What Do They Really Want?

Perhaps the news of the launch of a site for new fathers — do we really need one more fountain of wisdom collected from the same sources? — really is good news?

Not that a site for dads can be bad in any case, but perhaps the Bounty parenting "club" announcement that that fathers of newborns can have all their questions answered and fears conquered by traveling to http://www.newdadssurvivalguide.com will change the world.

After all, do we really know what dads want? And, no, that they want sex and when they don't get it from mom they want it with someone else does not count as an answer. It is also unlikely that donuts for dads, while a nice way to attract the attention (i.e., bribe) fathers to show up in the early school hours to hang out with their kids and their children's teachers solves too many problems either ... and those donuts might actually be creating a few others.

Since Sigmund (father of shrink Anna) Freud famously wasted time pondering of what women want, maybe it would have been a better use of his brain to work out the problems to dads' desires. Or maybe dads need their own Christine Aguilera, who somehow worked out "What a Girl Wants," which reads like she needs her dad.

In any case, so far it remains a mystery. You certainly can't trust fathers to discover it on their own. Consider the case of Leonard Nimoy. He chased fame and financial stability and, at least according to the new "anti-memoir" by son Adam, My Incredibly Wonderful Miserable Life, things were okay for father (and son), but ultimately what he thought he wanted was not enough.

In short (and, yes, it is too late for that) when it comes to what a dad wants, your guess is as good as mine.