I am the Unit Parental

I am the Unit Parental. I'm a 35-year-old dad living in Brooklyn, New York. I live with my wife and our two and a half year old son, a.k.a, the Life Force Sucker. And to put it bluntly, while I love my kid, I hate fatherhood.

Responsibility... patience... unconditional love... selflessness... Ask anyone who knows the Unit Parental! Parenthood is not for me!

Sure, there are good times. Like, once in a while, when the little guy is latched on and sucking away heartily at my life force, I can lull myself into thinking, this is good, this is the meaning of life. I mean, in some ways, having your living essence leeched right out of you can produce warm and fuzzy feelings... It can! Trust me. But at the end of the day, I can't help but come to the same conclusion: Fatherhood is wrong for me.

And so, I am bitter. I am bitter for having been fooled into thinking I was ready for this. I have no one to blame but myself. I lied to myself. Told my self I was a real adult.

But it must also be said that my loving and conniving wife played a part in this, THE GREATEST CON JOB of our young century--she should know me by now. I am a man-child, still protean myself. But she said, do you want to be 45 when we have our first kid?

I should have said, what the hell do you mean "first?" And I should have said, yes, why not, 45 sounds about right... that's what all our friends are doing.

Yes, living in New York City, I have the terrible fortune of being the first, and still only, one of my friends to have become a Parental Unit. That's right: my friends, who officially became insufferable after my wife and I had our little son, are busy doing that New York City thing: They are dragging their EARLY TWENTIES into their VERY LATE THIRTIES.

Here's a sampling of the things they still insist on talking about:

1. Man, we got so wasted last night... The amount of drinks we had was just EPIC!
   
2. We're having dinner at our place for some folks, and the Life Force Sucker is totally invited... We'll start with drinks around 9.
   
3. We'd love to get a cabin with you at Hunter Mountain this winter. But, you're going to bring your kid's nanny right?
4. We saw this great band last night in Williamsburg.

Hello? Message to my hipster wanker friends: All the alcohol and late nights is doing terrible fucking things to your skin! You have Clintonesque eyebags! You are all looking a little worn down--like Sid and Nancy worn down. It is not SEXY. Nothing about your perpetual adolescence and your skinny jeans (I'm talking to my GUY friends here...) is fashionable. Despite whatever messages you are getting form Spin or Rolling Stone, degeneration is not fashionable. And irony fits the young best... And to borrow an expression from another crotchety old man (Sen. McCain) you, my friends, are no longer young! Accept it! And join me in the love-filled pool of misery that is PARENTHOOD!!!

Ultimately, that's my goal for this blog. To catalog the lovely indignities of parenthood in New York City. And to get my friends to start reproducing.

To all the beautiful and stylish significant others of my dudely friends, you all have bravely closed your ears to the ticking of your biological clocks. But maybe you will not be able to turn a deaf ear to this other sound. Here it is: EEEEKKKKKSKSSSSSSEKKESKKKKSKSSSHEW...

What's that sound? you ask. I will tell you: That's the sound of your ovaries drying up, like that bag of seedless organic Fairway grapes, shriveling up in the back of your fucking fridge...

Reproduce!