I’m the kind of guy who makes decisions in his digs. I’m clinically decisive. I don’t wobble and fumble about with decisions. I make tough calls all the time. There are no referendums in my house, no mlolongo system, only the Zulu Law, a nifty, leather bound 23-paged handbook on things that fly and things that wont. Yes, martial law. And now I will illustrate how, in my house, my word is law. How everything has to pass through my desk for my nod. You might want to come closer to the screen, Tech Man, you won’t learn this from any gadget.
Here goes.
So last week, I’m sitting in the living room working through my breakfast as I watch TV when suddenly the missus is standing over my juice.
“I hear you are getting a dog,” she says with a phoney show of nonchalance as she straps her wristwatch, getting ready for work.
“Well, look who’s been spending time on my blog,” I say because what I love more than sarcasm in the morning is chapo and eggs fried to submission.
She ignores that quip.
“Well, yes. I’m getting a Rottweiler.”
“I googled that dog, Biko, it doesn’t look nice at all.”
“That’s why I’m getting it. I don’t want a nice dog, I want a dog that won’t take shit from anyone.”
“Do you mind the strong language?”
I raise a hand like a captured Vietcong.
“Look, getting a dog is a bad idea but getting a dog like that is plain ridiculous,” she says, then adds, “Plus, where do you intend to keep a dog like that here?”
“The balcony!” (I can be quite Einstein in my moments)
She sighs. “You know I don’t like dogs. Especially a dog without a tail like that dog.”
“Which is even great because a tailless dog will occupy less space.”
She then lows her voice and speaks to me like she is speaking to a Hernia patient. “No, we are not getting a dog, Biko.”
And that’s it. That dog story dies like that. Open and shut. In case you are wondering which part makes me decisive, in case you missed the most important lesson here, it’s the part where I ceded. Indeed. You got to learn to pick your battles carefully, like a magician picks his hats. Great men don’t get their scruffs dirty over small squabbles. They walk away to fight another day, because bigger battles awaits them. This. Is. Spartaaaaaa!
OK, fine, I lost. Let’s move on.
But seriously, men don’t ask for too much. Our needs are so threadbare, so basic that they should be awarded without commissions having to sit down. Take my household for instance. No infrastructure there speaks to me as Biko. I have lived through five curtain and two carpet changes. I have seen the color of sofas change. I can’t tell you the color of cutlery I will use tomorrow.
The landscape of my house keeps changing so much that I stopped walking in and asking questions like, “Hey, hold up, what happened to the magazine stand at the corner?” or “Wait, has the wall always been lime?” Or “ Who is that Chinese man standing in the corridor?” Or “Do I have to finish my vegetables?”
So the missus will change color and furniture because I dunno, it keeps her balanced. My little girl will get a new potty with a backrest, or a sliding thing, or a bike, or a new fancy cup with Disney pictures, or a colourful poof, hell if she really caused a tantrum that she wants a new father I’m sure he might be hired for one for a week – preferably one who doesn’t whine on his blog. A real father. Everybody gets what they want.
But what does Zulu get (apart from the bills) to stop hair growing on his back? For his balance? What does he get to stop him from holding some hostages in a building along Kenyatta Avenue and screaming, “I swear if, in 30mins, I don’t get a fully fuelled chopper with a 45kgs Rottwelier in it, I will start shaving all the women’s weaves and painting the men’s nails red!
OK. Uhm, know what? Strike out the men’s nail paint part. It’s not consistent to the image of the man who needs a Rott.
All I wanted was a dog. A new showerhead is great, I’m sure, but all Zulu wanted was a dog…without a tail.
(Insert a woolly Sade song here)
***
Today’s post was not supposed to be about my expunging masculinity. But sometimes you write paragraphs in your head and when you see a blank word document, you sort of are inspired to put it all down.
