Kids: Worth It? and Game Day Etiquette

by A Married Dude

I just read the advice column where one of the married dudes wrote some really sweet stuff about his kids. This is something the boyfriend and I have been talking a lot about and I need a third party to give me some advice.

My boyfriend and I have been together for five years. We’re probs gonna get engaged in another two, once I’m all done with law school and he gets his career on track. The subject of kids has been coming up lately in our conversations, which I think is not a bad thing because if you want to marry someone you damn well better make sure you’re on the same page about important stuff like popping out babies.

But here’s the thing: I’m not sure if I want them and he does. Don’t get me wrong: I love kids. I work with kids at my job. I love babysitting and hanging out with kids. But every time I’m in Target or something and hear some little shit screaming, “MOOOM MOOOM MOOOM WAAAH” I think to myself, “No. Way. Will I ever have children.”

So tell me, married dude with kids, is the obnoxious, exhausting part of being a parent worth it? Please don’t just tell me “Yes, because my kids are so cute!” The kids I babysit are cute as hell, and I still sometimes want to run to the hospital and get a hysterectomy on the spot because they’re so annoying. Everyone I talk to says, “I never knew what love was until I had a kid,” etc. Is this schmaltzy crap true? Will the late night feedings/never sleeping/wiping up poop/dealing with screaming children/dealing with snotty teenagers be worth the magical fairy dust feeling of parenting?

Guide me, wise married dude. Because this is something I definitely want to think about, even though it’s not happening any time soon. I don’t want to go further in my relationship, avoiding the topic, and then in 10 years my husband’s like, “Let’s have a kid!” and I’m like, “About that… no,” because that won’t be a fun conversation.

My wife and I made three kids in two years. Yes, my balls are amazingly talented. While we (yes, we) were pregnant with the twins, I was freaking out about the same stuff. What do I do when such and such happens? When will I sleep? How will I get out of the house in the morning? When will I ever be able to jack off without fear of scarring a child if they catch me? When will I see my friends? WHAT ABOUT WHEN ALL THREE ARE CRYING?

The answer to all of those questions is easily answered with a “fuck it, no kids,” but to be completely honest, all of the schmaltzy crap you hear about is completely true and weighs a shitton more than all of those worries put together. You can prepare all you want, read all the books you want, worry all you want, save all the money you want… No preparation can get you ready for the reality of having one, two, or three kids, but you won’t need any of it. You just do it. The things you’re worried about now means absolutely nothing compared to the things you won’t even imagine yourself caring about until that baby saunters out of your dandy vag.

Thankfully, you know people who have kids. Everyone knows people who have kids. When it’s awesome, they understand and high-five you, and you can look down your nose at them for having asshole kids. When it’s awful, they understand. And believe me, the kids you hear in Target, those are asshole kids belonging to assholes. Your kids, while sounding the exact same, are awesome assholes. Your only job as a parent besides the obvious, is to make sure your kids aren’t always assholes. Food, poop, clothes, all that stuff is common sense. Everything else is trial and error.

And regarding what you do when all three kids are crying? One of my best friends has four kids, including twins, and he said it best: “Don’t think about the times when all of them are crying at once. Imagine all of them laughing at once.”

Sold. Go have sex. A lot. Say my name out loud during, even.

I have a question, well a couple of questions, about Penis Problems.

I have recently encountered two (two!!!) young, attractive, healthy, virile looking men with the same/similar serious and chronic penis problems — namely, their peeps CANNOT get hard. Like at all. Not without the aid of pharmaceuticals (and even then … kinda … not so much :/). I realize that occasional impotence is pretty normal among young men, what with whiskey/coke dick, exhaustion, performance anxiety, etc., but in both cases this was something else entirely. When fooling around, these dudes seem really aroused and ready to go (and were maybe even more sexually aggressive than average), but none of this registers on their peeps. Not even a little bit.

The most recent of these two young men told me, in the course of disrobing, he has had this a problem “since childhood,” and being kinda shocked/not wanting to pry/feeling like it wasn’t really any of my business, I didn’t ask any more questions at the time. But I have questions!! And I am hoping that you, Dude, can help — not to diagnose!! But to put this in context for me?? Anecdotally speaking, is this, young healthy seeming men who cannot achieve/maintain an erection, a common thing?? Or am I a magnet for sexual dysfunction?

And in any case, any advice on how a lady should handle this kind of news from someone she is attempting to casually sleep with? I recognize that it would not be fun, as a young man, to have this conversation with anyone, and I would like to be supportive and compassionate without being weird or condescending.

And also, what do I do?? My encounters with both of these were actually pretty satisfying and enjoyable, because, at least in part, they were very attuned to my needs/desires, which was great, but also weird and lopsided feeling. Cause really I want to reciprocate! I get (a lot of!!) enjoyment out of returning favors, but in these situations, I am not sure how (/if) I can do that without making a big deal out of the issue.

I work in a pharmacy where I dispense a LOT of erectile dysfunction injections. Yes, guys stab their dicks before gettin’ in there. Most who do injections instead of pills do so because either pills don’t work, they’d kill them outright, or they’re afraid of the pills.

There are a large number of reasons why that shit happens, you even mentioned a few. But a few you might not imagine as being true are cigarette smoking, nerve damage, hormone imbalance, environmental toxins, childhood trauma, and for every one reason why there are another dozen undiscovered reasons for limp dick.

As much as the media, and guys you know, might say that shit ain’t common for younger duders, nowadays it’s more likely part physical and part psychological, but it’s more common than uncommon. Fortunately, there are other triggers for his own sexual release, it’s just they aren’t always an option when he hasn’t had an enema and you don’t have a strap on in your purse. Thankfully, it isn’t your issue to automatically know what you should do.

