Brett Berk

The Gay Uncle took a (long) subway ride out to Coney Island yesterday because a) it was his boyfriend’s birthday, and that’s what he wanted to do, and b) they’re talking about closing down Astroland again and he wanted to ride on the Cyclone at least one more time before he dies (or simply die riding on the Cyclone). Fortunately, it was a perfect day–sunny, clear, and breezy. Also fortunate was the fact that the copious quantities of pizza and beer that G.U. consumed had little impact on his enjoyment (NOTE: the one-to-one beer-to-slice ratio does not work for the number four.) He strolled the boardwalk. He rode the coaster (twice!) He even went to the Aquarium and saw a mother walrus and her baby (a strange term for a being that was born at 112 lbs). The problem came on the return trip, when a three year old boy boarded the subway with his mother and grandmother and proceeded to SCREAM at the top of his lungs for about eleven stops. He wasn’t in pain. No one was molesting him. He didn’t have to go to the bathroom. He didn’t even seem tired or angry. He was simply screaming. Loud. Very loud. For no reason. And how do you think his mommy and granny reacted? They did NOTHING. Not a stern glance. Not a weak suggestion to please use an inside voice. Not even a hollow threat that if he didn’t stop yelling right now, they would never go to Coney Island/visit Grandma/ride the Q train ever again. Now, the Gay Uncle hasn’t had much luck correcting parents’ behavior on the train, so he kept his big monkey mouth shut. But he had secret fantasies of using some of his patented methodologies on the child: ones that are not in his book, and involve lead weights, wire, duct tape, honey, and fire ants.

The other afternoon, the Gay Uncle was out in his yard studying the new growth on his forsythia–another of his compulsive daily habits–when he heard a strange rumbling. Imagining it might be a logging truck or ATV-er, he prepared his best scowl, but was surprised to see an eleven year old girl on a pink bicycle coming down the road. Unless she weighed about four hundred pounds, or was in terrible gastric distress, she had no right to be making this noise, and he stared at her, trying to figure out what was up. He finally recognized her as an unfortunately pie-faced little neighbor child–who had, happily, finally started growing into her head–and smiled and started to wave, pleased to see a kid enjoying the outdoors in a free-spirited and unstructured way. Realizing the tremor was unconnected to her locomotion, he even thought to warn her of the eminent approach of a tractor or bulldozer from her rear. But it was then that he noticed the true source of the noise. It was her father, trailing about fifteen feet behind her in a Bobcat Utility Vehicle like the one pictured above: a gasoline powered, four-wheel drive, go-anywhere golf cart. The Gay Uncle’s scowl returned. It wasn’t just the unnecessary carbon footprint that outraged him. Or the dorkiness of an gentleman farmer/urban second-home owner driving one of these down a public road. It was the fact that the dad was following this kid around at all while she rode through our rural streets. The G.U. recently recorded a piece for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered critiquing the short tether that contemporary parents keep on their tweens; a British study claimed that a full third of 11-15 year olds in the U.K. have never been allowed outside of the house alone. He strongly advocates letting your youth off the leash. Kids this age need unstructured free time away from their folks to make sense of the world and improvise responses to new input. If we don’t want them to become a part of Generation XL, they also need a space bigger than their living room to roam around in. This girl was certainly getting some exercise, but under the constantly prying eye of her father, who kept his gaze trained on her rear tire as she motored up the hill. Gunc wondered if he was simply escorting her somewhere, but he saw them pass by a few more times that afternoon and since, as if he was running a horse. Note to parents: teach your almost-teenagers how to navigate the world so they don’t live in fear of it, and give them some room to become themselves. The world is honestly not as dangerous as you think.