You start a story from it’s midsection, then you put a roof over it’s head by fleshing it out to see how it will read, then, before you know it, the narrative has gained some form and traction. So you let it. And that’s the thing, some stories don’t need you, they don’t need your guidance. They can tell themselves in complete isolation. They are mercurial.
Today’s post was supposed to be about my daughter turning four. And I had a story to tell as an opening gambit. The eve before schools opened, I pitched home at 9.30pm and when I walked in the little girl was seated before the TV. She was sitting about 2 inches away from the screen as usual.
The whole house was dark because everybody had turned in, except her. She had on her night gear; pink trucks, some long flowery nightshirt and a headgear to protect her new spanky hairdo. And then she had these new black Bata shoes on. The whole ensemble was a fashion faux paus. She looked mad. Next to her was her pink new school bag. Nowadays they insist on these new bags that you pull on a roller, like a travelling suitcase.
“Hey, what time is your flight?” I asked her. She ignored me. That’s the thing with televison; it steals your baby away. You don’t stand a chance with Disney Junior. So I take the remote and mute the damned thing. She whines.
Oh by the way, to all parents out there, here is a gem. I have a friend called Janet. She has a 5yr old kid and she is a psychologist, she told me once: Don’t converse with your kid like she is a kid, engage her with grown up conversation because that’s the only way she will develop her speech. Smart, eh? That will be two glasses of wine, thank you.
“Where are you going all dressed up, a date?” I ask.
“I’m going to sleep. What did you bring me?”
I hand her a lollipop.
“Hey, what’s in the bag?” I ask.
“My babies.”
She has two dolls, one is an unsightly brunet with a receding hairline called Vivian and the other is a stuffed doll that happens to be Vivian’s cousin, or mom, depending on what she decides. They go where she goes.
“Ready for school tomorrow?”
“Yes.” (Eye still on TV, muting it doesn’t help.)
“What will you tell Ian if you see him?”
“That papa will cut your ears off.”
“Good, what else?”
“And give the dogs.”
“Now say it in full.”
“What?”
“What will you tell Ian when you see him? Say it again.”
“That Papa will cut off your ears and give the dogs.”
“…and feed it to the dogs.”
“…and feed it to the dogs.”
“Good girl!”
That, gentlemen, is how you send messages to pesky little boys with ideas.
This is how I see these posts about fatherhood. One day she will grow up and read these posts and realise how clueless, challenging and confusing fatherhood was for me, and that hopefully in these posts she will understand and forgive my vivid flaws as a father.
Sometimes to move forward you have to assess where you have been. So I went back to the Fatherhood folder here and spent some time reading through those posts, to take stock. Two things dawned on me; one, how embarrassingly weak my writing was in some posts and two, how quickly things change, that when children change so do you. They transform you. They drag you through a journey, willingly and unwillingly.
In Slices of Fatherhood I describe our inane conversations in the car as I drop her off to school in the morning. Those conversations are more coherent now. Plus, she no longer sits in the back. She rides shotgun, like she ma dawg or somethin’ and we off to roll some joint and shit (always wanted to say that). She knows which CD she wants to listen to in the car, and she knows how to operate the car stereo.
I have a bad habit of driving with one hand (like I’m Ricky Ross) so she will always reach out and hold my left hand. You can’t start understanding how flattering that makes me feel. How it makes my insides all soft.
Now she un-straps her own seatbelt when we get to school I guess it makes her feel grown up. The whole kiss on the cheeks when she is disembarking went and it was replaced by a kiss on the lips. What are the rules against kissing your daughter on the lips? One day I saw a teacher look at me weirdly when I kissed her on the lips and I wanted to say, “hey, she is my kid, I swear.”
You know Gary Oldman? No? He’s a B-List actor. In a recent interview, when asked how fatherhood was for him, he said “There is no handbook for parenting, so you walk a fine line as a parent because you are always civilizing these raw things.” I liked that; civilizing these raw things.
He meant, you – as a father – is always recreating. Always processing your actions using unique and new situations.
