Father of the Year

People who don't even know me keep telling me, "You'll be a great dad." How do you know? I'm not even sure I'm a good person. I'm rude to bank tellers sometimes. I'm actively indifferent to cats, even the cute ones. I don't tip at Chipotle and I react to compliments as if they are insults. Maybe I'll be an okay dad. Maybe I'll be a terrible dad. Don't jump to conclusions. 

When I said all this as a response once, the person replied, "Well, all it takes to be a great dad is showing up." That sucks. That sucks because if I do turn out to be a great dad, I want what every mother in the world has: the ability to use that greatness to judge others. I used to think that men were more enlightened members of parental society because they were less judgmental of each others' actions than women, but now I think we're being wusses. I've seen women completely destroy each other on a playground with one raised eyebrow and a pair of seemingly innocent questions. "Is that string cheese? Huh. How old is he? Huh." The mom on the receiving end of that is going to spend the rest of her day and at least one hour of Internet time trying to discover what could possibly be awful about giving string cheese to a four-year-old.

I want that! I want to see terrible dads and call them out on it! And if I am doing something terrible as a dad, I want another dad to come up to me and employ passive aggressive judo to knock me into place. "So, you drink beer in front of the kid? Huh." "Excuse me, but you are aware that the diaper should be facing the other way, right?" "Have you had her checked out for that speech impediment yet?"

"But!" I can hear moms screaming. "That's awful! Anyone who walks up with unsolicited parental advice is a bitchy rude bitchenheimer!" Yeah, probably, but also kind of a valuable resource.

I feel like dads have devolved because we let one dude in the '50s get out of housework by pretending to be bad at it, and now we're all stuck acting incompetent to keep the lie alive. It led to this myth that all a dad has to do to be good is show up. With all due respect to anyone whose dad didn't show up and was therefore a failure on even that minimal scale, I think we need to recalibrate. Showing up is just step one. That gets you an F+. Not hitting or molesting gets you to a D-. From there, if you want an A, check out the moms and try to live up to that standard. And don't let the moms turn around and condescend to you that you're an "amazing dad" when you know you're pulling a C+ at best. Instead, get into the game.

Me: Wrestling a screaming half-dressed mud-covered toddler with entitlement issues into a car seat.

Random mom: "You're being such a great dad."

Me: "Is that your four-year-old eating string cheese?"

For the people who do know me pretty well and are telling me I'll be a great dad because I'm obviously freaking out and thinking about it way too much ... thanks. Just promise me you'll mention when I'm fucking up, too.