Jonathan Kronstadt

On those rare occasions when we don’t see elephants, we are elephants. “Put up your trunk, Daddy,” he says, and the pachyderm parade is on. The trouble is that, with arms extended in trunk simulation and legs marching ` la Colonel Harthi of “The Jungle Book,” we look a lot more like Nazi storm troopers than cuddly, animated jungle dwellers. “We’re not Nazis, we’re elephants,” I explain to horrified mothers on the playground, who manage nervous smiles, then burn rubber in the opposite direction.

In some cases, childhood obsessions simplify parents’ lives. For example, when Max and I go to the zoo, the only decision to be made is whether to watch the outside elephants or the inside elephants. I kind of miss the sea lions, but I’ll get over it. It also makes gift giving a no-brainer. We’ve got elephant books, elephant stickers, elephant videos, stuffed elephants, plastic elephant trunks, even elephant garlic. We’re hoping to avoid elephantiasis.

Alison, now 6, doesn’t really have an obsession of clinical dimensions at present, although the American Girl doll thing does have its moments. But I recall with a shudder her Princess Period. From about age 2 until she turned 4, she wore nothing but dresses. Not once during those 18 months did shorts or pants drape her bug-bite-scarred legs. Her orthodoxy was almost admirable, but mostly a pain in the ass. Still, it’s not like she was prissy — she still ran with the boys, got as dirty as a ditch digger and maintained her take-no-prisoners approach to life. She just did it in party shoes.

The worst part of the Princess Period was the reading list. “Snow White,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Cinderella,” “Anastasia” — it was like Gloria Steinem goes to library hell. The messages of these books, with rare exception, were deadly: Be passive, cower, suffer abuse with a smile, and eventually a prince will come along and rescue you, even if you’re essentially dead, as was the case with Sleeping Beauty.

These princes are something too. They have the power to hack through 100-year-old forests with a single sword, even return life to the lifeless, but they’re stupid enough to fall in love with and marry women they’ve known for 10 minutes. Fortunately, either the deprogramming we did at the end of each reading worked, or the stuff was so vapid that it never penetrated her psyche. And just when I thought I’d rather eat a poison apple than read one more happily ever after, she cycled out of it.

In relative terms, the Elephant Era and the Princess Period have been mild. We have friends whose son became obsessed with “The Lion King” to the point that he would carry the empty CD case around wherever he went. He even slept with it, and to this day he is convinced that New York consists of a single street — Broadway.

The “Lion King” guy’s older brother has enjoyed a long-standing lust for all things having to do with public transportation. When his father travels for work, all Alex asks him to bring back are maps of rapid transit systems. Once during a play date, Alex’s and Alison’s obsessions clashed. After a frustrating few minutes of romance-free train play, Alison said, “Is there any love on this train?”

But contrary to the assertion at the beginning of this essay, I have moments when I believe that childhood obsessions are, in fact, valuable coping mechanisms and signs of solid mental health. When it finally dawns upon kids how small they are and how big the world is, they need something consistent and simple to counter the no-corners nature of the new world they inhabit. Parents are reasonably useful in this regard, but we can’t compete with stories where the ending is always happy, the trains always go in the same direction and the animals are unfailingly loyal and strong.

I look at it this way: It’s good to know what you like in life. Lots of people never get there. And now I even have a goal for Max’s jungle giant jones. One of the elephants at our local zoo is pregnant, so if he can hang in there for the 18-month gestation period, he’ll get the mother of all baby elephants just a 15-minute drive away. That’s the Max equivalent of seeing Ed McMahon walking up the front steps. Fortunately for me, he knows how to share.

My life is different. My father worked hard so I didn’t have to, and believe me, I didn’t. This pampered childhood led to a lazy adulthood and an antipathy for authority figures that plagued me through my 20s and most of my 30s. Then I got lucky and found a woman who not only put up with my bullshit but found it amusing.

Then, on or about June 29, 1994, my wife went back to work and agreed to leave me alone with our 3-month-old daughter — my own little independence day. I got to shitcan my lousy job and turn to a career with a future. I had finally found my calling — as a dad.

But what does that mean anymore, anyway? Who’s my role model? Hugh Beaumont? Robert Young? Neil Young? Full-time fathers are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. We’re there on the playground (at least I am), but the gaggle of women deconstructing mommy minutiae over by the swing set doesn’t know what to do with me/us, so they do nothing.

How stupid is this? I’m there, obviously an enlightened penis bearer, a veritable fountain of male perspective, and I’m a one-man no-fly zone. I know what they’re thinking: Either I’m unemployed, which renders me pathetic, or I chose to stay home, which renders me threatening. And if they let me into the conversation coven they won’t feel free to bitch about cracked nipples and how their husbands won’t go down on them anymore.

