Dear Diary: Masculine Child
So, it’s a boy. Megan and Ryan have narrowed the names down to a short list, but they’re “not sharing.” So we’re calling him “Irving.” The name was proposed by one of Ryan’s cousins, on Facebook, and swiftly rejected. But it’s too wonderfully improbable not to adopt pro tem, and, plus, what name could better suit the child of parents living in the Lower East Side? On top of everything else, there won’t be any other Irvngs. We thought, my daughter’s mother and I, that in “Megan” we had found a name that would occur to no one else. If I’m just as wrong about “Irving,” well — how fantastic will that be.
It was not, at any rate, a very productive day. I was busy every minute, but with amazingly sparse results, at least when I was sitting at the computer. I had a cold supper all ready when the parents-to-be arrived, but I didn’t serve it right away, because I couldn’t sit down. I was simply too hot. Whatever my skin temperature was, the subcutaneous heat felt like 145º, and no amount of standing in front of fans would cool me off.
Megan handed round a sonogram — taken only this morning. (How wonderful it was to have them to dinner on the very day of their Finding Out.) It was a head shot. The tyke has a recognizable profile, complete with an itsy-bitsy nose; and he has a lot of rather Alienish teeth, still lodged in his gums. Ontogeny recapitulates cinematography.
I asked Megan, how was she sure? She replied that the technician made a point of asking her if she’d noticed “the little boy parts.” We take it that the technician knew what she was talking about, what with doing this every day. In any case, Megan had indeed noticed the little boy parts.
When I sigh, “A grandson!” — which I do quite often (even though it hasn’t been twenty-four hours since I heard the news) — it is all about me. I know that, and celebratory spirits are dampened accordingly. The responsible part of my cortex understands that the only important thing is that Ryan and Megan will have a healthy child who’s disposed to be happy. I am also of the opinion that they will be unusually thoughtful and energetic parents as well as loving ones.
But there is a lot of stuff about being a man that I have never come to terms with — I’ve worked around it. Maybe every man does, every thinking man, anyway. I’m speaking of everyday masculinity, which in everyday peacetime is almost entirely a matter of bluffing. From time to time, though, strange situations come up, and how we have dealt with them lingers. It lingers, and we are either proud or ashamed. We realize that the strange situations were defining, even if we didn’t know that at the time. Being men, we keep score, even the guys like me who don’t like games. And we wind up with questions like this: Do I “deserve” a grandson?
The answer to that is clearly “no.” Life, as I’ve been reading all over the place lately, owes us nothing. And the child’s gender doesn’t factor in the one thrill that I’m looking forward to the most: when Irving reaches out to pull my beard. If he’s healthy, he will pull my beard with a linebacker’s singlemindedness, genuinely hoping to pull the hair right off my face. Disappointment in this regard will only make him pull harder, and — this is the best part — he will smile at me in the most friendly way all through the torment. What fun he’ll be having!
No: I most certainly do not deserve a grandson, and here’s why: I’m plotting to have a false beard made, one that will tear off in his hands. Won’t he be surprised! And I will still have a beard! It’s time to endow an analyst fund.