“ I don’t know. I don’ t like the direction  which this is heading.” Our son is two and is now putting on  movies by himself.

“ Honey I think you’re over-reacting.”

“Frankly I’m  scared.”

I find myself at the kitchen table, clinging to a cup of coffee while my wife flirts distractedly with the stove. Two rooms away, the other parent is watching our son.

I’ve found the cure to alcoholism: children small active children. We all bitch about how the hangovers we experience are much more intense and intolerable than they used to be. Some ascribe it to the loss of conditioning or to age, but truth be told it merely reflects the ecology, the context of the hangover. Even one peoplette running around cubes the intensity of the experience. Fortunately, we are blessed and are the paradigmatic three parent household: mother father disney marketing dep’t.

 

My wife expecting our second baby. Unlike the first time, I harbor no illusions about my place in parenting. The tenor of the prevailing litertature would have you believe that mother and father are equal partners or at worst caregivers 1a and 1b. Early returns let you know that you are a distant runner up. Now  my son is two. Granted a precocious two, in fact let me tel you how goddamned clever he is. Sorry I can’t stop it anymore. And I can see how it is shaping up. Here are the poll results on the  influences on his life, with numbers one and two in a runoff and too close too call:

Mommy

Disney (tied)

Grandparents en toto

Any other cartoons

Something else I forget

Daddy

Let’s play a game. The game is called rigid rules. Among the rigid rules:

one movie per day.

No watching  movies alone.

Movies only after meals and constructive play time.

Movies should edifying.

Let’s play another game. This one is called reality. It goes like this: Call up Mr. Eisner baby, it’s been a long day and daddy needs a highball.

But at least I do watch the movies with him. You can supervise with a martini in your hand  if you’re careful. And I’ve learned a few things

Valuable lessons learned from Disney:

• Your wife’s best friend is  evil and will try to kill your best friend and all his offspring (101 dalmatians)
• Your parents don’t realy die but become cosmologic or meteorologic manifestations. Also that  it is okay to eat bugs. (the lion king)
• Even if guys take a woman in, protect her, feed her and entertain her and care for her when she’s in a coma, she’ll leave them anyway if they’re too short (Snow white) ( By the way which names did the forego as too insensitive when they chose the name Dopey? Retardo? Shithead?)
• If someone is ugly but really nice, they probably aren’t really ugly (Beauty and the Beast)
• Rich people are willing to marry poor people as long as they aren’t poor anymore.Alladin?
• Difference between a simba and  a nala
• He knows who Pocahontas (Pocathomas according to him. Which makes sense. Thomas is a name. what is hontas)? is even though he hasn’t seen the MOvie

I suppose I’ll be fine until Disney releases the Lizzie Borden story.