness to these essaysalways there is something elegiac. They are about the passing of time in your own family, but they stand also for a passing kind of American life.

Obviously, she has me confused with someone else.

Who will like this book? Quiet souls like me who follow jazz or linger too long over lighthouses.

But also wise guys who enjoy belly laughs and Chevy Chase pratfalls. Those who appreciate oversized cheeseburgers, tight spirals, and the majesty of a cocktail-party quip.

Who else will like this collection on fatherhood, culled from my weekly newspaper columns? Dads and moms. Sons and daughters. Dogs and cats.

Pretty much everybody will like this book is really what Im hoping. As a bonus, family members, friends and I have added footnoted commentary to many of the columns. These tailpieces give a little insight into what went on.

The collection of fifty columns begins with us bringing our youngest home from the hospital fifteen years ago and ends with more hospital scenes, dramatically different and our biggest challenge ever.

My own father used to say: If you have kids, you have everything. To that, I would add health. If you have health, you have everything as well.

I hope you devour this book shamelessly, as if no ones watching, like a big gooey pizza at midnight.

Or, as with a favorite photo you tuck away in a drawer, you look at it when you need a lift and a shot of lifes special sauce.

Enjoy.

December 18, 2002

The first mistake most new parents make is to take the baby home, leaving behind a hospital full of professionals.

Whats the rush? I ask.

I want to go home, my wife says.

But youve been home before, I say. You know what thats like.

Lets go, she says.

So I pull away from the curb the way fathers of newborns always pull away from hospitals, as if driving a load of champagne across rail tracks.

Watch that bump, my wife says.

Got it, I say.

They are in the back seat, mother and son, wrapped in blankets against the December chill. More blanket than baby, theres almost nothing to this infant boy. At three days old, hes as light as a passing thought.

You sure this car seats tight? my wife asks.

I double-checked, I tell her.

She double-checks my double-checking. Moments like that make a long marriage worthwhile.

Told you, I say.

Just checking, she explains.

And off for the rest of his life we go, onto the freeway, where I drive the speed limit. Ever driven the speed limit in LA? Of course not. Its unsafe.

Little old ladies in Buicks pass us as if were standing still. Trucks pass us. Electric cars. Seagulls. Women pushing strollers. Squirrels. Virtually everything in LA is whooshing past us.

Not too fast, my wife says.

See that, a Vega, I tell her. A Vega just passed us.

Look, hes blowing bubbles, she says, admiring her second son.

The birth was easy. There were painkillers then. Morphine. Demerol. And that was just for the fathers. The mothers got a little help, too.

The doctor said that during the circumcision, his heartbeat didnt change at all, my wife says proudly.

The doctors?

No, the babys, she says.

In a hospital, even a baby senses that things will turn out well. The people are prepared there. A calm efficiency pervades the place.

Now were headed home, where calm efficiency disappeared in 1983, replaced by a sort of martial law intended to keep things orderly. There are curfews. Chains of command. Constant surveillance. Into this tender truce, we bring the baby.

Theyre home! the little girl screams.

Someone get the camera, says the older daughter.

Cheese! says the boy.

I bring in the flowers. I stow away the baby gear. I stay clear of the baby until theres some sort of septic issue that threatens the public health.

Can you change him? my wife asks.

Into what?

His diaper, she says. Can you change his diaper?

Its been a good ten years since Ive changed a baby, and when I say good I mean in the sense that I didnt have to change a diaper. For even back then, I was never very good at it.

So I set this new baby on the changing table, where he looks at me skeptically. You can almost read his thought balloons.

Who are you again? the baby wonders. Wheres the person with the functioning bosom? That sort of thing.

Hold still, I tell him.

He wiggles like a trout.

Youll fit in fine here, I say.

The baby soon finds that being dressed by his father is akin to the birth experience, only worse.

For example, I cant seem to thread this kids tiny hand through a shirt hole the size of a nostril. I grab and try to guide his hand through. He pulls away.

I try bringing the hole to the arm instead of the arm to the hole. No luck. Id have better luck building a microcircuit with my lips.