Toddler Tales: An Older Dad Survives the Raising of Young Children in Modern America

by Lee B. Mulder

I played with my kids, helped put 'em to bed. When they'd squabble, my wife would calm them down. I hardly ever missed my weekly Dads' Support Group meeting. Life was OK.

  "About six months ago, I picked up a rare strain of the flu. It was like the usual kind where you're really sick for about a day and then you're weak the next day, but after that, my strength just would not come back. It was like a bad case of mono..."

  The younger members of the group looked at each with question marks on their faces. "Excuse me, Tom," the leader interjected, explaining to the others. "That's mononucleosis. Bad disease in the sixties and seventies. Sorry. Continue."

  "Well... I was too weak to go to work. I was alert enough that the kids thought I was OK. They thought having Dad around all the time was the greatest thing that had ever happened, but my being home threw my wife's delicate schedule out of whack. The kids started to scream and fight and yell and play us against each other.

  "It drove me crazy. I had to get away, but I was too weak to go out. They were hanging on me. They would burst through the bedroom door just as I was dozing. They had bright and smiling faces and were greeted with scowls and shouts. I had to escape. I was the problem. But I couldn't move. I thought about booze and drugs. No, they'd probably kill me and I didn't want to escape that far. There was only one way out: Television.

  "It started innocently enough. My son was at pre-school. My wife and the baby would be out on errands. I took my blanket and pillows to the family room couch to watch a little TV. The problem was the TV was never off from that moment on.

  "The sofa became my home, the TV my world. The children would scream or yell or try to get my attention, but I heard only Dan Rather or Jerry Springer or Columbo. I saw only dancing, flashing bits of color coming from a square tube. My son would beg to watch his Winnie-The-Pooh video and I would snarl at him until he skulked away. Food appeared and empty plates disappeared. Time no longer had anything to do with the position of the sun in the sky; it was now measured by Good Morning America, the news, the soaps, the news, a movie and the news.

  "Bills went unpaid, the lawn was not mowed. I was unshaven. I smelled." Various people around the circle started to weep. Others nodded in sympathy. "I would sleep in spurts and wake to color bars on channels that had become bored with their own programming. They had sent everyone home, leaving me... alone.

  "After two weeks, the flu was gone, but I wouldn't move from my nest. I couldn't abandon my friends Oprah or Regis or Emeril... they were there every day for me. I HAD to be there for them." There was a pause while the man, now perspiring, caught his breath.

  "How did this affect your family, Tom," the leader asked softly in the silent room.

  "They... well, they... ran their lives around me. I have vague recollections of bustling activity as mom bundled the kids off to school. There are other images with them bursting into the house, laughing. I was there, but I was furniture. They were getting along just fine without TV... better than before... and I resented it, but my inert eyes remained glued to the screen... its warm glow, smiling people and dancing images were my life source, my power. How else could I hear of storm damage or mass starvation or a drive-by shooting from the lips of a beautiful, smiling woman talking only to me?"

  "How did you get here, Tom?" the leader probed. "Well, like I said, this went on for months. I lost my job. I looked like hell. Finally, one day, I awoke from my stupor to find not my friend the Dancing Image, but something pasted over it... a drawing... a crude crayon picture that I dimly recognized as my son's work. Muffled light from the television struggled behind it, but no amount of punching buttons on the remote control would make it go away. I was forced to move out of the nest to go to the TV to pull it off. But when I got close, I saw what it was: my son's portrait of me: a crude TV on one side and an angry snarl of dark colors on the other. My wife found me there, sitting on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably with the portrait in my lap. She and the kids checked me in to the Television Addiction Clinic the next day. And here I am."

  He sat down amid hearty applause and blowing noses from the assembled group.

  "Tom, that was a moving story. Thank you for sharing it with us tonight," the leader said. Let me ask you one more question. "How successful have you been in keeping yourself clean since that initial therapy?"

  "Well, as a recovering teleholic, I will never be cured. It will be a battle every day of my life. Television is everywhere. Even walking by an electronics store on the busy street, I feel twinges that it needs me, that I could just sit down right there and be a part of its life... but then I think of that picture my son drew. It is now taped permanently over the screen of our TV at home. I snipped the plug off the TV so I won't be tempted to peek. I handle it day to day. Day to day.

