We recently watched the movie “Mr. Mom” at our house, and the boys didn’t get most of the jokes. When that movie was released nearly thirty years ago, it was such a rarity to have the dad at home with the kids, many of the “fish out of water” jokes were obviously funny. Now, it’s so commonplace, those same jokes don’t work.

Lots of dads stay at home with the kids, and lots of moms go to the office.

In fact, when my youngest son Sean was five or so, he told me that he wanted to be a mom when he grew up…so he could go out and get a job.

In the movie, however, the dad feels inadequate because he isn’t bringing home the bacon anymore. His friends feel sorry for him, and treat him like a loser. The moms in the neighborhood treat him like a pet, an oddity, a social experiment. He teaches them how to play poker. They teach him how to do things like cook and clean and take care of the kids. Because, you know, a man couldn’t possibly handle that. They also get him hooked on bonbons and soap operas, because, you know, that’s what wives do all day long.

I’ve been doing this job now for almost five years and I’ve never experienced anything remotely similar to that. There are several other dads around here in the same boat as me, and we seem to be handling all of our duties without the help (or pity) of the neighborhood ladies. I don’t watch soap operas, I don’t eat bon-bons, and my attempts at cooking, cleaning, and childcare have gone pretty well. Also, our kids don’t think it’s weird that I’m the one at home, and neither do the teachers at school, or our friends and neighbors. (Notice I didn’t mention relatives. My mom still think it’s a little weird, but she’s hard-core German).

There is one place, however, where I still run into this old school “Mr. Mom” phenomenon: At the doctor’s office.

I’m not sure why that is. There must be something about the sight of a father coming to a doctor’s office with a sick kid that sparks the mothering instincts of most women. I’ve seen women drop their own children to help me with mine. It’s very odd. Even my kids have noticed it.

“Why is she helping you, Dad?”

“To tell you the truth, I have no idea.”

And the nurses treat me like I’m a total moron. When we discuss inoculations, prescriptions or medical histories, they always, and I mean always ask me if I want to call my wife to double check. When I call the doctor’s office for advice, they actually ask me what my wife thought about the illness in question.

“Well, geez, you realize she’s not a doctor, right?”

What is going on here? Do I look like an unfeeling clod when I’m in the company of sick children? Am I describing symptoms like a health care novice? Is there a secret Mommy-Nurse language that nobody ever told me about? Is it a well known fact that men are incapable of handling illness?

I’ll be honest with you. It ticks me off.

And not just because they make me feel helpless or stupid. It’s mainly because, and believe me, it pains me to admit this…I usually do have to double check their medical histories with my wife, and my boys usually do prefer being with their mom (or even my mom) when they’re sick, and I usually do run all of the symptoms by my wife before I call the doctor’s office.

I just didn’t think it was that obvious.

We all have hot buttons when it comes to our kids; things that they say or do that can spark an immediate eruption from us. Everyone’s is slightly different, but I firmly believe that all of us have at least one hot button issue that other people think is slightly insane.

My dad’s hot button was the phrase: “I can’t help it.”

Any time one of us said “I can’t help it” to explain something we did or didn’t do, we buckled up, and prepared ourselves for a rampaging twenty minute lecture about the importance of self reliance and accountability. I can still see the shocked expressions of my friends when they witnessed his reaction to this phrase for the first time. Apparently “I can’t help it” didn’t inspire the same sort of outburst in their homes.

I have a hot button phrase too, but mine is slightly different. I am guaranteed to fly into a tizzy when one of my kids utters the following two word sentence: “I’m bored.”

This is usually how it works. The boys will ask me if they can play on their Wii or their video games or their computers, and I’ll say no.

“I’m soooo bored,” they’ll respond.

“You mean the only way you won’t be bored is if you play with electronics of some kind?” I’ll ask.

“Yeah,” they’ll claim, walking right into my trap.

“Fantastic!” I’ll say. “This is what I’ve been waiting for. Now we can finally get rid of all of these toys filling up every closet in this house. Get me a garbage bag, it’s time to purge.”

