As a general rule, all English majors are fueled by the same basic elements: Pringles, Little Debbie snack cakes and a crushing set of insecurities. And TMZ. We are not an outdoor breed, and as such shouldn’t ever be expected to participate in activities that involve dirt, shirtlessness or roughhousing of any sort. We also have poor motor skills and tend to struggle with things like 1) upper body strength, 2) lower body strength and 4) math.
But we have positive qualities too, such as our ability to write self-help articles. Which brings us to today’s column, in which we will examine the practice of writing for a living and how it relates to fatherhood. There’s nothing quite like theresponsibility for another human life to really drive home the point that, by nature of the fact that you’re an English major, you don’t know how to do anything. Yet, as a father, you’re expected to have all the answers – especially if you’re having a little boy. There are things that you as a father need to teach your son. Tough things. Manly things. Things you know nothing about, like carburetors and leaf blowers and … what do you call those things again? The ones that are always denting your car when you’re not looking? Wives.
No, you don’t know about any of that stuff because you, the English major, were too busy crying over Artax dying in the Swamps of Sadness to learn anything useful growing up. While the other little boys played soccer and earned their Boy Scout badges, you spent your summers pretend-making out with Winnie Cooper in your elbow and trying in vain to get past Soda Popinski on Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.
But it’s important not to let the past get you down. Just because you never learned how to “change a tire” or “fix a leaky faucet” or “develop pectoral muscles” doesn’t mean you’re not fit to be a proper male role model. Your son will simply have a different kind of father figure to look up to and emulate. The kind that has Lady Gaga on his iPod. On the plus side, by the time everyone’s kids are all grown, yours will be able to punctuate circles around the rest of them. Sure, he might be plump and dateless, but he’ll be able to write a sonnet like it’s going out of style. Which it undoubtedly has.
While some little boys grow up with images of their fathers fighting crime and rescuing kittens from burning buildings and felling trees with their bare hands, your kid will have visions of you curled up on the couch with a laptop balanced on your stomach, watching reruns of What Not To Wear when you thought no one was looking. But in your sedentary state, you’ll be able to teach him such invaluable manly lessons as 1) A scoop top and an A-line skirt can have a slimming effect on the hips, 2) It is too possible to make a meal out of Easy Cheese, and 3) As long as you’re wearing sweatpants, things like tissues and napkins will always be redundant.
Some little boys learn how to fish, or build furniture, or design little wooden racecars that speed down the track and win first prize like the one in that Subaru Forester commercial. You know the one I’m talking about. The one that makes you feel like a horrible father, even if you’re a teenage girl, for not knowing how to help your son build a car like that. Well, winning first place in the Pinewood Derby might seem nice for some kids, but it’s not in the cards for yours. Your son is going to enjoy advantages of a different variety. Other fathers could teach him how to drive a stick shift or properly grill a steak. I guess that’s exciting, if you’re into “knowing” how to “do stuff.” But only you, the English major, can teach him the crucial, panty-dropping art of correct semi-colon usage; you can also teach him the best way to hand a credit card to the plumber, how to eat his weight at Hot Diggity Dog and, most importantly, how to hide it from his wife when he gets home for dinner.
In summation, English majors have nothing to fear when it comes to fatherhood, apart from the certainty of failure. But other than that, you’ll do just fine. And who knows? If you keep your child focused on the right kind of activities, maybe in a few years he can show you how to knock out Soda Popinski.
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