Oh Yeah, Just What I Always Wanted

It's a sure birthday present fail. An eye-rolling inspiration with perhaps no parallel.

Awarded, rewarded, praised, mocked, controversial (and despite this evidence presumably bright) author Salman Rushdie has completed Luke and the Fire of Life. His tale of life within video games is, he says, a birthday present for his 13-year-old son, Milan.Feeling on pretty safe ground here, let's just say that one of many things a newly teened male child does not want is a book written for him by his dad....

And, no, having written Haroun and the Sea of Stories for Milan's brother Zafar still does not make this a father's adequate birthday offering to his son.

Apologize, Jerk

No. 3 on the list of the Top 10 "Don'ts" from the Father's Handbook (unfortunately not handed out at most hospitals upon birth of a newborn) is Don't Be a Jerk. This includes a subordinate commandment that if you are a jerk, don't do it in a way that affects your kid and MOST OF ALL don't do it in front of your kid.

James Willie Jones of Lake Mary, Fla., broke those commandments. Crumpled and mutilated them when he went on his handicapped 13-year-old daughter's school bus one morning and lost all self-control in what in his own mind had been initated as a defense against her bulliers.




Fortunately, Jones has had sense enough to comply with subordinate clause two: If you are a jerk apologize and do all that you can to make it right with the hope that it will somehow show the strength of character you want your child to emulate and be enough for him or her to recover from the trauma. So, Jones has apologized and, hopefully, it will be enough for his daughter who is currently under a suicide watch in a Florida hospital and on her way to a new school when she gets out.

Who Sucked the Life Out?

Nature's father-teen metaphor: Pipeline father's "suck the life from their young."

Few will hear of it — it being a nature story, after all — but teens in particular will feel the pain of the pipeline. That fish, looking like a straight version of the related seahorse [Earlier: Is Pops Preggers?], also is one of the very rare species where the male carries the babies. (In this case, the fertilized female passes her eggs to inside the daddy-to-be for nourishment 'til birth.)

A new study suggests that a father may be ingesting some of the hundreds of possible pipeline. However, another hypothesis of why fewer come out than go it is much more likely to those who have gone through fatherhood. In this scenario, it is not the father who feasts on the embryo, but the pipeline kiddies who cannibalize each other.

Teen Time

Love the child, not necessarily the behavior. Thus the mantra of the dad of teenagers, girls especially, but boys too.

From Thing 1 come the eye-rolls and exclamations that I neither know anything nor am capable of learning what's important whether it is about match, science, writing, clothing, music or what's good and what's dangerous in possible liaisons with potential boyfriends. From Thing 2 comes the sullen sulkiness that marks burning hostility to even the best of suggestion. No, screamed, shrill dramatic "I hate you"s and slammed doors. But I suppose I'll have to face those as well ... there are too many teen years left.

When I read there's a girl out there whose dad doesn't go to her soccer games and she wants him to know it hurts that he doesn't talk to her, all I can think is how to get in touch with the anonymous she and have her talk to my daughters. I'd love to talk with them — if only they could find the time and actual patience to listen to me and talk (quietly) back and only to me, not at the same time to their cell friends and IMfriends and textfriends and probably other electronic friends I can't identify.

I suppose it's good to learn that I am not alone, that every teenage girl (and boy) has within their job description the task of trying to grind dad into the ground and expecting him to listen up and respond in her best interest. But even as misery may love company, it's still miserable.

Natch, it could be worse. There are those dads who are in court fighting another adult related to their child to get time for their kids and those who have given up and have to be reminded what it is important.

But it's painful. I wonder how bad it will get when I look at these as "the good old days."

Big D

It was and wasn't Valentine's day when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a verdict awarding plumber Johnny V. $750,000 in exchange for loss of sex with Sandra V.

Oh, and there was a baby girl involved. But it wasn't his work with the pipes that was responsible.

And Ms. V. claimed she only stayed around as long as she did before beginning an affair with a local millionaire (did we mention the rich, older guy?) for the children. Who maybe JV didn't care about as much as he should have ...

...because it turns out that one reason to stay in a bad marriage is not "for the children" as so many people claim to. One reason to stay in a bad marriage — if you're not willing to do extra work on your relationship with your kids — is for you, as there is new evidence that divorce may distance dads from their teens.

Now, you may ask yourself what doesn't, but do you really want to end up as Texas father Bob, sire of Hilary and Haylie Duff, who was penalized another $100,000 in addition to the $20,000 he is already paying his soon to be ex- during the $1 million dollar proceedings, and also has to face the accusing faces of his daughters in support of their mom (who admits living off the celeb sisters for the last five years) during the trial?

** Dads divorce moms, not kids. **

Dadelusions

A report datelined Washington, claims David Hasselhoff will use "respect and not overreacting [as] the magic rules that [will] help him bond with [daughters] Hayley, 14, and Taylor-Ann, 17."

The former "Baywatch" boytoy, singing sensation and celebrity show judge credits the video of him drunkenly sprawled on a carpet slobbering down a hamburger for his new maturity as a parent. But it was daughter Taylor-Ann who shot the suces d'youtube so it is difficult not to be skeptical about how much control Hasselhoff will really have over two teens — who like most children are probably at least a step ahead of dad on their worst days.

Amazingly enough, following the release of the video — for which he is now suing his ex and her attorney, claiming they secretly released it to the media — Hasselhoff was able to wrest away sole custody of his daughters from their (B? C? actress) mom, Pamela Bach.

** As reality battles cynicism, and despite his newfound "fitness" as a parent, it seems most likely that over the next few years when it is "boys night out for the Hoff, it will be boys night in for Hayley and Taylor-Ann. **