Awwww Medha omg thank you that means so much! And hey maybe that can be my pitch - wanna go through some of the hell of having kids without having them? Read my stuff!
Well then hold on to your hat, coz I cross-posted it! It is the first (and so far the ONLY) time I've felt inspired to do that. I'm not sure if you get notified or not, but in case you wanna read my intro about you, I'll pop it here:
"To this Substack newbie, Alex is a bit of a rock-star. His writing is funny, insightful, vulnerable, and very human. This is my favourite thing he's written so far. Which is why I wanted to share it with my favourite people!
There are a trillion brilliant writers of Substack and I promise to only send you what I consider to be the best of the best.
Oh Alex, I typically don’t care much for writing about parenting but yours is so delightful and funny.
My favorite: “I felt myself wanting him to see me upset so he’d feel bad and apologize.”
My other favorite: “Which means that if I model responding to hard big shameful feelings by storming off sulking, and then writing an essay about it a week later, he will too. And that, I cannot stand for. Writing is MY thing.”
You're learning, my brother, but take it a lot slower or you'll burn out before he's three! And make no mistake, three is the "Little Hitler" stage! It looks like you're self aware enough to get through all of it. As one who has two daughters and three grandchildren, you'll survive, he'll thrive, and you'll both be richly rewarded by this relationship!
Oof! When our kiddo (who just turned 10... WHAT THE HELL) was that age, she could not separate/differentiate us. Dad and stepmom were a single unit. Mom was another unit (makes sense...she was in another home). We were either "Daddyain" or "AinDada" which sounded an awful lot like "without dada" in Hebrew. Now that she's 10 she tried to tell me that I've only known her since she was 3 years old. I was livid! "3 months! 3 months old! I picked out the cake for your first birthday!" I hollered like a petulant child. Parenting eventually helps us grow up... I'm told.
Yeah, what the hell! Mine are 32, 30, and 27 and I'm still trying to grow up. I'm still as as sensitive as one of those plants that curl up when you so much as breathe on them. And I still worry just like when they were first learning to drive, or they went to Europe as a college freshman (!). I want to offer advice and rescue them from every difficulty they face, but now that's not my job. I have to let them be adults, on their own, and let go. I hope I get to be a grandparent some day so I can love and worry some more, though. Or maybe learn not to worry?
It depends on whether I would rather bite my tongue or be yelled at. Ask yourself how you responded to advice from your parents in your twenties. Or teens. Basically, there is a window of time when you can speak to your children and they might listen. It's roughly from 5 to 12. Starting about 14 or 15, puberty, peers, and social media take over. Oh and under no circumstances let you child have a cell phone before then. If ever. Yours in laughter.
Humor is a magnificent tool for redirecting that type of behavior. When my youngest started doing that with me (and trust me, she was doing it intentionally to observe my reaction, see: https://bvulpes.net/your-children-arent-trying-to-piss-you-off-theyre-confirming-that-you-get-pissed-off-at-them/), I eventually developed the presence of mind to turn it into a game. "Oh, so your brother, that's...mama, right? and that lady over there? Daddy? And does that make me...TALLULAH?!"
Which both of the kids found uproarious and is a game we play to this day.
I'm no improv-er, but learning to "yes and" with kids is an incredible tool for working with them. It shows that you are interested in them and their creative output, and are willing to enter into their creative worlds.
Good luck on this journey, two is tough. I prefer "threenager", and mine's definitely in that space right now. Looking for every possible way to wind everyone up. I just keep repeating to everyone in the house "she's just confirming that she knows how to push your buttons. It's an opportunity for you to practice learning to moderate your behavior under stress, and an opportunity for her to refine her worldview." Which goes over the 7.25 year-old's head, but perhaps it'll stick and be useful to him later in life.
