I’m a fan of Matthew Baldwin’s Defective Yeti. Today at lunch I read some of his published work in the zine The Morning News, and I recommend you check out his short article, In Praise of Loopholes and the collaborative piece, New Fathers, Round III—they’re hilarious.
MB: One mistake I guess we’ve made is in encouraging our son to be completely fearless. My wife and I were raised in the 70’s, when Sesame Street and albums like “Free to Be You and Me” were all “rah-rah, build up your self-esteem, you can do anything, don’t be afraid!”
We’ve now passed that mentality on to our child, who now suffers from the illusion that he is bulletproof. The other day after his bath I put him on our bed to dress him in his jim-jams and then, on a lark, threw the towel over his head. He reacted by laughing, leaping to his feet, and running full-bore in a random direction. When he went over the edge of the bed he hung there for a moment, Elmer Fudd style, legs bicycling in mid-air, before hitting the ground with a heart-stopping Wa-UMP! Tears were shed, hugs were administered, bruises were admired…and then, when I put him back on the bed, he was off like a shot, looking over his shoulder like, “OK, but can you catch me NOW?”