DADVENTURE: Author Panel - "Father Knows Worst"

Soccer let me have a couple of hours off Saturday morning to moderate a panel at the Texas Book Festival that went under the title "Father Knows Worst."  On the panel: novelist Dominic Smith, author of The Beautiful Miscellaneous; Alan Cheuse, known to most as NPR's book critic, also author of The Fires a collection of novellas, and Rob Wilder author of the memoir Daddy Needs a Drink.

All three are obviously thoughtful, articulate dads (10 kids total), and I enjoyed all the books.  Daddy Needs a Drink is hilarious and no-nonsense.  His perspective is a bit more approachable than the uber-hip Alternadad.  He's less "cool" than Neal Pollack, but more recognizable to me as somebody I might hang out with (he's a prep school teacher, for goodness sake).  Smith's novel about the average son of a genius dad determined to find brilliance in his boy was pure heartbreak, and so smart that I was completely intimidated.  I highly recommend all three books.

A couple of things that struck me about the discussion:

The usual assertion that fatherhood has changed got some push back from the old hippies in the audience.  There was one dude with a grey ponytail that seriously objected to any characterization of Boomer dads as being less engaged in the day-to-day grind of raising kids than today's fathers.  The panelists were forced into carefully avoiding any generalizations – which it tough because that's what most panels are about anyway.

It did serve to remind me that guys today aren't really inventing anything, we're popularizing a path that was pioneered by men in the last twenty years.  We're not the first "co-parent" dads; we're just the first generation where that is the basic expectation.  The norm.  So we should be a bit more humble, and a bit more grateful to the guys that went there before us. 

In a related point, Smith talked about the father figure of his novel (set in the 70s) as a "type" – detached, there but not there, elusive – that has shown up frequently in the novels of the last twenty years. He then wondered, where will literature go with all these involved dads?  How do we make villains of these dads that change diapers and take kids to play dates?

I feel certain that our children will work that one out just fine.

Then an audience member raised an interesting question.  She asked if the panelists regretted losing the air of mystery that the previous generation of fathers was able to maintain.  She observed that her own father was a fascinating enigma, whereas her own husband is completely and openly human to her kids.  "They know him completely," she said wistfully.  As if he had done something vaguely embarassing.

 I wish I could have stuck around to hear the author's repsonses, but I had to leave early to go to soccer game.

Clay Nichols, Family Correspondent:
Clay’s column, Dadventure, published twice monthly to Gather Essentials: Family, is a sure-fire guide to raising flawless, perfectly behaved, and always obedient children.  Yeah, right.
 
Clay is the co-author of Filmmaking for Teens: Pulling Off Your Shorts, an award-winning playwright, and the Chief Creative Officer at DadLabs.com, a fatherhood website.