Three women and a man enter a country art gallery. The man is wearing a cast and holding a crying, burbling baby. He jiggles the baby with the cast arm and walks around to settle the child while the women he is with examine the local artworks.
Enter Middle-Aged Curator: Oh! How adorable! With Dad! How old?
Cast man: He's three and a half months. He is gorgeous, isn't he?
M.A.C.: Oh, what's all that racket, eh?
Cast man (over baby's fading wails): He's tired.
M.A.C.: Lovely! What a lot of noise! Darling little fellow!
Middle-Aged Curator bustles off to sell sell sell her prize-winning pottery to the other three woman and the baby, now free of overhead chit-chat and possessed of a manly chest clad in a soft coat to snuggle against, falls instantly and deeply asleep.
Some half an hour later, Cast Man's cast arm has long since fallen asleep and the other arm is swiftly following it after single-armedly cradling a five and half kilo dead weight for thirty minutes. He relents and hands the baby to one of the three women, the baby's mother. Middle-Aged Curator appears from behind a large painting of an emu.
M.A.C.: There we are! He'll go to sleep just fine with his mum!
Cast Man has to be quietly man-handled out the gallery's front door, a feat made possible only by his weakened arms.
Later that night, as Cast Man is walking his son to sleep around a restaurant, another young father cuffs his 18 month old son over the head in front of the three women. This is the same young father who absolutely would not return Cast Man's comradely nod at the start of the evening; opting instead for the blank 1000-yard stare.
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An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test
Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.
Oh god. I'm so sick of the presumption that men spending time with their babies are doing something novel and a bit cute. Look! Dad's pretending to be mum!
ReplyDeleteEff.
Keep fighting the good fight franzy
ReplyDeleteAh, you're slowly becoming one of us, Franzy - er sorry, Cast Man.....
ReplyDeleteAudrey - The best example I've heard is a friend of mine on a day out shopping with his her daughter being asked if he was "babysitting".
ReplyDeleteJono - Can it still be considered a "good" fight if you break prize-winning crockery?
Kath - What - a parental blogger? Just you wait til I get my arm back, Limpin' Lockett.
No, not a parental blogger (or at least, not 100% of the time), just a parent who gets pissed off at parental things.
ReplyDeleteYou can't really be offended at the M.A.C. since she wasn't watching when C fell asleep in your arms.
ReplyDeleteKath - May we bitch long and fruitfully.
ReplyDeleteRiver - Bah. She was a condescending old witch. She saw me walking around with a sleeping angel in my arms for half an hour and didn't even register.
Nice blog.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with being a good modern dad. I guess people will judge you based on their own experience of fathers, regardless of your personal values or actions.