Brett Berk

The Gay Uncle was happy to visit with some parent friends upstate last night, and while the butch-er members of his posse got the grill going, he retreated into the bedroom at the end of bath time, to talk to the mom and her naked one year old son during the night-time nursing session. He’s found that this is often a good opportunity to get in some grown-up catch-up, because the child is a) relaxed b) sleepy and c) has their otherwise noise-making mouth fully engaged. While the kid sucked, Gunc and mommy caught up on important topics–fiction writing, music, celebrity plastic surgery. But as soon as feeding time ended, the boy sat upright, smiled, and, as if calling attention to his perceived centrality in the world, let loose an arcing stream of pee that dampened the bed on which they were seated, and barely missed the knee of the G.U.’s favorite pair of Helmut Lang jeans. This was no big deal; Gunc’s been pissed on by kids nearly as often as he’s been pissed off by them. What was a big deal was how the mom responded, which was to simply say “Whoops”, grab a damp towel and pat the urine away. No losing her shit, no major apologies, no tears or shame. “We used to kind of freak out when he did that,” she said. “But then we realized, that probably wasn’t healthy. He doesn’t know about toilets or anything like that yet. So on the rare occasion that it happens, we just dry it up.” The G.U. couldn’t believe it. Perhaps his friend is on a mega-dose of Dilaudid (and isn’t sharing!?!)? Perhaps Obama’s promised course of change has already filtered down to the parental level. Or maybe his friend just happens to be a good mom. Whatever it was, Gunc offers kudos to all those folks who don’t run around as if their iPhone is on fire whenever their kid does something marginally odd, but un-problematic.