The Blogfathers

Matthew from Childsplayx2 here! It is my pleasure to welcome our monthly Goomah L.! I don’t recall when I first came across L. from Homesick Home but I do know that it was quite a while ago. What I enjoy most about L.’s posts is that each one is not only well-written but you always go away feeling like she let you into a little window of her life that is so very honest - something not all of us are capable or even willing to do. She also writes very candidly about her marriage to a Japanese man and the cultural divide that is sometimes present in their relationship. As a father who is raising multi-cultural children myself, it’s something that I value when I read L.’s experiences. Having said this, I am so very pleased that L. has agreed to be our Goomah of the month. Please welcome her and then go on over and say hi!

***************************************Back in the Dark Ages of our marriage, before we had kids and all of our screaming, plate-throwing arguments were about trivial, non-living things like money, I gave Hub a cartoon book by Matt Groening called “Love is Hell.” In it, Groening stated that love was doomed to fail because of this: “Men are stupid and woman are crazy.”

Think about that. Isn’t it true? Sure, there are plenty of stupid women and crazy men, too — as well as many folks who are both crazy AND stupid — but apply that statement generally to most people you know, and you have to admit that Groening really nailed it.

The more that I think about it, though, the more I realize the statement does not apply to parenting. Parents are not doomed to fail, but rather they are fated to succeed in raising the next generation, precisely because “fathers are stupid and mothers are crazy.”

Let`s see how this works in real life, shall we? Here`s a true story from Big Son`s babyhood:

I came home from grocery shopping one day to find Big Son lying in his little infant seat, contentedly sucking on his pacifier. Then I noticed with horror that his pacifier was attached to his ears with rubber bands.

“Isn`t this a great idea?” said Hub, beaming, clearly proud of himself. “I looped rubber bands through the holes on the sides so it won’t fall out and get dirty anymore!”

“AAAAAAHHH!” I screeched. “What if he spits up? He’ll CHOKE! He’ll ASPIRATE! He’ll DIE! AAAAAAHHH!”

You see, Hub was too stupid to consider all the horrible possibilities, and I, on the other hand, was so crazy that I thought about nothing but horrible possibilities ALL THE TIME. I probably would have been perfectly content to raise our new baby in a plastic bubble, while Hub was not afraid of trying new things, even if later he would admit he was wrong about some of them.

On the whole, his “stupid” balanced out my “crazy,” meaning our family probably fell somewhere on the “normal” end of the parenting spectrum.

Based on my limited research (i.e., sitting here and thinking about all the other families we know), this equation applies to most households.

You can read more from L. at Homesick Home.

Goomahs