Because I am of the male species, and my penis is pretty much the only thing I connect with multiple times a day, I would say you have to keep in the moment no matter what the guy’s dick is doing. If he’s going at you with the awesome, give it back. If he can’t get hard, stay in character and put the dude to work on you. Yes, at the moment you realize he won’t be shafting you with the manpole, you have to scramble to get creative, but be selfish and ask, while romantically out of breath, what you can do for him.

It’s his mussel that isn’t in the moment along with you, your clamcake, and him. Put it back on him, ever so slightly of course, and find out what you can do to please him while he’s down tongue stabbing the black calypso triangle. I read that last one in a romance novel while in a doctor’s office with my wife while she was pregnant, fuck off.

Guys who suffer from erectile dysfunction have an issue, but communication, and a pinky up the asshole, might take the adventure past the uncomfortable and move it more towards the mutually erotic.

My boyfriend/best friend/love of my life is going to be a Navy SEAL. We want to get married, but he may be leaving soon for Basic Underwater Demolition School, like in about five or six months. If we are married, the Navy pays for me to move there with him and live in housing. If we aren’t, I may have to wait here for two years before we can have time to get hitched. How on earth do I bring up to my amazing and devoted boyfriend that we need to figure out a timeline, when he is dealing with not only the constant physical and mental stress of pre-training, but also the unpredictability of his schedule in the next half-year? It’s not that I want to force him into marriage NOW, it’s just that I honestly and sincerely want to be there in California with him to help take care of him, make him food, and push him through the emotional stress of the training program. I don’t want to be left behind, because I feel like my role could be very valuable for him. But lately he is so burnt out from all of his training that when I actually do get to see him, I don’t want to bother him with “big questions.” Meanwhile, I am stressing myself out wondering what he is thinking and what is going to happen to us. Blah. This is difficult.

No doubt, that sucks. The hardest part, in my opinion, is finding the right dude. If he’s the right dude, no amount of time apart or waiting patiently will matter once the future actually fulfills itself. I know a few guys waiting through medical school for their future-wife to be available to get married. The only comfort in those situations, and probably in yours, is that there are millions of people out there doing the same exact thing you’re doing. You aren’t the only person to experience this, believe it or not. What’s not shitty about that? You have a hundred shoulders to cry, yell, whine, or puke on.

One thing I’ve learned about hardcore shitty situations is that people who have gone through them actually WANT to help the people going through them currently.

I say offer to move with him unmarried or married. Cook, clean, do jumping jacks naked for the guy. But you better damn sure flat out say “I’m going to go with you and support you, and all you have to do is marry me, impregnate me, and then make awesome pancakes.” By approaching the subject candidly and seriously, immediately, you take all of the guessing out of the situation. I wouldn’t go so far as having a poster board with what-if scenarios written out, but I’d for sure mention possible job ideas for you in San Diego. By making plans as if you’re part of the plan, you demonstrate that you can take care of yourself with or without him, but you choose with him.

And mention that you will let him punt a dog off the bridge from SD into Coronado. Every guy wants to do that.

My fiancee and I have had a hell of a time planning our “family holiday visitation” schedules over the last couple of years that we’ve been together. We managed to hit up all of our families over this past summer, which was a great success, but the Holidays are looming and planning time with all four households (as we are both children of divorce) has been somewhat of a logistical nightmare. We’ve finally worked out our schedule, and though it’s difficult for me, we’ve agreed to visit my dad’s side of the family for Thanksgiving.

So here’s the rub: The other day, my saintly fiancee mentioned how much he was looking forward to watching so much football over the Thanksgiving holidays. I nodded, knowing how therapeutic time off combined with football is for him, and then proceeded to inquire exactly how much football he would be watching over the Thanksgiving break. Now here’s another useful piece of information to know about my fiancee — he’s from metro Detroit and he went to the University of Michigan. So, clearly this Thanksgiving weekend will be a big one for him. Not only will the Lions play on Thanksgiving day, as is tradition, that Saturday is the UM v. Ohio State. In principle, as he has educated me in the mores of football fandom, I know that he has to watch these games. He has tried to explain, also, that the games are noon games, so he won’t be sitting in front of the tube in the evenings. But in practice, with these games taking up nearly seven hours (and possibly more) of the limited time we will get to spend with my family, I am concerned that it won’t look very good to my family. My family’s a fairly accepting bunch, but they’re also pretty active, and not always good at incorporating an individual’s plans into their considerations of the family’s schedule. So when my family is eager to sit down to the Thanksgiving spread in the middle of the Lions game, or plan an outdoors-y activity during the Michigan game, I’m not really sure how it’ll look when my fiancee begs off and chooses to sit in front of the TV alone.

Should I be offended? Should I ask him to give up one of the games? Is wanting to ask him blasphemous to the church of (pro and college) football? And am I being a girly-disinterested-sports stereotype or should I feel secure in asking him to abandon his fan post in front of the couch? And should I express concern over the impression he may make on my family, who he likely will not see again for another seven to eight months.

This is easy. Your guy needs a DVR and a Slingbox for traveling without missing the games. More importantly, he needs to stop acting like the games matter more than your family muttering about him being a meathead for the next 15 years of your married life.

Dude has elementary grade issues. He wants to grunt every year at the same time? Grow up. I wanted to watch American Idol the night my wife almost gave birth on my floor. Did I get mad at her? No, I watched it via webstream once she passed out from giving birth while holding my new born son. People who expect the world to revolve around them for insanely stupid reasons are shiteaters.

Previously: Bedroom Routines, Presents, and Work “Friends.”

A Married Dude is a married dude who doesn’t claim to know everything about marriage. Do you have any questions for A Married Dude?

Illustration by Esther C. Werdiger