“NO!”

“Get me a garbage bag, boy. You just told me that all of these toys bore you. Well, that means you won’t be needing any of these boring toys, which is great! We can really use the storage space.”

“NO!” they’ll say. “That’s not fair!”

“Let’s see here, we’ve got about thirty games, boxes and boxes full of legos, bins and bins full of action heroes, not to mention a garage-full of balls and bats. Better make it five or six garbage bags. This is going to be fun.”

“Daaaaaad! NOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Just wait until you see the grateful expressions on the faces of the underprivileged kids when you give them everything you own. They couldn’t even dream of having all these toys.”

“Please, dad, no. Please, please, pretty please, stop.”

“You don’t want me to give these toys away?”

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Well, then let me ask you again. Are you bored?”

“No, dad.”

“Thank you.”

I didn’t even realize that this hot-button had reached the “I can’t help it” level until a few weeks ago.

Sean (age 7) had a friend come over to play, and after about an hour, I heard them talking on the stairs around the corner from me. That’s when I heard it. Sean’s friend said the magic words.

“I’m bored.”

Sean’s reaction told me I had officially turned into my father.

“Shhhhh,” he said. “Don’t let my dad hear you say that. He’ll completely freak out.”

Yes he will.

The arc of the father-son relationship is very much like a roller coaster ride.

It starts going uphill during infancy when the boy is naturally closer to his mother, up the incline click by click during the early childhood years when the boy bonds with dad, looks up to him, even idolizes him, and then around age 13 or so (slightly earlier or later with some boys), it reaches the apex, and suddenly goes crashing back downward at breakneck speed for several years while the son pushes away from the father and becomes his own man.

Sadly, the second incline usually doesn’t show up again until adulthood.

Right now my oldest son Tommy (14) feels the wind going through his hair, that “free falling” adrenaline is coursing through his veins, his hands are in the air, and he’s screaming “Yahoo! Look out world here I come.”

He basically can’t stand me at the moment. Everything I say is met with an eye roll or a sigh. Anytime I get near him he says “leave me alone.” Every joke I tell is “lame.” Any piece of advice I give him is completely ignored…often it spurs the opposite course of action.

Good times.

How did we get here? Well, believe it or not. Tommy and I used to be incredibly close. We didn’t really bond until he started walking and talking, but after that, we were best buds. In fact, one of the reasons I’m at home with the boys and Bridget is working is because I seemed to be the only person that could communicate with him.

When Tommy was five, he instituted something called “Play with Dad day.” Every Saturday was set aside for father-son time. This was non-negotiable. We would listen to music together, or go for walks, or just talk. Seriously.

When he was seven (shortly after Sean was born), I took him along with me to Mexico for a week long trip. Just the two of us. He still calls this the best week of his life.

When he was eight, all the kids in his class were asked to say who their hero was. The other kids picked athletes, statesmen, politicians, superheroes, or movie stars. Tommy picked me.

When he was ten he actually wrote a letter to President Bush suggesting “Play with Dad Day” be adopted as a national holiday. (I kid you not).

But he also started pushing me away when he hit double digits.

First, I began to annoy him. The jokes and antics that used to make him laugh became intolerable. I could see him just tuning me out when I offered the advice he used to seek out. And then when he turned 13, I saw something else in his eyes.

Contempt.

That’s where we are now. About the same place I was with my own father at the same age.

It breaks my heart, but I know it’s nearly unavoidable. If not now, then later. A son has to shake off his father and become his own man. I did it myself.

I just never realized it hurt my father quite this much while I was doing it.

Somebody once described being German to me as similar to being Vulcan. That is, you use logic to assess every situation, and emotion isn’t really a part of your life. I confess to more than my share of German/Vulcan-like tendencies.

Not much I can do about it. It’s in my blood.

My middle son Johnny, on the other hand, has seemingly inherited none of the German/Vulcan characteristics at all. He’s 100% raw emotion. Johnny has an unlimited amount of love and empathy, but if he has logic in his arsenal at all, I’ve yet to see it.