It’s like some painful junior high school dance — except I’m on the boys’ side of the gym all by myself. I’ve made lame attempts to infiltrate their ranks, but I don’t need to relive that kind of awkwardness. (To be fair, in one-on-one situations most women get positively giddy when they hear that I stay home, and making women giddy is damn good fun.)

Men don’t really know what to think of men who stay home, either. Lots of them, when they hear what I do, strike a wistful pose and offer an earnest, “Man, I wish I could do that,” which rings as hollow as a chocolate Santa. The fact is that while women have been legitimately complaining for years that they can’t have it all, men’s claims are every bit as legitimate, if not as time-honored.

If we stay home, we’re outcasts, flung from our “natural” role as provider and alpha dog. Less than 1 percent of fathers stay home with their kids, compared with 21 percent of mothers. If we consider, for a moment even, my father’s approach, we are cast, quite fairly, as Neanderthals. And if we try to split the difference, we never make full partner at work or at home. We find out what women have known for decades: You can’t truly be a star at work if you’re truly serious about being there for your kids as often as they need you. There will always be some hotshot who’s willing to give up more to get where you could go if not for what you need to do at home.

And at home most fathers take their child-care cues from the mommies, as if possession of a uterus automatically makes you a better parent. Women are typically better parents, but more because of driver’s-seat experience than biology. Men are often either reactive or overreactive parents, coming in as a backup to the primary caregiver or as a misdirected disciplinarian, kicking ass and taking names because, well, that’s what we can do.

And if by some miracle we do manage to satisfy the scrotum-shriveling demands of husband, father and breadwinner, there’s nothing left that’s only for us: no time for the ridiculous but cherished rituals of American manhood, things like playing poker with the boys, watching Australian Rules Football with the boys and picking nits from one another’s scalps.

I realize that it’s unseemly for a man to bitch about something that women have been dealing with for decades. I understand that the 2,000-year-old grip white males have had on world dominance is slipping, and I’m OK with that. It’s like Willem Dafoe said in “Platoon”: “We’ve been kicking other people’s asses for so long I figured it’s time we got ours kicked.” He was talking about the U.S. military, but the analogy holds.

The problem for American fathers is that there’s no blueprint for what comes next, at least none that is reality based. Looking to television for a reality reflection is absurd in the extreme, but its prism is especially whacked when it comes to poppas. TV loves single fathers, so much so that 51 shows in the 1990s had primary characters who were single male heads of households, a group that in the real world shows up in a full 4 percent of families.

Blend this with the fact that fathers show up as central characters in only about 15 percent of network prime-time shows anyway, add in shlubs like Homer Simpson and Ray Romano and it’s no wonder we watch sports all the time. That’s where all the good father role models are, right?

Men’s groups are obviously on the rise, and though some got started and are fueled by bitterness over America’s divorce laws, many seem to be good ideas. Anything that gets my brethren to open up about anything is a good thing, however messy it will inevitably be. And it will be messy, because you don’t wake up from thousands of years of emotional hibernation looking good.

But maybe that’s the best reason of all to cannonball into the whirlpool of active, involved fathering. Kids have big, brightly colored emotional buttons that scream: “Deal with me!” And you can’t deal with their emotions effectively without casting a passing glance at your own, which is a much closer examination than most men have given their emotions since the junior prom.

A generation of emotionally reawakened fathers would be the best thing to happen to American children since “Sesame Street.” But as with anything else, we’re in a partnership. Changing roles have confused everybody, and if fathers are going to take the bold step of defining and then mastering their new role, then mothers need to be part of the solution.

Mothers need to be less judgmental — an ounce of shutting up at the right time can build pounds of fatherly confidence — and realize that different parenting isn’t necessarily inferior parenting. When women complain that there are no good men out there, I always respond, “Well, who the hell raised them to be such assholes?” and then I duck. Egos need to be checked at the door and fathers need the freedom to commit dozens of well-intentioned screwups.

And men need to quit being so passive when it comes to their own children. It’s an annoying clichi but it’s true: Nothing you do in life will be as terrifying, as rewarding or as important as being a father. Learn what you need to learn from your partner or your kids — hell, read parenting books. (Or do as I do and have your wife summarize them for you.) Just don’t whine about it.

It’s about choices. My father didn’t have many — most of us do. If you’ve made the choice to create lives, take the next logical step — be in them. Yes, it’s hard, and at times you’ll be worse at it than at anything you’ve ever tried. But it’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and what’s second isn’t even on the screen.

