One of my oldest friends, divorced and living alone, explained to me that one reason I don’t see my friends as much is because I’m married, which satisfies my social obligations. In this friend’s case, he says it’s easy for him to stay home by himself and become morose and perhaps even morbid to the extent that he feels compelled, even against his own conflicting desire, that he’d rather not be bothered to leave the house, even if it doesn’t involve being with somebody else.

In the thousands of years of known human history, every level of brow has been used to discuss fatherhood. Bill Cosby, Louis C.K. and Dr. Spock occupying the highbrow spectrum, Hitler’s Dad, Danny Tanner and Cronus  slumming it in the lower levels and  Hamlet’s pater familias, the former King of Denmark, somewhere in the middle (he could have hugged the Prince of Denmark once or twice, maybe that would have cut the brooding in half, I am on team Fortinbras). I have been a dad for three years and in the immortal words of Vonnegut, so it goes.