I deeply empathize with this story from an entirely different angle: my best friend moved in with us last year for about 9 months while he baked a real estate transaction. At one point my daughter started calling him "two-Daddy", and I was so sad until I reframed it into something like "how wonderful is it that she's got so many strong male figures around and she loves and trusts them and feels loved by them as well".
wise words Benvamin, thank you.I have 10 years of improv experience and yet somehow, when ur scene partner is ur dumb lil kids it sure does get hard lol
lol try thinking about it as weaponizing all the tools you already have to divert them. remember, they are trying to box you into a predictable set of responses to their button-pushing. to the extent you can respond unpredictably, and turn everything into a game, they will default less and less often to triggering you into the emotional states they are comfortable triggering you into. instead, everything becomes an opportunity to enter into a space of collaborative play.
nah tv is super contentious at our house. i've finally capitulated on an actual television and now have to go set something up that preserves the illusion of choice while only rendering pre-approved options like the really old school psychedelic "dangerous" sesame streets
i also like "science do not copy" (and hope it's okay that i copied THAT part)
"Dadagate"!!!!!
"heir to the Dobrenko fortune (pending)"!!!!!!
"mini Rodney Dangerfield my son"!!!!!!!!
"my close personal friend and mentee Sheryl Crow"!!!!!!!
the hits keep coming!
"Wilder, I am your Dada" <-- THERE IT IS!
"If I want to be Wilder’s dada, I must model how to be my own dada" <-- there it ALSO is!
there's a lot of there there. there, there. (hear, hear?)
thank you for sharing, friend!
love,
myq
PS i answer your questions now:
1) Do you or have you ever had parents? What’s that like for you?
yes! weird! i mean, varying between normal and weird. like, at first, it just Was. then when i was in college i was like, hey these people are People! and now, we're all people. kind of. i think.
2) Do you or have you ever had children? Do they hate you and if not why?
i don't and they don't. because i love them and myself.
3) Are there any wise phrases or advice you can share with me and the world about how to not fall apart when your kid calls your wife ‘dada’?
words are symbols that don't necessarily accurately represent the concepts they symbolize. in fact, they almost (maybe always) never do. regardless of what wilder calls you, you ARE dada. you are his father. you are you. you are alex dobrenko. what he says cannot take that away from you. your relationship is. your love is. love him. love yourself. also maybe ask him who you are, and maybe you'll get a cool new name out of it.
4) How was your holiday did you make any resolutions have you broken them yet?
i saw the sound of music with my mom. i love music. i have not made resolutions but i have done pushups every day and read 10 pages of proust every day at least and played my guitar almost every day and those are things i wanted/want to do.
thanks for asking! i love you! PS email coming at you soon!
I swear my four year old daughter's super power is the ability to completely destroy me emotionally and psychologically in mere seconds - but her second super power is the ability to completely heal all wounds and make me feel like I'm THE COOLEST EVER equally as quickly. The terrifying thing is that I think she has only recently come to realize even a portion of her abilities. But I suppose that's the big L-O-V-E for you. Makes me wonder if I ever had the capacity to do this to my parents?
Welcome to parenting. This time around you get to be the parent. It's nature's justice for all the pain we inflicted on our parents. And nature's reward for making it to this stage where we get to feel the strongest feelings ever possible! Parenting is where we learn useful skills like patience, forgiveness, endurance, and repentance (for those times when we fail at the others). Did I mention self-sacrifice? But as you so aptly described, there is plenty of love, joy, and laughs too.
Oh my gosh, I can't even begin to state how much you've hit the nail on the head with this one. Natalie goes through "Mama" and "Dada" phases -- some hours/days/weeks, MAMA is the only one who can do things for her (anything and everything under the sun -- reading books, getting snacks, helping her wipe)....and then, suddenly, with no warning, it'll flip flop. And Dada is the only one that she'll let do anything near her. Screams "NO MAMA" if I try to talk to her. The sense of hurt and rejection after one of those "NO MAMAs" is something I was not prepared for as a parent. Thanks for adding laughs and poignancy to something that can be so painful to witness and be a part of. Hang in there. I'd like to tell you it gets better.......but it hasn't for us yet. It probably will eventually, though?......
Hahaha I just read this out loud to Lauren and we’re dying. I am glad I’m not the only one who gets completely destroyed at the NO MAMA NO thing. Like, it should not be this hard to handle and yet - it feels like the most primal and painful thing and frankly? I am reaching out to Science to see if something can be done
A new lurker here...perhaps a few more posts with clever clickbait subscribe buttons...this was great...raised three boys...best to just think of them as imperfect versions of adults and we all know how broken lots of us end up.