This becomes painfully obvious when he loses something. This week he lost his third or fourth calculator (I’ve lost count over the years–it’s probably more.) It’s not shocking that he loses things; we all do. The shocking thing is his complete inability to use logic to find it.

This is an actual conversation we had…

“Dad have you seen my calculator?”

“Did you lose another one?”

“If you haven’t seen it, then yeah.”

“Where did you look for it?”

“Everywhere.”

“Is it in your backpack?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t look there?”

“No.”

“Where did you look? Did you look in your locker at school?”

“It’s not there.”

“Did you look?”

“No, but it’s not there.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I always carry it in my hand.”

“Did you put it down somewhere?”

“No,” he said.

“Look at your hand,” I said. “Is it there?”

He actually looked at his empty hand.

“You obviously put it down somewhere, didn’t you?” I pointed out.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess.”

“Where would you likely put it?”

“I do my homework on the table here, and I keep my backpack over there,” he said.

“Did you look around between here and there?” I asked.

“No.”

“How do you know it’s even this house?” I asked. “Why couldn’t it be at school?”

“I didn’t see it today,” he said.

“Did you ask your teacher if she found one?” I asked.

“No.”

“Did you look around your classroom?”

“No.”

“And you haven’t looked in your backpack, your locker, or anywhere in this house, either, right?”

“Right.”

“Then how do you know it’s lost?”

“You haven’t seen it have you?”

Sigh.

The boy is twelve years old.

Maybe if I perform some sort of Vulcan mind-meld, he can give me some emotion so I can be a little more sympathetic, and I can give him the gift of logic.

He desperately needs it.

It’s become my favorite part of the day.

My seven year old son Sean and I bundle up against the elements, and then walk to school together every morning. We’re easy to spot, since these days we are literally the only ones on the sidewalk. He’s the short one. I’m the one wearing a giant Russian Army hat (a gift from my friend Kim–who got it in Russia last year).

I’ve seen the looks in the mini-vans driving by: “Who is that crazy dork in the Russian hat that makes his kid walk to school in sub-zero weather?”

It’s me. But it’s not my idea. It’s Sean’s. He sees it as a badge of courage.

“Dad,” he’ll say, “Look. Nobody else is walking again today.”

Nothing makes him happier. He sees us as the toughest dudes on the block.

I love the walk to school too, but not for the same reason Sean does. I love it because it seems like he saves up his questions and thoughts for this special Dad & Sean time. This is a sampling from this week…

*”Who came up with the word for ‘grass’?”

*”Why don’t you ever tell me to shush? My teacher says it all the time.”

*”I wish there was a button you could push that would make you learn how to read like (snap) that. Like a remote control or something.”

*”Did you know that basketball shoes make you a teeny bit faster? They don’t help you jump though.”

*”I had a dream last night that Tommy, Johnny & me were inside a video game. You weren’t in the dream, Dad. But maybe I just woke up too soon. You might have been in the next level.”

These conversations are my favorite. He’s at a perfect age. He is starting to question the world around him, but he’s completely unafraid of sounding silly or strange, and (unlike his brothers) he still likes his father.

And after a spirited debate across the frozen tundra about the best outfielder on the Cubs, or the legal ramifications of neglecting to put salt down on an icy sidewalk, he’ll always ask me the same thing at the corner before we reach school.

“Dad, can I wear your hat for a few seconds?”

I hand it to him, he puts it on over his coat hood, and sighs like someone dipping into a hot tub.

“Aaah.”

“OK, that’s enough,” I respond after a few seconds. “The bell’s going to ring. Time to get into school.”

Big Sean smile. Same big Sean smile every day.

“That’s a great hat, dad. Thanks for letting me wear it.”

Anything for my little comrade.

A few years ago we started sending out a family letter instead of a card. It’s designed to be a parody of the “my kids are the best ever” letters we often receive. Ours is what I like to call a realistic family letter. Warts and all. The following is our 2009 letter…

We hope this letter finds you healthy and happy during the holiday season.

