one of the things i really struggle with as a new parent is exactly how much of my life to sacrifice to raising a kid. don’t get me wrong: i’m not someone who doesn’t expect or want my life to change as a result of having a child, in fact i welcome it and enjoy it. yet it’s hard for me to figure out exactly how much of my life to sacrifice for the sake of parenting, especially when i’m ready and willing to give anything and everything up for the sake of my daughter.
yet this can’t be good or healthy in the long run. i have to remind myself that i’m not shirking my duties by wanting to go out once in a while and see a movie or a show, or even going out to buy some records or whatever. yet when there’s any sort of time conflict, i feel bad choosing myself when snapper or hmc could use my time, whether it’s just staying at home and watching her or being around to take a walk or give her a bath, or being able to watch her to allow hmc to get out of the house and experience a little freedom from child house arrest.
there’s an article in the nytimes about the novel and exciting idea of sharing parenting duties 50-50:
but on the other hand i realize that often i swing too far in choosing noble parenthood, and needlessly sacrificing everything in the name of parenthood doesn’t win anyone any prizes. at worst this would burn me out and perhaps cause feelings of resentment, and at the very least snapper gets a father who hasn’t grown or changed since 2007.
the tiny step towards this was going to yoga last week for father’s day. which was the first time in a year. surprisingly, the world hadn’t fallen apart while i was gone.
from time magazine:
Besides his glowing complexion, Shigeo Tokuda looks like any other 73-year-old man in Japan. Despite suffering a heart attack three years ago, the lifelong salaryman now feels healthier, and lives happily with his wife and a daughter in downtown Tokyo. He is, of course, more physically active than most retirees, but that’s because he’s kept his part-time job — as a porn star.
…
Tokuda is rare among Japanese porn stars in that his name has become a brand. The Shigeo Tokuda series he’s just completed portray him as a tactful elderly gentleman who instructs women of different ages in the erotic arts, and he boasts a body of work far more impressive than most actors in their prime.
Tokuda’s exploits have proved to be a goldmine for Glory Quest, which first launched an “old-man” series, Maniac Training of Lolitas, in December 2004. Its popularity led the company to follow up with Tokuda starring in Forbidden Elderly Care in August 2006. Other series followed, and soon elder porn had revealed itself as a sustainable new revenue stream for the industry. “The adult video industry is very competitive,” says Glory Quest p.r. representative Kayoko Iimura. “If we only make standard fare, we cannot beat other studios. There were already adult videos with Lolitas or themes of incest, so we wanted to make something new. A relationship between wife and an old father-in-law has enough twist to create an atmosphere of mystery and captivate viewers’ hearts.”
Director Gaichi Kono says the eroticism of their elders is captivating to younger viewers. “I think that as a subject, there is this something that only an older generation has and the young people do not possess. It is because they lived that much more. We should respect them and learn from them,” says Kono passionately.
But Tokuda stresses the appeal of his work to an audience of his peers: “Elderly people don’t identify with school dramas,” he says. “It’s easier for them to relate to older men and daughters-in-law series, so they tend to watch adult videos with older people in them.” The veteran porn star plans to keep working until he’s 80, or older, as long as the industry will cast him — and given the bullish market for his work, he’s unlikely to go without work.
how was my first father’s day as an actual father? quiet. quiet=great. all that i did today was to go to yoga for the first time in a year, take a nap, and then go out for sushi. and in between play with and feed snapper. what could be better?
oh, and i got to watch the game, and much to my surprise, the lakers won and are alive for another day.
(quick basketball aside: can i say that 1. i lied and i’m NOT fine with the celtics winning after watching them rip the heart out of my two favorite teams and 2. watching the lakers blow a 24 point lead in game 4 made me sick to my stomach. even watching them win their two games, you never really get the sense that they deserve to win or even earned it. no one on the lakers besides kobe seems to understand that they need to PLAY HARD to win and they need to earn it. instead they seem to have bought into the idea that they’re the favorites, and once they jump out to a nice lead [which they do every game] the celtics will fold. which they don’t. because this is the finals. and the celtics aren’t quitting, and that’s why they’re up 3-2. is it time for wimbledon yet?)
honestly, to me this has always been a bullshit holiday, a sort of “oh yeah” equivalent to mother’s day. but i can’t tell you how much i appreciate it now. not the actual holiday, but just that day that reminds me: i’m a father. and i love it.
our friend k.o. organized this brilliant “spontaneous” rendition of bjork’s “it’s oh so quiet” in union square today:
there’s also a better video here, but i didn’t have multiple cameras, and i bet these people weren’t holding a baby.
dear snapper,
you’re nine months old now, and growing like a weed. a very very small weed, but a weed nevertheless.
your mobility is now a fact of life; no longer can we just put you down somewhere and rely on you to be there when we get back. at first it was your scrabbling around on your belly, but now you GO places and when you get there, you’re pulling yourself up onto things, even up to standing.
and yet, this new dalliance with the z-axis presents a whole new set of challenges:
what’s a been a little bit concerning are the asthma attacks. you’ve had five or six in the span of three weeks, enough for us to be worried and take you to the doctor a couple of times. we even have a baby-sized inhaler for you, but haven’t used it yet. pray that we will never have to. a-mah reminded me that you daddy had asthma when he was young, but grew out of it. so hopefully you will too.
speaking of growing, when mommy was out of town, you suddenly decided to start eating TWICE AS MUCH FOOD as before. suddenly you started packing in two ramekins of baby food in a meal, and became a yogurt eating machine. now i have to count my fingers after every meal. and it’s not only yogurt, but it’s a whole cornucopia of things that i would never imagined that you’d like, and i certainly didn’t like until probably i was twenty times as old as you. things like: lentils, fava beans, yams, asparagus, and broccoli! i am continually astounded.
it both makes me so incredibly proud and super mushy when i see how much you’re growing every day. the other day in the bath, when you wanted not only to sit up but to stand up, and you determinedly grabbed onto the side of the baby tub, and then decided that wasn’t enough and lifted yourself up by the edge of the bathtub, stood up, and looked out, you smiled a great big smile— a smile not just of happiness, but of accomplishment.
i almost wept.
