Tag: dad

Dad Brog (#091): childcare in America sucks

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the span of the last five months, I’ve had two nannies quit on my famiry.  I’ll be the first to admit the high level of difficulty in simultaneously overseeing two kids the ages of mine, but the thing is that before anyone gets the idea that my kids were the ones driving them off, it’s just that we’ve just been very unlucky with the people we’ve hired.

The first nanny quit because she basically had a mental breakdown after two days of solo duty, despite having over three months to prepare for it.  And the worst part was that she did it spontaneously by calling out one day and then ghosting us for nearly two weeks before resigning over the phone, after we had already moved on to hire someone else by the time she reached back out.

Unfortunately, that someone else has just given her notice after just barely four months, because her personal life has imploded and she’s decided that it’s just not possible for her to continue nannying for us any further.  I won’t go into specifics, but at least she’s given us the courtesy of some lead time, and mythical wife and I are scrambling to find someone else before we reach her hard stop last day, and that’s if she doesn’t decide to phone it in and peace out before then.

Needless to say, if not for the fact that I was already souring on nanny #2, I’d be apoplectic about the fact that for whatever reason, my famiry just can’t seem to lock down competent, reliable childcare.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about the current scenario, because I was already on the path of looking for a replacement and this saves wifey and I an uncomfortable conversation of having to let someone go, but it doesn’t change the disappointment of having yet another nanny who crumpled to the job, mostly on account of their lives just being another hot mess.

I know my kids won’t really remember much of this in the grand spectrum of things, but I would love for them to have some stability and consistency in their lives.  After nanny #1 peaced out on us, my eldest mentioned them by name a few times when they heard the garage door, thinking that they were coming to see them.  And she’s also cognizant of both nanny #2 and her own son that she brought in daily, but now both of them will be leaving our lives too.

My kids deserve better than what we’ve been giving them.  Unfortunately, it’s been very challenging on our part as parents to find a good nanny, because they all talk a good game to get the job, but we’re 0-fer-2 now at fielding someone that has actually remained up to the task at being able to handle it on a regular basis.

Frankly, and this is where I’m getting up on my old man soap box, I just think American childcare sucks.  All these nannies are mentally soft, have no work ethic, are susceptible to complacency and laziness.  They have little respect for my wife and I’s jobs and the jeopardy they put us in when they phone it in and call out with bullshit excuses like migraines and car troubles and forget that if we lose our jobs, they lose theirs.

The thing is, I think we pay fairly well; substantially better than some of the wages I’ve seen others in my community offer up.  And yet, it’s like in order to attract higher quality talent that might not be so flaky, I’d have to go up even more, and I’m already struggling to keep up with nanny wages as it is.

So it really does just boil down to the fact that childcare in America sucks.  Either people are lazy and untalented, or they’re priced too high for the middle class to be able to regularly afford.

Dad Brog (#090): 27 Months

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Let the record show that it is month 27 in the life of #1, my eldest child, and we have embarked on a journey where the roles have reversed with my kids.  #2 is now the low-maintenance chill kid, easy-going, amicable and easy to please throughout the day.  Which means #1 has transformed into an emotionally volatile goblin, incapable of knowing what it is they want with life from second to second, resulting in more often than not, nuclear meltdowns.

Not just whining, but full-on tears and dribbling snot, shrieking, sometimes going down to the ground to throw tantrums kind of meltdowns.  Things that placate on Monday are ineffective on Tuesday, and things they liked at 11 am are declarations of war by 4 pm.  Almost every suggestion of activity, food or book is responded with a shrill NO [noun] and then ensuing whining.

Despite the fact that mythical wife doesn’t want to believe in them, I think these are what we might have to classify as an introduction into, the terrible twos.

We’re trying our best to keep our cool, and I think we genuinely are doing well at not caving into her outbursts, but it is most definitely tiring and more exhausting than younger times dealing with a perpetually irate toddler.  Admittedly, I meet a lot of her tantrums with laughter, because it really is kind of hilarious to see how she’s evolved, and mixing all of her accumulated learned intelligence with the vocabulary she’s amassed. 

