I understand that you’ve got a baby en route. The expected response to this revelation is usually “leaping joy,” but I’m already a father, and I’m exhausted. So if I just move my fingers around a little here on the keyboard, I hope that will suffice.

I have a story that will help introduce some of the powerful new concepts you’re about to be submerged in. I guess that technically makes this a parable, but anyway: I was taking the escalator down to the parcade at the Mall.

On the escalator opposite me, going up, an impatient father was tromping up the device and chastising his young son for being slow. He was not actually watching the son, so that when he exited the top of the moving staircase and his boy began to scream, he was not initially sure why. I was actually paralyzed by it: his son had tripped trying to catch up to his dad, but since he was on the escalator he couldn’t just fall down and pick himself up. He was being rolled by the mechanism, falling forever.

The first thing we can derive from this powerful scene is that you need to, you know, actually watch your kid. The challenge you will face later will be to watch them closely while still letting them experience the world. I have a feeling this is going to be my life’s greatest challenge.

But also: Falling in place. That is how I would describe the process you are about to undertake. For the first few months, anyway. It’s worse than you know. There are almost no handholds of any kind, and worse yet, everybody thinks they have the answer. They don’t. Most of this can’t be taught. I’m not trying to freak you out, but there it is.

You must invent a new Tom Brazelton, let us call him Dad, and do so under the most strenuous conditions. You need to become a man worthy of emulation. You will need to do this while someone is actively peeing on you. I used to regard human waste as something to be avoided; these days, it’s practically a condiment.

This is a situation where your precious movies won’t save you, although I guess there are a few valid Escalator Warnings in Mallrats. There is only one film with advice of any enduring worth on the subject of parenting, and the lessons it provides are mercifully clear: the movie is Aliens. If your child is being pursued by a Hive Queen, man, seriously – you need to blow that thing out the Goddamn airlock.

Welcome to the club.

(CW)TB