The Gay Uncle was recently invited to a friend’s country house for dinner. He got there early so that he could see his friends’ adorable kids Lou (2) and Henry (4 months). When he arrived, the family was out on their big elevated deck, which wraps around two sides of the house and affords an serene view over the treetops and to the local scenery. But all was not calm up above. As he approached, he heard conflict brewing. G.U.’s ears pricked up. He loves familial conflict. He thinks it’s usually pretty funny to watch parents engaged in a battle with someone one-fifth their size and with one-fifth their brain power. Plus, it often affords him an opportunity to insert his nosy, know-it-all self into the proceedings. “Louie. Stop throwing things off the deck,” his friend Peter shouted at is son. “You know that makes daddy angry. No, Lou. No. No. No!” Gunc saw a tiny sandal drift down to the ground, followed by a second sandal, and then some sort of minor barbecue tool. Knowing that nothing makes a straight guy angrier than someone messing with his grill equipment, Gunc was prepared for a severe punishment to be doled out, but his presence seemed to mediate things. “Louie just can’t seem to resist throwing things off the deck,” his friend explained, running down the stairs from the deck to say hi–and to pick up the shoes and tools and bring them back up. The Gay Uncle nodded. He’d seen this kind of problem many times before: parents attempting to stop their child from doing something that is exciting, interesting, and harmless without offering an explanation, time for adjustment, or an acceptable replacement activity; and then setting themselves (and their kid) up for the same thing to happen again by retrieving the ammunition an reloading the gun. He knew just what to do. “Throwing stuff off the deck probably one of the funnest and most satisfying things a kid can experience. Instead of fighting it, you just need to give him some parameters–like a limited bunch of things that are okay for him to throw–and get him involved in the clean up–picking them back up. Then, he’ll satisfy himself and leave you out of it” Gunc proposed giving Louie a small bucket of stuff–stuff big enough to see (so it doesn’t end up littering the lawn), like balled up old socks, mango pits, or brightly painted acorns. Then Lou could toss these off, bring his bucket down, find and retrieve his thrown objects, and repeat the process ad infinitum without involving or annoying anyone else. G.U. is not sure how this went–the boy went in for a bath, and the wine was brought out before the tactic could be put into practice–but he bets it worked. [For more examples, and a template for dealing with these situations, see his patented E.A.R. Explain, Adjust, Replace or C.O.O. Co-Option Option methodologies in his book, “The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting”]

The Gay Uncle spent the day with two of his “nieces” the other day, his close friend Danika’s girls, Erica (8) and Anna (5). He was minding them while their mom attended some important meetings in New York, and they had a great time: going out for lunch, exploring the NYC Firefighter’s museum (Anna wants to be a firefighter–when she grows up…or now), and sampling different beverages at every stop they made. After a few hours of wandering around the city, Anna started complaining that she was sick of walking. G.U. is aware of kids’ capabilities, and knew she could hack the remaining distance, so he simply informed her that they’d be done when they got back. This didn’t satisfy Anna’s need for engagement and so she began calling out with each step. “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow! My legs are tired. Ow. My legs are tired.” Gunc does not abide complaining, but since the moans got more pronounced as they progressed, he felt obligated to let Anna know his position. “Anna,” he said, “we’ll be there soon. But you should know that whining doesn’t work on me.” Anna stopped and looked up at him. “I’m not WHINING!” she whined loudly. A trio of pedestrians next to them burst into laughter. G.U. himself chortled. Anna’s older sister looked up at him. “Sure sounded like whining to me,” she said.

The Gay Uncle is in Portland, OR today, home of unseasonably warm weather, a consulting project he’s working on for the PBS Kids show “Curious George”, and his cousin Bizzie and her two adorable sons, Zeus and Whitman. He met up with them yesterday by the river for an Obama rally, where they got to see Barack deliver a stump speech in person–which definitely beat out watching it on YouTube, except for the fact that on YouTube, one don’t have to sit through a forty-minute mix-tape of bad 90’s alternative hip-hop at top volume before listening (Gunc never realized how much he HASN’T missed the oeuvre of Arrested Development.) G.U.’s little cousins were dressed in Obama t-shirts they made at home, which read, “Tell Your Mama to Vote for Obama”, and after the little rascals patiently sat through the rally–which, save the idea of being able to say “I was there” at college, was not exactly child friendly– we went out for ice cream, where Whitman, the three year old, ran into one of his friends from school. He and this little girl were cross-chatting while the grown ups discussed plans for the remainder of the day. When G.U. tuned in to what the boy was saying, it turned out to be this:

“So, Sophie. Are you going to vote for Obama?”
Sophie nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Now, you ask me,” Whitman instructed.
“Okay. Whit, are you going to vote for Obama?”
“Yes. For sure.” He paused to lick his dripping cone. “You have to make sure your mom and dad vote for Obama too.”

And they say our youth is not politically engaged.

The Gay Uncle and his boyfriend have been together for eighteen years (each one of them blissful, and better than the last) and while they personally have no desire to get gay-married, they believe that every homo who wants to, should be able to–easily and with full state sanctioning. So the news out of California pleases him. He’s especially pleased for all the CA gay and lesbian parents out there, who will now be able to exercise full joint-ownership rights over their kids. And for Ellen, because he thinks she deserves all the happiness she can find. He worries only that it will set off another nuptial epidemic like the one he experienced in his early 30’s when all the straights got married, an exhausting (and expensive) party-train that was rivaled only by his time on the seventh grade Bar Mitzvah circuit, when he attended at least one–and sometimes as many as four–events every weekend. One can only to pretend to enjoy dancing to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” so many times; it is not a dance song.