Like we’ve read to her several books about dealing with emotions and how when one gets mad, they should take a deep breath.  Sometimes we the parents get agitated from so much of her bullshit, and if she sniffs out our frustration, she’ll immediately tell us to take a deep breath, like really??

Obviously we know that this is a phase and it shall eventually pass, but whooowee, is it testing of our patience.  Suddenly gone is the sweet and agreeable daughter of mine whom I could read pretty much any book I wanted to before bed time without any argument, but in her place now is a psychotic little goblin the demands the same two Sesame Street stories, except she goes ballistic when I start them and insists on being the one who turns the pages but then loses her shit when I can’t keep up with how fast she’s turning them.

And of course, the possibility of by the time she works through this phase, #2 could very well be on her heels and embarking on the emotional path of destrucity herself, leading to mythical wife and I to ponder just how much time is left before they’re old enough to be independent.

Dad Brog (#089): Father’s Day, for the rest of my life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

#1 of until the end of my time

A while ago, mythical wife asked what I wanted for Father’s Day.  Usually whenever anyone asks me what I want for my birthday, Christmas, or now that I’m eligible, Father’s Day, I have no idea.  I don’t have a want for things except wrestling blets, and understandably nobody(ies) want to drop $300+ on effectively useless straps of fake leather and metal plates.

However, this year, I had an answer pretty quickly, because I have been thinking of it for a while.  And the best part is that it doesn’t cost a thing, but will still have unlimited value and meaning for me for the rest of my life.

What I wanted for Father’s Day this year, and every single year for the rest of my life, is a photo with my daughters, holding their tag team championship blets.  That’s it.  There’s nothing else I’ll ever need or want more than this every Father’s Day, than this request.

I figure there would be no better opportunity for me to pull this card than Father’s Day, as the my girls grow and get older and intelligent, and inevitably think my blet collection is lame and stupid.  But being Father’s Day, they’ll have to acquiesce to this small and simple request, and I’ll have them right where I want them, next to dad for a yearly photo.

I love time-lapse photography, and what I’m hoping is to one day have an impressively long photo album, built a year at a time, of myself with my daughters as they grow, blossom into the beauties their mom’s genes have set them on the course for, and watch the changing of expressions as they may be excited and exuberant as kids, begrudging and embarrassed as teenagers, but then come around and be happy and accepting of tradition as young adults and maybe one day mature women and maybe mothers in their own right.

Either way, this photo makes me happy, and I’m hoping that this will be the first of many, many years of similar photos, of forcing my children to participate in their lame dad’s hobby.

Dad Brog (#088): The house of cards that is parenting

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A long time ago, when I was an active member of a baseball community, among the numerous swipes and passive-aggression shown between nerds on the internet, one of the phrases that often times would set people off, was when person X would make a hypothetical transaction, and then person Y would respond with something along the lines of “[Name of baseball team general manager] would laugh and hang up the phone.”

Person X would usually become incensed and defensive at the hyperbolic idea that an actual general manager would find their proposal to be so ludicrous and stupid, that it would result in their laughter before hanging up on them, and I would imagine the Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif in my head before letting them bicker, before I would inevitably have to call timeout on them because I was also a moderator.

The point is, I often times loved how much the phrase, laugh and hang up the phone on you, rose to such a prominent slight within the community, for something so fairly silly and innocuous.

Two weeks ago, we shipped #1 to South Carolina for the weekend, so that all of her grandparents could get some quality time with their eldest granddaughter, and mythical wife and I could have a weekend where we only had to take care of one tiny human instead of two.  It was one of the easiest weekends we’ve had in quite some time, as caring for one infant/toddler is tremendously easier than caring for two.

It was at this point where I realized that I would be extremely critical and judgmental towards parents of one out there that think their lives are at all difficult, because one child is a fucking cakewalk in comparison to dealing with the two that I’ve got.  I would, metaphorically, laugh and hang up the phone on any parents who thinks their singular child is difficult, because they are one or more additional kids away from knowing what true parenting hell is.

However, no good deed goes unpunished in the world of parenting, so as welcome and pleasant as it was to have a more relaxed weekend less one child, when #1 came back, she brought a nasty virus back with her.  Within a day of returning she had a fever, sneezing and runny nose, and I experienced the joy of having to administer my first COVID test to a toddler, who naturally was not a fan.