We had an eventful 2009…

*In June the entire family went to New Orleans for Bridget’s family reunion and had a wonderful time…other than a minor fender bender by Bridget, an accidental elbow to Johnny’s nose by Sean, and Johnny’s threat to “turn Louisiana red with Sean’s blood.”

*In August Sean was so excited about his first day of first grade, he got up an hour before he needed, and waited with his backpack on. He now looks back at his innocence and naiveté with melancholy.

*Rick took each of the boys to a Cubs game. Sean had a perfect day. He was given a teddy bear when he walked in the door, an actual game ball by the Cubs catcher, and perfect seats behind the Cubs dugout from complete strangers. Johnny suffered through a torrential downpour, but was rewarded with one of the season’s most dramatic comebacks. Tommy saw the Cubs pitching staff give up twelve runs in four innings.

*Bridget and Rick have reacquainted themselves with the “teenager” language and can now speak it fluently again. Here’s a free one for those of you still struggling to understand the mono-syllabic grunts, groans, and exclamations.
Teenage Boy: “NOW?”
English: “Will this unlawful servitude never end?”

*Johnny got in trouble for constantly forgetting his homework, which led to a reprimand from Rick, who in turn, forgot where he parked his car the very same night.

*In October Tommy went to New York with his aunt Cindy. The transformation to the John Lennon look is now officially complete.

*A camping trip to Wisconsin was a great time until Rick lost his wedding ring in the river. Johnny noticed it first and exclaimed: “Mom’s going to kill you!”

*Bridget never did kill Rick (they celebrated their 18th anniversary in November), Johnny never did turn Louisiana red with Sean’s blood (they are actually sort of getting along these days), and though Tommy can be a tad grumpy, he did smile once in April and once in June.

Happy Holidays and have a wonderful New Year.

The Kaempfer family.

This is what Christmas morning was like at our house…

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, Happy Shoveling.

I’ll be back in 2010.

I heard the commotion coming from Tommy and Johnny’s room, so I peeked around the corner to see what was going on. Sean had a pile of seemingly random junk in his hand, and was distributing it to his brothers.

“Johnny,” he said, “do you want a plastic spider?”

“Sure.”

He took it out of Sean’s hand.

“Tommy,” Sean asked, “how about a plush frog?”

“Sure.”

It looked like Sean had grabbed everything he no longer wanted out of his own room and was giving it to his brothers. I was touched. The Christmas spirit had finally registered with my boys.

Before Sean was through, he had given out several golf balls, a handful of pencils and erasers, and various different plastic pieces of junk. His brothers were more than happy to take Sean’s items and add them to their own growing piles of junk.

“That was very nice,” I said to him as he emerged from their room. He had a big smile on his face.

“Thanks Dad.”

I went back to preparing dinner and figured that was the end of it. The screaming, squealing, and slamming that erupted five minutes later let me know I was wrong. Sean was standing outside of Tommy and Johnny’s slammed door, notepad in hand. He had tears in eyes.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“They won’t pay their bills,” Sean said.

“What do you mean?”

He showed me his notepad. Sean had scribbled Johnny’s name, followed by a price tag of “$8″. Another piece of paper had Tommy’s name. If I recall correctly, Tommy’s total was a little less.

“What is this bill for?” I asked.

“The stuff I just gave them. I need to earn some money so I can buy Christmas presents.”

“Did they know it was going to cost them anything?”

“No,” he admitted. “If they did, they wouldn’t have taken it.”

I appreciated his motivation, but not his methodology.

“Sean,” I said, “You can’t charge people for something without telling them in advance they will be charged.”

“You can’t?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not. You also can’t charge them for something that has no value.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

On the other hand, the more I thought about it, the more I realized this boy may have a career ahead of him on Wall Street.

Not all of my ideas are good ones. In fact, I’ve had a few clunkers that were doozies. This past week I was reminded of one of those doozies by five different people in the same week. I thought I would share it with you and allow you the chance to pile on.

