Savaged Nation

I suppose you might have wondered whether I might be crazy enough to take a crack at the Terrorist thing. Naaa. There's no jokes in there. Actually, if you must know, I'm the sort of cat who's ridiculously quick to spill a tear--even by the slightest instance of human suffering or courage I spring a duct-leak like a little girl. And since I'm being so honest, I should confess that I've fallen right in love with George W. I didn't vote for him, but I sure the hell would've, if I known he was going to turn into Steve McQueen. More than anything, the whole heartbreaking business has put me in mind of how lucky I am to have a healthy, happy little Boneman family, safe and sound in my little two-story Boneman house--out of harms way at least for the foreseeable future. I should hope that no one gives a good crap about what I think about it all this, I have the same opinion as everybody else--terrorism sucks and I'm against it. It's really unthinkable that anyone could justify the violent murder of 7000 innocent civilians as the will of their god. Rotten bastards--one day when they meet their maker, I hope that he's not at all what they expected. I just pray that we still have enough peaceable years ahead for my girls to have a chance to grow up and for me to die in some nice, peaceful way--instead of on a dead-run from a crop duster. Anyway, I've decided to spare you the rhetoric and just talk about the things I treasure the most, not America, not freedom, not my inalienable rights--just my wife and kids.

If you've followed this column for any length of time, you probably know that I'm the father of two young girls--and as you may well suspect, I'm a bit of an unusual parent. But I think I know what I'm doing, in fact I like to think of myself as the "new-model" parent. Having been raised years ago by more old-school techniques--I can now look upon the whole process from a clear and comprehensive vantage, which affords me easy recognition of the traditions that make sense and justify continuation and which ones are just weird and need to be tossed. Yes, I'm a 21st century parent poised to bring forth a brood of polite, well-adjusted human beings, free of the hang-ups of yesteryear, who will be a credit to their community and shine a favorable light upon . . . well, me. And I'm here to report that things could be going a lot better.

I may've mentioned this before, but somehow, I've really screwed up in the area of bedtime. Normal 2-4 year olds hit the hay at what 7:30, Eightish? I'm lucky if my kids are asleep before 1:30. Either genetically or whatever, I seem to have passed on my nocturnal habits to my unfortunate children. As a result the Boneman bunch are not "morning people." If anybody phones my house before 11 in the morning, I'm incensed that they have the temerity to call at such an hour as to risk waking up my kids. The morning hours between 9:30 and 11:00 belong to me--I don't need my girls bothering me about breakfast while I'm trying to get some work done . . . on my tan. Phone me before ten and your call will likely be treated with cranky contempt. Mom, you should know this by now. "Oh did I wake you up?" she says in her condescending "you're a loser" kind of way, that makes me lie and croak "no, of course not, why?" Here I am pioneering a superior form of child-rearing, yet all I get from her is horrified concern.

Also on the negative side of the ledger, my children are big into nudity. This one I can blame on my wife, who by all reports used to cavort about her childhood home in her neverminds--just ask her parents or siblings. Whereas I was always properly dressed throughout my modest childhood. But the influence of my wife and kids have made a convert of me. In the glorious new-model home of the future, clothing is optional. I'm happy to remain in the undershorts I woke up in, and parade around the house in this state of undress until I have to shower-up the crew in order to go accomplish something in the car--usually well into the afternoon. There's nothing perverse here, we're just used to each others bodies and I see no point in creating unnecessary laundry. (Incidentally, I've been working out, so you needn't conjure up any nasty visuals about the Boneman in his briefs.) I'm old, but I'm hanging in there. I have a young wife--I have no choice.

Knockers at my door between the hours of Noon and 3:00 must stand outside and wait until I've adequately dressed myself and the girls to a minimum of common decency. And as soon as they're gone, off come the clothes, "yee haw" --like I say, this is mainly my wife's fault. The biggest problem here is that now my girls are big enough to answer the door by themselves--so I must race them to the bell, and all-too-often visitors and neighbors are greeted by a half naked man grappling with at least one completely naked little girl. It doesn't make for a very good first impression, I'm afraid--and it's become the stuff of legend in my neck of the woods. Our closest neighbors refer to our house as "the colony." Oh they're real funny--still they seem to love us and we don't get bothered much.

Occasionally I must respond to criticism related to my parenting skills, but I figure, "good hell," they're just babies. The only memory I can conjure up about life when I was my daughters age, is that when I got out of the bathtub, I liked to run over and stand by the heater. I grew up in Cedar, it was cold--by my score-card the fact that I've chosen to raise my family in a far less severe climate is ample evidence of my commitment to quality parenting.

My daughters are also non-swimmers, which does have me worried. Most progressive parents have long since enrolled their toddlers in swimming classes--this is something we haven't got around to yet and I feel guilty about this. I'd hate to think that I'm raising a family of drowners. Again, when I think about it, I don't think I knew how to swim when I was their age and look how good I turned out? I can swim like a bastard and I don't remember learning how. At the very least, I think they're sufficiently afraid of water. What I mean by this, I should clarify, is that they've taken enough tumbles in the bathtub to grasp the concept that breathing water is bad.

Alot of parents, particularly fathers lament over the precious little time they're able to spend with their kids. Not me, I spend way too damn much time with mine. If it weren't for Nick Jr. I'd have gone insane years ago. If you know nothing of "Dora the Explorer," or "Bob the Builder," if you can't sing the theme song to "Franklin" happily along with your kids, then you probably have a normal job. Trust me from "Little Bear" to "Little Bill," these are brilliant programs, conceived by geniuses. If you think Barney is a big purple dork--you're definitely not spending very much time with your kids.

Even though the tube plays a big role in my daughters day-to-day life, I usually find myself watching these fine programs right along with them, and if it's a lame episode, or if I so much as detect the slightest trace of boredom, I'll interrupt whatever I'm doing and creep up on them on all fours as the as the silent and terrible "Land Shark." As they scramble for their lives I narrate a grisly scenario wherein their arms and legs are unmercifully devoured. I do this until they're reduced to giggling jello-jigglers and long for the boredom they'd enjoyed just moments ago. Chasing my children around naked as a large baby-eating fish is my best idea of how to be an involved and thoughtful parent.

If you have the young monkeys in your house, you're no doubt acquainted with their lack of concern for keeping the house tidy. My daughters seem to regard any neat and uncluttered living space as an open challenge. They won't stand for it. I think they must have been born "lacktoys intolerant." They don't seem to be able to happily exist until they've dragged out half a dozen toys and/or books and have taken something made of paper or cardboard and torn it into several pieces. But I've developed clever techniques to short-circuit this seemingly uncorrectable behavior. For example if I simply bring a basket-full of dirty laundry form upstairs I can use this as a pre-emptive strike. Rather than taking the basket to the laundry room I simply scatter the clothes on the floor where they're playing and this seems to pacify their innate need to create additional clutter. They seem content with the mess of my making and are happy to carry out their activities without further measures on their part. Then later after they've move-on to watch videos upstairs, I simply gather the laundry put it where it belongs, vacuum and I'm the winner--chalk one up to the "new-model" parent. The Boneman rules. But good hell, you know that.'