And ANYONE with the willingness to write about it means they are genuinely examining life as it speeds by. You and your son will benefit from that regardless of what he calls you :)
One of my great interests is how our minds work. The coolest bit of research and insight is that speech evolved over a VERY LONG period. It seems to have been a means to formulate thoughts in our heads and one day we just started doing more than mumble. The awesome takeaway is that from brain wave monitoring, about 90% of all speech is INSIDE OUR HEADS and a personal conversation. What do you think Wilder is talking about when you can't even hear him??? Probably better not to think about it!
THE MORPH FROM FREE TO PAID: genius.
I’d be lying if I told you that it has garnered several paid subs, because the truth is that its brought in over 100 new paid submarines
Call me Ish
1) I have had parents! It has been quite complicated but good.
2) I have not had children! It has been quite complicated but good.
3) See #2.
4) I don't make resolutions, but my word for the year is MOVEMENT.
1. Good
2. Good.
3. Done.
4. Good. My word is ACCEPTANCE which I am, naturally, unwilling to accept
Hope I can MOVE you 2 ACCEPT
I am impressed by all the age math in this.
I had to hire an age mathematician to do it all
Aww you're not a fucknut (unless in an endearing way)
Ok Tysm
cheese break ftw
Sometimes you just need a bit of the cheese
Just ate some Brie it saved my lyfe
I think this is my favourite of your posts. I don't have kids, but you still made it super relatable for me and fun to read. Stellar writing by you!
Awwww Medha omg thank you that means so much! And hey maybe that can be my pitch - wanna go through some of the hell of having kids without having them? Read my stuff!
Well then hold on to your hat, coz I cross-posted it! It is the first (and so far the ONLY) time I've felt inspired to do that. I'm not sure if you get notified or not, but in case you wanna read my intro about you, I'll pop it here:
"To this Substack newbie, Alex is a bit of a rock-star. His writing is funny, insightful, vulnerable, and very human. This is my favourite thing he's written so far. Which is why I wanted to share it with my favourite people!
There are a trillion brilliant writers of Substack and I promise to only send you what I consider to be the best of the best.
Sit back, relax, relate and enjoy!"
So there. THAT'S how much I meant it.
aaaahhh holy crap thank you!! i did NOT get a notification or if I did i did NOT see it, so I am very glad you told me.
also this is the first and only time i've been called a rockstar. brb gonna go throw some tvs out of a hotel window, classic rock star stuff
no but seriously - this is so kind and beautiful thank you so much
Oh Alex, I typically don’t care much for writing about parenting but yours is so delightful and funny.
My favorite: “I felt myself wanting him to see me upset so he’d feel bad and apologize.”
My other favorite: “Which means that if I model responding to hard big shameful feelings by storming off sulking, and then writing an essay about it a week later, he will too. And that, I cannot stand for. Writing is MY thing.”
Wilder may have the best father ever.
Also, your metamorphosis ploy made me LOL.
Hahahah dang Anne thank you that means a lot especially coming from you!! Also, I am printing your comment out and pasting it all over Wilder’s walls
LOL
I bet Wilder would call you “dada” if you pulled up to the house driving TRASH TRUCK.
How much did he pay you to write this
Let’s just say I’m gonna have Paw Patrol toys for years to come.
YOUSUNUVA
You're learning, my brother, but take it a lot slower or you'll burn out before he's three! And make no mistake, three is the "Little Hitler" stage! It looks like you're self aware enough to get through all of it. As one who has two daughters and three grandchildren, you'll survive, he'll thrive, and you'll both be richly rewarded by this relationship!
Hahaha thank you C.L. ! Appreciate the wisdom
Oof! When our kiddo (who just turned 10... WHAT THE HELL) was that age, she could not separate/differentiate us. Dad and stepmom were a single unit. Mom was another unit (makes sense...she was in another home). We were either "Daddyain" or "AinDada" which sounded an awful lot like "without dada" in Hebrew. Now that she's 10 she tried to tell me that I've only known her since she was 3 years old. I was livid! "3 months! 3 months old! I picked out the cake for your first birthday!" I hollered like a petulant child. Parenting eventually helps us grow up... I'm told.