Fortunately the test was negative, but of course there’s all the doubt in the world that I did it right, or got enough brain juice on the swab to get an accurate test, but because we don’t have unlimited tests, we just had to have faith that it was negative.

Naturally, within the span of a day, mythical wife is sick, the nanny’s kid who is with us daily is sick, and I thought that #2 managed to escape the plague, but much like her sister, there was about a day of gestation before the shit started to hit the fan.  And unlike #1’s two-day bounce back, #2 has been feverish for five days now, been to urgent care once, only to confirm that it’s not coronavirus, it’s not the flu, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s routinely spiking up to 103F, and on the way back to the doctor first thing in the morning.

And just like that, this is where the house of cards that is our general life comes crumbling down, once again.  My kids are sick just about every single month, it spreads like wildfire, including to the nanny, and her very needed attendance or punctuality takes a hit, which means I have to take a hit with my job, and then I fall behind and feel shitty about my job security. 

Usually, by the time I catch back up to things, the cycle repeats itself with one of my kids getting sick again, passing it onto the other as well as anyone adjacent to my household, and I’m exasperated and repeatedly getting called out by mythical wife for “always being upset.” 

Life is hard.  Parenting is hard.  I love my wife and kids, but everything is hard.  We’re trying our best.  I’m trying my best, and I am not perfect.  I lose my cool and I get upset more than I’d like to admit, but I’m trying.  But damn if it doesn’t feel like there’s occasionally no end to hard mode, and I have to tell myself to not think so hard about circumstances, because there are just a bunch of rabbit holes to fall into, where the outcomes of them aren’t always the best for one’s mental states.

Dad Brog #087: Don’t look now, my daughter’s a model

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Available nationwide: Baby Girls’ Peach Dress with Hat by Carters just one you®, at Target

Just like that, #2 has earned her first real paycheck before hitting ten months old.  High expectation Asian dad is satisfied by this development.

For reals though, I’m over the moon by this, as is mythical wife.  Obviously biased, we’re always going to think that our daughters are the most beautiful children on the planet, but it’s nice and validating to know that corporate America also favors them in the eye test to the degree where they can be legitimate models for baby clothes.

It also helps that Carters corporate is based out of Atlanta, so we residents of the metro area have the luxury of basically getting first dibs at any of the calls they make out for model talent.  And mythical wife, ever the eye for opportunities like this, always threw our kids’ names into the hat, and it just so happens that we finally got one of them into a little bit of national spotlight, with a genuine featuring at Target.

#2 was picked for a camera test, then the subsequent fitting, and then actually picked for formal shooting, and we knew it was only a matter of time before we’d eventually see her out in the wild.  The thing is that they don’t tell you when and if they’re going to use what photos, and companies like Carters and Target hoard assets for years sometimes, so the question was just how soon, if at all, were we going to see our daughter in advertising?

Fortunately, it wasn’t that long, which is what mythical wife was suspecting, since she had a better understanding of what outfit to expect to see, since she was there for the shooting.  And just like that, #2 graces the Target brand, representing their own collaboration with Carters, and people all over can actually see my child on a national level.

And lest I overlook my eldest child, #1 was actually a Carters baby as well during her first year.  Picked for a camera test as well as a fitting, unfortunately she decided to have a meltdown during the fitting, and proceeded no further than that, but for all intents and purposes, she too, was a formally selected Carters baby as well.  And most importantly, she still got a paycheck for her troubles too.

I couldn’t be prouder of both my beautiful kids, and hopefully this won’t be the last time they see the spotlight.  But even if it is, I can still have the privilege to say that my kids have done a little bit of modeling in their lives.

Dad Brog #086: The perils of private in-home childcare

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Due to the never-ending pandemic that we live in, I’ve had a private nanny since #1 was eight months old.  Frankly, sending my immunocompromised first child to regular daycare among children whose individual household dynamics were mysteries to us was out of the question, so the only option that my household was left with in order to have childcare while mythical wife and I worked our respective jobs, was to hire a nanny.

For the duration of a single-child household, it worked out great; one nanny with one child is pretty easy-peasy as far as the circumstances are considered.  I could focus on my job, which was really helpful as it was deteriorating pretty rapidly throughout the start of the pandemic.