Being a father in the year 2000 is an opportunity to be wrong almost incessantly, to have your guts yanked out and stepped on by people wearing Teletubbies sandals, to feel inadequate in nearly every arena of your life and so much more. But it’s an opportunity you can’t pass up, because the regrets aren’t ones you can handle. Just ask my dad.

But on the whole, my vomit visitations pre-parenthood were well below the arithmetic mean. Even my eldest was not, as they say, a spit-uppy baby. There was one memorable incident, while we were waiting to pay our toll on the Delaware Turnpike, when she opened up like a fire hydrant. I still can’t read the odometer clearly.

But again, we had largely dodged the barf bullet. Until Max came along. Sweet, lovable, low-maintenance little Max — the poster child for easy babies, with one annoying talent. He can puke, as James Jones might say, from here to eternity. Perhaps one day I’ll have the presence of mind to actually measure the distance of one of his heaves, like some kind of upchuck shot put. But for now let me share my vast knowledge on what to do, or not to do, when what goes down must come up.

Your first instinct when the baby you’re holding begins to throw up is simple and understandable — move. Move the baby over a sink, a trash can; aim him at an open drawer, any receptacle will do. Sounds good, but this is a mistake.

All that moving does is increase his range and turn a disgusting but manageable cleanup job into a disaster that will require professional help. The guy from Sears will come to your house with his carpet cleaner, catch a glimpse of the tequila bottle atop the refrigerator and nod at you accusingly as you try to explain that it was the baby who soiled the blue shag.

But you can’t stand still either. As is often the case in life, the best move is completely counterintuitive — you should try to take the hit yourself. Think of yourself as some kind of deranged hockey goalie, because as gross as it is, it’s a lot easier to clean it off yourself than off the furniture, especially if you’ve got wicker.

I’ve found that it works best to hold the baby at arms’ length, thereby buying yourself a bit of time to react and block the barf before it careens over your shoulder. On the downside, it also affords you a really good view of the entire process, and let me tell you, nobody looks cute when he is throwing up, not even your own child.

But do it anyway. Absorb the shock and then assess the damage. The annoying thing is that babies tend to get really happy once they’re done throwing up. This makes sense. After all, they’ve got like 46 feet of intestine smashed into a body the size of a shoebox, and puking likely relieves some pressure. But when they’re happy they like to play, and they’re not real fussy about what they play with. So you must act quickly or risk spreading the horror to other rooms.

Do not let go of the baby. Take him over to the changing table and take his clothes off, but not by pulling them over his head. This may seem obvious, but it’s an important point, because not only is it completely vile, but babies seem to like it. And as you’re changing the baby, ignore that stuff dripping from your eyelids. It’s only baby puke, so grow up.

After you’re done changing the baby, change your clothes. Take all the clothes, blankets, pillows, stuffed animals and toys that got yucked on and wrap them in a sheet. If your kids have any toys that really get on your nerves, throw them in too. Take the pile and put it somewhere that your spouse is sure to come upon, although not necessarily right away, as it ages nicely. This way you get to experience the event as a family, and no one feels left out. Then, as it says on the shampoo bottle, wash, rinse, repeat.

When you’re all done, go to the kitchen, take the tequila bottle down, lean over the sink and empty the bottle over your head. That way at least you’ll smell like something else for a while.

Parenting is many things, but more than anything else it’s adhesive. If you ever want to know what having suction cups for feet is like, just walk barefoot through our kitchen (and empty the dishwasher while you’re there).

The morning of Susan’s arrival we clear out as quickly and tidily as possible. Then in the afternoon we return to a clean house — clean being an alarmingly relative term. On most days Martha Stewart would have an aneurysm before she made it through our foyer, but on Susan days she’d probably just gasp, compose herself and make flan.

What’s amazing, and in a weird way admirable, is how quickly, completely and effortlessly the kids can turn a clean house into Animal House. The carnage starts in their own rooms, but quickly spills into the rest of the house like the Exxon Valdez.

Take the living room. I guess growing kids must shed several layers of skin each day, because that’s what appears to be all over our lovely Persian rug about a minute and a half after Susan leaves. It’d be easier if they just molted all at once like cicadas, leaving their entire exoskeletons intact for easy clean-up, although at this point I’m not sure they’d fit in a tall kitchen trash bag. But even if they didn’t we could set them out at the curb, and then the county trash people could pick up our people trash. That’d be nice.

If I ever win the lottery (which would be a neat trick since I never play it), Susan gets set up for life. Susan, and often her mother, spend hours cleaning our house and do a fine job, but it’s kind of like trying to eat soup with a crowbar — progress is slow and painful.

