Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood Read Online Free PDF
Author: Drew Magary
nucleus: a tiny, impossibly dense thing tucked down into a void so expansive that the nearest particle seemed to be a million billion miles away.
Three hours later, the monitor went off at previously unknown decibel levels.
WAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
I lay perfectly still. My wife lay perfectly still.
Hack hack hack
WAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
“It’s your turn,” my wife said.
“What? No way. It was my turn last time.”
“But I relieved you, so now it’s your turn again.”
“Are you joking? You were the closer. I did all the hard work. That doesn’t count as a full shift.”
“I was the one who was up last.”
“This is an outrage!”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
WAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
No one moved. The bed was far too comfortable.
GYMBOREE
M y wife signed our daughter up for a gym class because she had to get out of the house with her. That’s the biggest challenge of owning a one-year-old: You’re constantly looking for ways to fill up the day. I was working in an office at the time, so this was of no concern to me. I got to go to work and talk to other people and dick around on the Internet and take a whiz whenever it suited me. I wasn’t the one stuck with a one-year-old all day. The child was close to being ambulatory now. It could be taken out. It had to be taken out.
The brochure said that the classes helped toddlers with coordination, but that was mostly a ruse. They just provided a room full of padded, germ-ridden crap that toddlers could run around and fall down in. The main reason parents sign up for this kind of class is because it gives them a chance to relinquish primary control of the child to a peppy twenty-five-year-old gym teacher for forty minutes while they talk to other mothers about what a pain in the ass everything is. My wife loved the Gymboree class. If we had had the resources, she would have signed the girl up for it every day of the week. Not only did it give my wife time to rest, it also sucked all the energy out of the child so that she was perfectly set up to nap later in the day. Children have sixty times more energy than functional adults, and all that energy needs to go somewhere. Best that it goes into shaking a dirty parachute with a group of strangers.
I got home from work the day of the first class and my wife was overjoyed.
“Drew, it’s so great. I don’t have to do much. I even got to read a magazine for two minutes.”
“That’s great.”
“You should take her.”
“I’m not gonna be the only dad there, am I?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Were there any other dads there when you went?”
“No, but that was a weekday class. I’m sure the weekend classes are different.”
“All right,” I said, piling up metaphorical brownie points in my head. “I’ll take her. You stay here and relax. Take some sorely needed time for yourself.”
“Actually, I have to do the laundry.”
“NO, NO, NO,” I said. I wanted this gesture to count. If she spent all that time doing housework, then I wouldn’t have any excuse to demand free time of my own later on. For every hour a mother gets to herself, a father will demand five times that amount for drinking with friends and acting like an immature dipshit. “Don’t do the laundry,” I said. “You work real hard. Watch TV. Take a spa day.”
“I have to do her laundry or else she’ll have no clothes to wear and she’ll throw up on her own naked body.”
“Then I’ll do the laundry.”
“You suck at laundry,” she said.
“Is it that I suck at laundry or that YOU suck at teaching me laundry?”
“Just take her to the goddamn class.”
And so I did.
From the parking lot, I saw nothing but a mass of yoga pants and strollers heading for the gym. There’s something inherently terrifying about knowing you’re going to be the only dad at one of these things. I would be parenting in front of a live studio audience consisting of nothing but women. I mean, I was a real father. I
Three hours later, the monitor went off at previously unknown decibel levels.
WAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
I lay perfectly still. My wife lay perfectly still.
Hack hack hack
WAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
“It’s your turn,” my wife said.
“What? No way. It was my turn last time.”
“But I relieved you, so now it’s your turn again.”
“Are you joking? You were the closer. I did all the hard work. That doesn’t count as a full shift.”
“I was the one who was up last.”
“This is an outrage!”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
WAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
No one moved. The bed was far too comfortable.
GYMBOREE
M y wife signed our daughter up for a gym class because she had to get out of the house with her. That’s the biggest challenge of owning a one-year-old: You’re constantly looking for ways to fill up the day. I was working in an office at the time, so this was of no concern to me. I got to go to work and talk to other people and dick around on the Internet and take a whiz whenever it suited me. I wasn’t the one stuck with a one-year-old all day. The child was close to being ambulatory now. It could be taken out. It had to be taken out.
The brochure said that the classes helped toddlers with coordination, but that was mostly a ruse. They just provided a room full of padded, germ-ridden crap that toddlers could run around and fall down in. The main reason parents sign up for this kind of class is because it gives them a chance to relinquish primary control of the child to a peppy twenty-five-year-old gym teacher for forty minutes while they talk to other mothers about what a pain in the ass everything is. My wife loved the Gymboree class. If we had had the resources, she would have signed the girl up for it every day of the week. Not only did it give my wife time to rest, it also sucked all the energy out of the child so that she was perfectly set up to nap later in the day. Children have sixty times more energy than functional adults, and all that energy needs to go somewhere. Best that it goes into shaking a dirty parachute with a group of strangers.
I got home from work the day of the first class and my wife was overjoyed.
“Drew, it’s so great. I don’t have to do much. I even got to read a magazine for two minutes.”
“That’s great.”
“You should take her.”
“I’m not gonna be the only dad there, am I?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Were there any other dads there when you went?”
“No, but that was a weekday class. I’m sure the weekend classes are different.”
“All right,” I said, piling up metaphorical brownie points in my head. “I’ll take her. You stay here and relax. Take some sorely needed time for yourself.”
“Actually, I have to do the laundry.”
“NO, NO, NO,” I said. I wanted this gesture to count. If she spent all that time doing housework, then I wouldn’t have any excuse to demand free time of my own later on. For every hour a mother gets to herself, a father will demand five times that amount for drinking with friends and acting like an immature dipshit. “Don’t do the laundry,” I said. “You work real hard. Watch TV. Take a spa day.”
“I have to do her laundry or else she’ll have no clothes to wear and she’ll throw up on her own naked body.”
“Then I’ll do the laundry.”
“You suck at laundry,” she said.
“Is it that I suck at laundry or that YOU suck at teaching me laundry?”
“Just take her to the goddamn class.”
And so I did.
From the parking lot, I saw nothing but a mass of yoga pants and strollers heading for the gym. There’s something inherently terrifying about knowing you’re going to be the only dad at one of these things. I would be parenting in front of a live studio audience consisting of nothing but women. I mean, I was a real father. I