That is a crime. I will not be able to handle anything beyond age 2. I’m throwing in the towel.
ALSO omg Aden!!! Hello hi how are you
Hi! I’m good!! Hugs to you bud!
Yeah, what the hell! Mine are 32, 30, and 27 and I'm still trying to grow up. I'm still as as sensitive as one of those plants that curl up when you so much as breathe on them. And I still worry just like when they were first learning to drive, or they went to Europe as a college freshman (!). I want to offer advice and rescue them from every difficulty they face, but now that's not my job. I have to let them be adults, on their own, and let go. I hope I get to be a grandparent some day so I can love and worry some more, though. Or maybe learn not to worry?
Not worrying is an oxymoron or whatever word means it doesnt exist lol. don’t worry be happy is a lie.
Also, what do you do when you have advice for them as adults? Do you try to give it to them or na?
It depends on whether I would rather bite my tongue or be yelled at. Ask yourself how you responded to advice from your parents in your twenties. Or teens. Basically, there is a window of time when you can speak to your children and they might listen. It's roughly from 5 to 12. Starting about 14 or 15, puberty, peers, and social media take over. Oh and under no circumstances let you child have a cell phone before then. If ever. Yours in laughter.
Humor is a magnificent tool for redirecting that type of behavior. When my youngest started doing that with me (and trust me, she was doing it intentionally to observe my reaction, see: https://bvulpes.net/your-children-arent-trying-to-piss-you-off-theyre-confirming-that-you-get-pissed-off-at-them/), I eventually developed the presence of mind to turn it into a game. "Oh, so your brother, that's...mama, right? and that lady over there? Daddy? And does that make me...TALLULAH?!"
Which both of the kids found uproarious and is a game we play to this day.
I'm no improv-er, but learning to "yes and" with kids is an incredible tool for working with them. It shows that you are interested in them and their creative output, and are willing to enter into their creative worlds.
Good luck on this journey, two is tough. I prefer "threenager", and mine's definitely in that space right now. Looking for every possible way to wind everyone up. I just keep repeating to everyone in the house "she's just confirming that she knows how to push your buttons. It's an opportunity for you to practice learning to moderate your behavior under stress, and an opportunity for her to refine her worldview." Which goes over the 7.25 year-old's head, but perhaps it'll stick and be useful to him later in life.
I deeply empathize with this story from an entirely different angle: my best friend moved in with us last year for about 9 months while he baked a real estate transaction. At one point my daughter started calling him "two-Daddy", and I was so sad until I reframed it into something like "how wonderful is it that she's got so many strong male figures around and she loves and trusts them and feels loved by them as well".
ganbatte, daddy-san!
wise words Benvamin, thank you.I have 10 years of improv experience and yet somehow, when ur scene partner is ur dumb lil kids it sure does get hard lol
lol try thinking about it as weaponizing all the tools you already have to divert them. remember, they are trying to box you into a predictable set of responses to their button-pushing. to the extent you can respond unpredictably, and turn everything into a game, they will default less and less often to triggering you into the emotional states they are comfortable triggering you into. instead, everything becomes an opportunity to enter into a space of collaborative play.
hope it helps!
that helps a lot actually! thank you! also reminds me of bluey do yall watch that
nah tv is super contentious at our house. i've finally capitulated on an actual television and now have to go set something up that preserves the illusion of choice while only rendering pre-approved options like the really old school psychedelic "dangerous" sesame streets
ahhahahah omg thats so funny r u talkin the old ass sesame streets on hbo where all the episodes are in the snow for some reason?
dear alex,
this is a beautiful tale. thank you for sharing.
i love this:
"mama was dada,
mama was also mama,
and me?
I was nada."
it's poetry!
i also like "science do not copy" (and hope it's okay that i copied THAT part)
"Dadagate"!!!!!
"heir to the Dobrenko fortune (pending)"!!!!!!
"mini Rodney Dangerfield my son"!!!!!!!!
"my close personal friend and mentee Sheryl Crow"!!!!!!!
the hits keep coming!
