Chrisco Spins

So, apparently, I don’t understand men at all.

I came to this conclusion last Thursday, thanks to my son. Thursday was the first time that my new neighbor’s two young sons would meet mine. My son lives in a house full of women most of the time, so I was looking forward to giving him the opportunity to pal around with boys his age. When I heard the neighbor’s boys on my front lawn, we came to the door to make introductions.

My son’s eyes lit up - boys! My brow furrowed - boys with sticks! They were apparently playing sword fight, and, or course, they had come to see if my son could join in.

“We’re going to kill you!” they yelled.

“I’m going to kill you, too!” my son screamed back.

I was mid-gasp when I looked down to realize that all three were grinning with delight. At that point I understood how profoundly ignorant I am about male culture. (more…)

Earlier this year, I tried to talk my son into getting a mohawk. I’d always wanted to try one and figured I could hide behind the excuse of “I was doing it with my son.”

My son thought it was a terrible idea. He’s way cuter than me and he wasn’t about to mess up his burgeoning sex appeal so his father could live out a childhood fantasy. (more…)

Barack Obama is running for president with a message of unity. But not everyone is getting the message. Jose Ortiz is a Clinton supporter. His brother-in-law, Sean Shurelds, backs Obama. A political argument got heated between the two and ended with Ortiz stabbing Shurelds inside their family home. Shurelds is in hospital and Ortiz is in jail tonight. And to think, usually we can’t even get people to vote.

I’m not angry, just disappointed. I tell this to my son all the time. When he does something that he knows better than. When he doesn’t display the intelligence that we both know is there. When he thumbs his nose at family rules he can recite on demand.

Her New York Magazine photo shoot shows just how much Lindsay Lohan misses disappointment. (more…)

What does Rosa Parks have to do with my son? I’m getting there, give me a second.

I’m sitting with my 7-year-old tonight and I suddenly realized that me and his mother’s efforts to teach him about his biracialness (is that a word?) might not have worked quite as well as we wanted.

He was eating and I was watching a rerun of “The Colbert Report” when someone on the show said something about Black History Month.

My son asks, “Dad, it’s Black History Month?”

I told him yes. And he said, “That reminds me. Since I’m part black and part white, back when what’s his name was alive. What was his name?”

I had no idea. Eventually he figured it out and continued, “Oh yeah, Martin Luther King. Back when he was alive I could have ridden on the front or the back of the bus. That’s why I’m glad that I’m part black and part white.” (more…)

Your parents are liars. I know this because I’m a parent and I’m a liar. If I didn’t expand that fact to apply to all parents I would be guilty of thinking myself peculiarly special. Since it’s inconvenient to do that in this case… your parents are liars too.

Parenthood makes even the most upright of us into serial liars. We lie to our kids, we lie about our kids, and the most degenerate of us even lie about whether we have kids. “Is Santa real?” “What are those dogs doing?” “Who is that lady Daddy?” “Who is that man Mommy?” “Daddy, what was that man doing to Mommy while you were at work last night?” These and a million other questions from our children elicit bald-faced lies from us.

Not content to have lied to our children, we take it further and proceed to lie about our children. Our 7-year-old magically becomes 6 again at the movie theatre ticket window. Our son’s goal at his soccer game turns into 3 when we tell the story to that woman at work who’s always yammering on about her kid’s accomplishments. Our child gets sick about twice a year, but our personnel department thinks he’s damn near got leukemia. You see where I’m going with this.

I’m not even going to get into the people who lie about having kids. That’s another issue entirely.

You know I’m telling the truth because at some point in your life, every last one of you has had the revelation about your parents and thought, “Those lying bastards!” You only really forgive them their lies when you finally have children and realize that you probably shouldn’t throw stones from the doorway of your newly built glass house.

My 6-year-old son has thrown his support behind John McCain in the presidential race. He did so over burritos at lunch. He presented a careful and reasoned rationale that I had no way of countering.

“Dad,” he says, “McCain is the best.” Nevermind that he pronounced it “Mick-Cain.” That’s an entirely different story.

“Why do you say that?” I said it calmly, despite the fact that my son had just shown a disturbing vein of Republicanism.

“He’s the best. You know the Presidential Paintball game on Miniclips? McCain is the best. I didn’t want him at first because he looks old. Even older than you. But he’s the best. So now I play with him.”

When we got home, I tried it out. I tried Obama, Hillary, Rudy… all of them. Then I tried out the old guy. And damned if he wasn’t the best.