Much of the kids’ best work is done in the kitchen, mostly because the materials there are superior. Food is their medium, and the floor, walls and parents are their canvas. I do the cooking, and these days I choose menus based less on taste and nutrition than on ease of detection and general un-squishyness. I have learned what not to serve. The list includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Couscous: Yes it’s fun to say, but it’ll swarm over your kitchen like ants on a glazed doughnut. Serve it in the spring and you’ll still be harvesting it in the fall.

• Peas: They roll, they’re easy to throw and stepping on them in bare feet is truly disgusting. I honestly don’t know how the Green Giant stays so jolly. Peas piss me off.

• Jell-O: Why not just feed them sugar-sweetened motor oil? It would have all Jell-O’s nutritional value and be about as easy to clean.

Our kitchen after supper looks like the Meadowlands after a Stones concert. I don’t clean it — I do triage. But as impressive as the kids are at home, they’re even better on the road. Ozzy Osbourne on the biggest bender of his life never trashed a hotel room like these kids can. We’ve been banned by Motel 6, and we’ve never even stayed at one. Apparently hotel chains talk to each other.

I’m convinced that my current role as head custodian at what could easily qualify as a Superfund site is mere payback for my own slovenly childhood. I always kept my room as uninhabitable as possible, the rationalization being that the only way to keep people out was to give them no place to stand and no air to breathe.

But the simple fact is that I was a slob of epic proportions. Whenever I see news footage of tornado damage it reminds me of what my apartment looked like senior year of college. I had roommates, but they were amateurs.

So once again, genetics has the last laugh. I suppose it’s possible that my kids will become neater eaters as they age, but even if the kitchen survives, the rest of the house is toast, which in our house always falls jelly side down.

Penis grabbers present enlightened parents with a bit of a quandary: One wants to allow one’s child the freedom to explore his anatomy to the best of his ability; but one doesn’t want him to feel so free that he believes it is OK to try the same stuff with anyone else’s anatomy.

When you consider how much attention the parents of newborn boys devote to the little guy’s little guy, perhaps penis grabbers are only following our lead. I speak of course of the circumcision decision. As with just about every other parenting decision, what was once a no-brainer now involves something along the lines of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Even being Jewish no longer is a complete out. My cousin and his non-Jewish wife went back and forth on the issue so often that when they finally came down on the snip side, they had apparently so confused the doctor in question that he did a less than complete job. Circumcision lite, we call it.

For Jewish parents of my parents’ generation, circumcision was an excuse for a party. To the delight of my older sisters, I was brought into the room on a silver platter and de-foreskinned in a manner not unlike that of a flank steak in a Benihana restaurant.

The bris, as the ceremony is known, seems to me an uncharacteristically cruel chapter in the otherwise noble tradition of Judaism. Here you’ve gone through the trauma of being born — essentially going from being a fish to a mammal in a matter of hours — then eight days later, just when you’re starting to think that maybe this place might be OK after all, they come after your goodies with a Ginsu.

Needless to say, Max was spared a bris. He was circumcised at the hospital in the usual way. We didn’t even save his foreskin, mainly because 1) that would be gross and 2) I was afraid at some point he might want it back. I once got a newsletter from an anti-circumcision group called the National Organization to Halt the Routine Mutilation of Men (NOHARMM). These bright lights traced every failure in their failure-laden lives to the removal of their foreskins, and actually offer advice on foreskin replacement, which is about as welcome as advice on how to remove your own spleen with a twisty straw.

Then the other day it happened. I stepped out of the shower and there he was, eyes wide and finger pointed, laser-like at, quite literally, the daddy of all penises. Now women will take great pains to convince the men in their lives that size doesn’t matter, but I fear Max was suddenly gripped by his first brush with penis envy.

Yes, it looked like his I suppose, but I shudder to think what was going through his tiny mind at the moment he realized that, by his own weenie standard, I had a foot-long and he had a pig with no blanket.

I couldn’t remember what the books said about this particular developmental moment. He clearly wanted to take a moment to gauge its length, width, distinguishing characteristics and kinetic capabilities, but that prospect gave me the, pardon the expression, willies. I’m generally open-minded and encouraging of childhood exploration, but this went beyond my ability to cope. I found myself, for the first time in my life, wishing I had Dr. Ruth’s 800 number.

So I did what I thought any intelligent, forward-thinking father would do: I hid. I wrapped myself in a towel and offered him some raisins, the only thing I knew he’d find more appealing — and wrinkled — than my dick. And now when I change his diaper and he goes for his wee-wee like it’s a winning Powerball ticket, I am at ease.

At least he’s not going for mine.