Time for a dad post:

I’ve been reading Neal Pollack’s “Alternadad” (weblog here - which is excellent BTW) the past few days. My wife picked up a copy for me at the library and I dug right in. I consider myself about as alternative as you can get in many respects (Ok, I wear a tie to work, and don’t have any tatoos) so was excited to read it even after the less than stellar review it received in the Chicago Reader a few months back. So far, I’m immensely impressed with the writing but not yet sold on what makes him, or what he thinks makes him, alternative. 

- Mutilated his own son’s genitalia (circumcision) - I realize he’s Jewish and maybe I don’t understand the whole parental guilt trip he endured but what an opportunity to be truly alternative completely blown.

- Left for one month to become a rock star. I’ll agree that it is alternative to leave your wife and child to pursue childish fantasies but this left my head spinning. Real men (and dads) go to work, don’t complain and don’t talk about it - just like the Hemingway’s and other authors Pollack mentioned.

- I give him and his wife Regina credit for trying the Bradley method (natural cihldbirth) though. It’s actually the one alternative thing I’ve seen him engage in.

Mind you I’m only about one-third of the way through but from what I’ve seen so far, I don’t want to be an alternadad.

Of all the definitions of “alternative” I like this one the best:
employing or following nontraditional or unconventional ideas, methods, etc.; existing outside the establishment

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