  "But I have to tell you, I dearly miss my friends Katie and Charles and Jay and David and..." His eyes started to glaze over. His body went limp.

  The leader, recognizing the crisis said, "It's help time, everyone." The group rose as one and hurried to Tom. They touched him with loving hands, stroking his brow, patting his shoulder and back, a hug to the middle, a squeeze on the knee. "Come on back, Tom, it's okay, it's okay," they murmured.

  "... and Murphy and Leonardo and Conan and Arnie and Bart and Hawkeye...."

  The Little Sponge Brains

  Early one Saturday morning, Bob Haskins was busy urging three year-old Jeremy through his morning ritual. Mom had bolted at daylight because Saturdays were her day and she didn’t want to miss a moment. Which left good old Bob wrestling with Huggies Pull-Ups, miniature jeans and a GI-Joe T-shirt. He had sold his young son on the idea of playing in the park and they were both anxious to get out into the sunny day.

  At the back door, Jeremy sat calmly in his dad’s lap as the all-powerful grownup struggled to put tiny gym shoes on no longer tiny feet. He grunted and pushed them and wiggled and jammed them, but they would not go on. Then Jeremy asked in his sweet little-boy voice, “Having trouble with my damn shoes, Daddy?”

  “I sure am, Pal,” he replied, thinking, “Oh, Mary Ann. What have you been saying to this kid?”

  This was The Moment for Bob. Most parents have it when they are clobbered with the realization that, long before children can speak, they listen, they understand and they absorb. Suddenly, the parents panic, trying to remember every awful, nasty thing that has occurred in the presence of the offspring in the last two or three years… all those impressions and images and words written in bright, fluorescent letters on this clean slate of a brain and stored for strategic re -use, like time bombs, set to go off at some embarrassing moment in the future.

  Dan and Gloria had their Moment when they took young Brian with them to see friends they had not visited since before their son was born. The young man was freshly awake from his nap in the car and, as always, was in a bad mood as he slowly transitioned into his awake state. The parents would have waited in the car with little Mr. Cheerful for fifteen minutes or so, but their hosts noticed the car in their driveway and came rushing out to greet their old friends. When they invited everyone into the house, Brian was reluctant to go. No, reluctant was too mile a term. What do you call kicking, screaming, frothing at the nose and frantic body gyrations?

  At last, persuaded with the permission to wear his fireman’s hat and carry his Ninja Turtle sword, the young boy accompanied his parents into the strange house. The tantrum resumed in the front hall, culminating with his yelling, at the top of his powerful lungs, “Get me out of the is G--D--- House!” whereupon all the adults hushed in wide-eyed surprise. Dan and Gloria stared at each other with mutual blame until Dan said, “Come on, Brian, let’s go for a walk” and took his young son far away from the childless friends.

  After a bomb like that, you begin to wonder what else is stored in that child’s mind? You almost expect to hear: “Forceps! Forceps! I’ve got the little bugger now!” at the dinner table. You become very leery about having the boss over to dinner for fear your sponge will meet him for the first
time and say, “Daddy, is this the lame-brain you work for?” You sweat when your mother-in-law drops by for fear you’ll hear: “Gramma, why does my daddy call you a nosy pain in the butt?”

  Let’s face it. It’s bound to happen. You just don’t know when. Bob made a mental note to remind Mary Ann she was dealing with a walking, talking recording device. Then he tried to figure out how he could ever again speak to his wife in confidence, in adult dialect, without listening ears. Perhaps having conversations only when there is at least one floor between them and The Sponge. Or talking on telephone extensions within the house. Or speaking in code.

  “Okay, boy, let’s put on your TAN shoes and go down to the park and chase some squirrels.”

  “Yeah, Dad, let’s go down a few chasers.”

  Children CAN Be Useful

  I have thought of children in many ways, but only recently have I come to realize that they can be valuable tools for getting your way in life.

  Take, for example, last weekend, when I had an appointment to order fixtures from my local lighting store. All the clerks were somewhat busy when I arrived with my young son, just up from his nap, batteries fully charged.

  "We'll be with you in a minute," the clerk said.

  "Don't worry. Take your time,"