But then #2 came into the picture and things became a little more chaotic, as to no surprise, when the ratio of children balances away from 1:1, anyone’s attention becomes harder to divert between multiple children, and it’s just harder in general.  I often times was away from my keys in order to help out the nanny, and it was always a balancing act to make sure that double duty was as minimal as possible, which is a little ironic considering just how often I am on double duty on a regular basis but I am their biological father so why wouldn’t I be?

Eventually, things ceased to work out with my original nanny, and they did leave us high and dry at a very inconvenient and critical point.  Fortunately, we were able to bounce back fairly quickly and find another nanny to come in and take over, which brings us to current times that are somewhat more stable and if anything at all, I’m just glad that my kids have someone reliable to take care of them while I’m working.

However, to the point of this particular dad brog post, as nice as it is to have in-home care, and the peace of mind at knowing that my kids aren’t picking up every variant of coronavirus while at daycare and bringing it home, it’s not entirely perfect either.  Namely, the part where if a private nanny calls in sick or is ever out for any particular reason, I’m the one who is getting boned and has to eat the time off work in order to cover.  Mythical wife being a teacher and all, and teachers having extremely rigid and inflexible workdays, she can’t exactly turn on a dime and come home to take care of the kids at a moment’s notice, so that responsibility falls onto me.

I’m not going to sugar coat it either, it sucks.  Royally.  Every time that either of my nannies have called in sick, I’ve been the one who has had to take it on the chin and tell my jobs that I have to in turn bone my work, to where I’m either burning PTO, or I’m being a complete flake with my work, and then working in the evening to make up for the not working during the day.

The worst part is that as I’ve alluded to in the past, my kids are getting sick every month this year regardless of the fact that I have in-home care.  I go to the office a few days a week, mythical wife works at a school surrounded by children whom we have no idea if their parents are vaccinated or not, and 2022 seems to be the year where all the colds, flus and other sicknesses that were avoided in 2020-2021 are coming back with a vengeance.

At this point, I’m kind of over the lack of accountability and being the only one punished when my childcare goes down, that I’m leaning towards sending my kids off to daycare.  They’re getting sick all the same now, that I may as well start trying to get my children socialized and used to other human beings so they’re not complete social invalids growing up.  If I’m already paying daycare prices for private care, I might as well be able to not have to destroy myself whenever something comes up.

I love having personalized childcare, but I’m disliking just a little bit more, the repercussions of when said childcare calls out sick.  My work struggles, and as important as my kids are, I still need to have my job in order to support my family, and seeing as how I’m still within my first year, I don’t want to develop a reputation of being the guy that’s unreliable and constantly using his kids as the excuse.

Dad Brog (#085): Let the scapegoating begin

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The bubbling in the tub didn’t even finish before #1 boisterously proclaimed that #2 farted.  The thing is though, #2 was not the one who had farted in the tub, it was most definitely #1. 

Mythical wife and I cracked up because farts are fucking hilarious.

However, it wasn’t just because of that, but also because this was not the first time that this had happened, where #1 had flagrantly thrown her little sister under the bus.  The first time was a funny anomaly, but it happening again appears to be the start of a pattern: the classic tactic of blaming your sibling.

For now, it’s just farting, but who knows what #2 will get blamed for in coming days, weeks, months and years.  The most fascinating thing about it is how organic and how completely unprovoked and untrained in which this happened.  We’re still at the stage of parenting where just about everything is okay and is teachable, and isn’t necessarily a bad behavior in which #1 should feel embarrassed or feel the need to pawn off on her little sister, but she’s decided to do it anyway.

Otherwise, my kids are the joy of my life, and absolutely nothing in the world brings me more happiness than seeing how much my daughters love each other.  Even if #1 has decided to use her little sister as a scapegoat now, and I’ll probably have sisters declare Mortal Kombat on each other at some points in their lives, for the time being, seeing the pure, tender and wholesome love between the sisters are the best parts of any given day. 

But how fast those tables turn once #1 rips a fart and decides that #2 is the guilty party.

Mark this as one of the brog posts that I hope one day my children will read and then cringe and bemoan the fact that this is an embarrassing story about them.