My son-in-law Rick is a decent kid. Being married to my little princess Fay is certainly no walk in the park. I love my girl to death but if truth be told, the girl has got a rotten character.
She's a lawyer - or as she insists on putting it, an attorney - and works for some fancy ambulance chasing firm in midtown Manhattan. Rick's an editor at one of the publishing houses, the name of which always escapes me. Between the two of them they make a nice tidy sum which may or may not go very far living as they do in a converted machine shop near Wall Street.
I raised my daughter to be strong - as a girl she was a bit of a tomboy - so I'm not surprised that it's her who wears the pants in that family. Rick doesn't seem to mind, he's the arty type and his head is always in the clouds anyway. He doesn't seem to have any interests outside his work. He doesn't know a Knick from a Met or a Jet or a Net and ever since they had their baby I started worrying about how the kid is going to be raised.
They named him Fidelio (?!) but I just call him Eddie. Rick carries him around in a sling and seems to be in charge of all the dirty work. He gives the baby baths, takes him to the park, changes his diapers and I swear, if he had tits he'd be feeding him too.
But here's the thing. I know the term effeminization and I can see this whole new trend toward the equal distribution of household labor. Some people see it as the total erosion of traditional manhood. I don't - I'm no neanderthal. What did Bobby Dylan say, the times they are a changin'? And hey, I'm the one who raised Fay to be the ball buster that she is (she's up for partner this year and I know she's going to make it). But the one thing that gets my hair up, the thing I simply can't abide in a guy is when he let's a woman drag him down into a stupid, domestic argument.
I mean, who the heck cares if the commode is made of teak or mahogany? Does a man really have to get involved in deciding which Jamaican tourist trap hotel to vacation in? And what for crying out loud is a roasted beet and endive salad and why is ordering it at a restaurant have to become an international incident!? Believe it or not, these guys are already fighting over which pre-school to send poor Eddie to and he's only nine freakin' months old.
To hear Rick raise his voice defending his firmly held convictions about blinds versus drapes is like listening to the total decline of western civilization in slow excruciating motion. He can keep the ergonomic jogging stroller and the pastel blue baby bjorn, just pipe down with that shrill sanctimonious countertenor tone!
Men, stop fighting with your wives! You'll sooner grow hair on your palms and play shortstop for the Tokyo Tigers before you ever win an argument with a woman.
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