The Gay Uncle doesn’t really know what to say about this invention. It certainly seems like it might be a good idea for protecting a gestating kid-let in case of a sudden vehicular swerve or panic stop. And it’s probably more comfortable than having the belt strapped across your swollen stomach. But he finds something vaguely…creepy about the text on the website. Take this description of pregnancy for example “Expecting? You must be excited, anxious, you have a life growing inside you, he or she will be your friend, soul mate, best friend for the rest of your life, you will laugh, you will cry together”. Um…friend? Best friend? Soul mate!?! Gunc’s not really certain that’s the healthiest way think of your child. What if you don’t even have the same favorite color, or like the same kinds of movies? You still have to deal with one another for life. Or this one about how the product works, “by removing the seatbelt away from the abdomen area and letting your baby bounce on the mother”s womb which will naturally absorb the shock.” The product was apparently designed by “three Australian bio-mechanical engineers”, which seems suitably scientific, but it all comes across as kind of…Dead Ringers-y: the G.U. can’t help but imagine these men gathered around their lab, gleefully pulling on all the innards from a woman’s body in an attempt to find which one is the most elastic. Then there’s the whole “As Seen on TV” imprimatur, which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Do any of you have one of these? Do you absolutely love it? Before he puts it on his list of crazy and useless baby crap, The Gay Uncle wants to hear about your experiences.

You’ve seen them on pets. You’ve seen them on cars. You’ve even seen them on celebrities like Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton. No, your Gay Uncle is not talking about studded leashes, gingham fabrics, or conversions to run on recycled french fry oil. He’s talking about…Electronic Monitoring Systems! According to the venerable New York Times the Dallas school district has had great success in reducing truancy by furnishing its tardiest and/or school-skippiest students with little portable global positioners, which can then be monitored from a central location. The Gay Uncle only skimmed the article in the interest of making fun of it here, so he’s not sure if the devices are equipped with the ability to send an electric shock from the home base–or if a youth can text or “chat” on them–but he does know that, like all neo-fascist surveillance systems, they’re being touted as somehow having “saved lives.” So he figured, since all the other grotesque accoutrements of teenage life–attitude, Gossip Girls, slutty clothes–are creeping down into the world of pre-schoolers, why not usher in one that can actually do some real good, and design an early-childhood version? It would free contemporary parents from myriad debilitating worries: their kid being abducted by a stranger, their kid falling into an empty pool or steam tunnel, finding the location of the nearest Old Navy. Gunc suggests either hiding the device in the folds of a child’s clothes or–for more permanent protection–simply placing it under the skin in an un-invasive location like the nape of the neck or that weird empty spot just in front of the ankle bone. He’s looking for investors. And product names. Any ideas?

The one single maternal holiday is over. And just like the morning after your wedding or promotion or birthday, the blessed event has transpired, and you’re left feeling…HOW? There are those lucky folks for whom special occasions are sustaining and life-affirming, propelling them into a glorious and optimistic future. But (if you’re anything like the Gay Uncle) right about now, you’re overwhelmed by a sense of disappointment that things did not go at all how you wanted or expected them to. G.U. feels your pain (he hid in the bathroom and cried at his Bar Mitzvah for just this reason.) In fact, he wants to share, even revel in it. Send him your stories of Mother’s Day TRIUMPH and DESPAIR. The winning story in each category wins!

-For TRIUMPH, the prize is an inscribed personalized copy of his book The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting.
-And since he believes in projecting pain outward, for DESPAIR, it’s a personalized Gay Uncle-authored email, sent directly to your partner and/or kids, calling them on the carpet for ruining your one special day.

Have at it in COMMENTS below.

One day out of the whole freaking year is not enough for the nation’s mommies. So the Gay Uncle is officially endorsing the idea that Mother’s Day be turned into a WEEKEND LONG CELEBRATION. This will give moms time to accomplish all of the things that are required of them during the holiday: Being taken out to a very expensive dinner; Receiving numerous bouquets of gorgeous flowers; “Relaxing”; Pretending to enjoy the rubbery eggs or pancakes that the kids cooked themselves for breakfast-in-bed; Pretending to enjoy the idea of eating in your bed at all; Having sloppy sex with the partner of your choosing; Picking crumbs of rubbery eggs or pancakes off your back after the sloppy sex; Getting a professional back-rub (not one of those sucky, one-handed, one-minute jobs family members dole out as if they’re doing you a favor); Sleeping in; Skipping the kids’ t-ball game to have a champagne lunch with the girls; Watching a greatest hits clip of all the best movie makeovers; Doing the laundry.

CONTEST: Let Gunc know how many of the items from this list you receive this Mother’s Weekend. The mommy with the most wins a free autographed copy of the book. The mommy with the least receives a free snarky scolding email sent by G.U. directly to their partner and/or children (for real!)