"Wilder, I am your Dada" <-- THERE IT IS!
"If I want to be Wilder’s dada, I must model how to be my own dada" <-- there it ALSO is!
there's a lot of there there. there, there. (hear, hear?)
thank you for sharing, friend!
love,
myq
PS i answer your questions now:
1) Do you or have you ever had parents? What’s that like for you?
yes! weird! i mean, varying between normal and weird. like, at first, it just Was. then when i was in college i was like, hey these people are People! and now, we're all people. kind of. i think.
2) Do you or have you ever had children? Do they hate you and if not why?
i don't and they don't. because i love them and myself.
3) Are there any wise phrases or advice you can share with me and the world about how to not fall apart when your kid calls your wife ‘dada’?
words are symbols that don't necessarily accurately represent the concepts they symbolize. in fact, they almost (maybe always) never do. regardless of what wilder calls you, you ARE dada. you are his father. you are you. you are alex dobrenko. what he says cannot take that away from you. your relationship is. your love is. love him. love yourself. also maybe ask him who you are, and maybe you'll get a cool new name out of it.
4) How was your holiday did you make any resolutions have you broken them yet?
i saw the sound of music with my mom. i love music. i have not made resolutions but i have done pushups every day and read 10 pages of proust every day at least and played my guitar almost every day and those are things i wanted/want to do.
thanks for asking! i love you! PS email coming at you soon!
myq how am i just seeing this now what the hell have I been doing with your life
fun good question!
I swear my four year old daughter's super power is the ability to completely destroy me emotionally and psychologically in mere seconds - but her second super power is the ability to completely heal all wounds and make me feel like I'm THE COOLEST EVER equally as quickly. The terrifying thing is that I think she has only recently come to realize even a portion of her abilities. But I suppose that's the big L-O-V-E for you. Makes me wonder if I ever had the capacity to do this to my parents?
they are the superheros and villians both lol thanks for reading John!
Welcome to parenting. This time around you get to be the parent. It's nature's justice for all the pain we inflicted on our parents. And nature's reward for making it to this stage where we get to feel the strongest feelings ever possible! Parenting is where we learn useful skills like patience, forgiveness, endurance, and repentance (for those times when we fail at the others). Did I mention self-sacrifice? But as you so aptly described, there is plenty of love, joy, and laughs too.
Ugh i dont wanna learn those things they sound hard and i have no patience for them lol
Oh my gosh, I can't even begin to state how much you've hit the nail on the head with this one. Natalie goes through "Mama" and "Dada" phases -- some hours/days/weeks, MAMA is the only one who can do things for her (anything and everything under the sun -- reading books, getting snacks, helping her wipe)....and then, suddenly, with no warning, it'll flip flop. And Dada is the only one that she'll let do anything near her. Screams "NO MAMA" if I try to talk to her. The sense of hurt and rejection after one of those "NO MAMAs" is something I was not prepared for as a parent. Thanks for adding laughs and poignancy to something that can be so painful to witness and be a part of. Hang in there. I'd like to tell you it gets better.......but it hasn't for us yet. It probably will eventually, though?......
Hahaha I just read this out loud to Lauren and we’re dying. I am glad I’m not the only one who gets completely destroyed at the NO MAMA NO thing. Like, it should not be this hard to handle and yet - it feels like the most primal and painful thing and frankly? I am reaching out to Science to see if something can be done
A new lurker here...perhaps a few more posts with clever clickbait subscribe buttons...this was great...raised three boys...best to just think of them as imperfect versions of adults and we all know how broken lots of us end up.
haha thanks Mark - so true and yet somehow always I forget
And ANYONE with the willingness to write about it means they are genuinely examining life as it speeds by. You and your son will benefit from that regardless of what he calls you :)
One of my great interests is how our minds work. The coolest bit of research and insight is that speech evolved over a VERY LONG period. It seems to have been a means to formulate thoughts in our heads and one day we just started doing more than mumble. The awesome takeaway is that from brain wave monitoring, about 90% of all speech is INSIDE OUR HEADS and a personal conversation. What do you think Wilder is talking about when you can't even hear him??? Probably better not to think about it!