In a previous life I was the executive producer of the John Landecker show on WJMK (104.3) in Chicago. Part of my job was to write lyrics to the wacky parody songs we recorded and performed with John’s band Landecker & the Legends. We did well over a hundred songs that were released on CD during our ten year run at the station.

Well, in 1999 we were coming out with our fifth or sixth CD, and I was disappointed that we hadn’t come up with a good Christmas song on any of the previous albums. So, I was listening to Christmas songs day and night, looking for inspiration. Keep in mind that virtually every Christmas song has been parodied a million times, and I was looking for something slightly different…and hopefully funny.

After having no success at all, I finally hit the sack. I must have had those darn songs running through my brain the whole night because I woke up in the middle of the night with a Eureka moment. I actually dreamed parody lyrics to the song “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer,” and wrote them down on the notepad next to my bed.

I didn’t even look at the lyrics again the next morning because I was convinced they were brilliant. Instead I handed them directly to John Landecker and asked him to record the song. He looked at me like I was crazy, but hey, we had a slot to fill on the album, so what the heck.

The reviews were universal. Everyone hated it. It might have been because of the subject matter. In the song I got inside the head of Blitzen the reindeer, and speculated how and why he might have earned the name Blitzen. It wasn’t a happy story. Poor Blitzen.

Here are the lyrics everyone hated…

Blitzen the unloved reindeer,
Who Santa just called reindeer 8,
Always had to fly behind Cupid,
Believe me that view ain’t great,
If Santa doesn’t love a reindeer,
They have an empty kind of fame,
At the reindeer bar drowning his sorrows,
Blitzen earned his name,
One Christmas back in the 70s,
Santa got pulled over,
Ol’ Blitzen was a bit too high,
The cop gave him a DUI,
Now he’s in a twelve step program,
And Blitzen is sober and clean,
But he’d be doing so much better,
If Cupid ever gave up beans.

This past Wednesday Landecker called me up on the air (he does the mid-morning show on WIMS in Michigan City) because there was a story in the news about a drunken reindeer. He said: “Remember that terrible song you wrote about that?”

Ah yes, I remember.

My kids were too small to understand the song when it came out, but they’ve heard it since, and they absolutely hate it. All three of them reminded me this week.

My wife calls it the second worst song I’ve ever written (behind the one I wrote about Jeffrey Dahmer).

I guess people take their reindeer very seriously.

Lesson learned.

My Cupid and Vixen parody idea will never see the light of day.

The most social of my boys, seven year old Sean, has always had a parrot-like ability to pick up the language. It was through Sean that I discovered my overuse of the word “apparently.” Apparently I said apparently all the time, because Sean picked it up and began to say it in every sentence.

“Apparently I have to go to the potty.”
“Apparently Pokemon cards are all over the floor.”
“Apparently Johnny wants to punch me because I say the word apparently too much.”

Sean and I went cold turkey together, and after a brief period of shaking and sweating, we came out of the other side of the apparently tunnel stronger than ever. We attend Apparently Anonymous meetings every Tuesday.

Apparently we’re completely recovered.

After Sean starting attending school all day (he’s in first grade now), a new word replaced “apparently.” He now says the word “Snap!” a thousand times a day. This word doesn’t have the utility of “apparently,” but it can be used in quite a few situations.

It can be an exclamation of regret (”Snap! I forgot my mittens.”), an exclamation of delight (”Snap! French Fries!”) or a valuable part of a gloating song and dance (”Oooh Snap! You got pwnd.”)

That’s another new word in our house: “pwnd.”

This ultra-cool 21st century word was introduced to the household by my 11-year-old son Johnny. It’s his favorite word.

“Pwnd” has various different uses. An individual can “pwn” an opponent in a debate by presenting an argument that simply can’t be countered. He can be “pwnd” in a game by decisively outsmarting his opponent. And, in rare cases of total domination, the victor is able to bask in “pwnage.”

If the “pwnr” is Sean, you’re sure to hear the word “Snap!” during the pwnage aftermath.

Apparently he really likes that word.