Before writing this piece, I made two lists. One how great I am as a father and the other how I suck as a father. The Suck list was longer…and more interesting. But I realised that all the points on why I sucked stemmed from one character flaw I posses; I’m grossly impatient!
I’m a testy chap. I’m impatient with people and I’m impatient with myself. I don’t wait. I don’t do queues very well. I hate people who bloody don’t keep time. I have a rule; if it’s a chic; I will wait for 30mins max then bust. If it’s a guy, 15mins, unless he’s bringing me money, of which I will wait until dusk. Tsk.
But fatherhood is always testing your patience. Children are always testing you. Here is a scenario. Tamms has to wear shoes, because we have to leave the house. Like many chicks, she has many shoes. So she stands before this shelf and stares at this colourful shoe derby. I stand patiently behind her, like a peasant, because my duty in her Kingdom is to help her wear whichever shoes she picks. Problem is she stands there until I start growing a moustache. She is oblivious of the time. But she’s my baby, and I’m a peasant. So I wait.
“Can I wear the pink shoes?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“No. I want the white shoes.”
“Okay, the white shoes look great.”
She picks the white shoes but then changes her mind and picks the black shoes with these little diamonds on them. I like those shoes better than the tacky pink shoes. But peasants only offer their opinion when asked, so I shush.
“I want these black shoes.”
“I loove those black shoes.”
“They look nice?”
“Yes, they look nice, now here, let me help you.”
She doesn’t make a move to put the shoes down, instead she says “ Do you like the pink shoes?”
“Yes, I love the pink shoes too.”
“And the purple shoes?”
“Yes, baby, I love the purple shoes. I love all your shoes.”
“Me I like the white shoes and the purple shoes.”
“Me too.”
“What is your favourite color?” she asks.
“I like purple,” I say, but only because purple is her favourite color. I’m sneaky like that.
“Noooo,” she laughs, “I like purple, you, you like black.”
“Why, ‘coz I’m black?”
She doesn’t get the joke, obviously.
“We are running late. You want to wear which shoes?”
While holding her black shoes she stares at the red shoes. I slowly start counting from 100. I mean, I can’t spend my adult life picking size 29 shoes.
She puts back the black shoes and picks the red shoes.
“Do you like these ones?”
God, give me strength. “Yes.”
“But they don’t have shinings!” (That’s diamonds, for you all.)
“Then wear the black shoes, Tamms!” I hiss and she looks at me sharply. The thing with kids is that they will pick the most distant aggression in your voice. I immediately feel lousy when she puts down the red shoes. Shit, now I have to kiss her ass.
“Are you sure you want to wear the red shoes, baby?” I ask sweetly, all of a sudden feeling like I have all the time in the world to pick shoes.
“Yes,” she pouts.
“You don’t want the black shoes? Look, they have shining.”
She is stares at the black shoes like they don’t belong to her.
“Who loves toto?” I ask her. That’s always my way of saying I’m sorry. She ignores me. Then time for helping her with her shoes; I kneel down to help her, she holds my head and she puts her right foot in the left shoe, so I tell her it’s the wrong way and she takes her left foot and puts it in the right shoe. This happens three times and I get so exasperated I want to Dracula her ankle.
Another thing, on patience. Fathers are advised to play with their kids no matter how foolish the game is. People who advice that have obviously not played The Horse, a game I detest with all my heart. In The Horse someone goes down on their knees and someone rides on their back. The Horse, unfortunately, is always me. I never get to ride on her back. It’s unfair! Try going back home at 9pm, tired as a mule, and then try carrying a 15kgs blubbering weight on your back and tell me how you feel about your knees and your back after. Go ahead. Tell me if you don’t think horses are stupid when you see one.
This post has gone 400 words over the 2,000 mark, so I will drop anchor here. But not before I share some important parenting tip that I ran into recently.
“Never raise your hand at your children, it leaves your groin unprotected.” Red Button.
[Photo credit: Flickr]