Adam Carolla - Daddy, Stop Talking! - And Other Things My Kids Want but Won't Be Getting

With Natalia you have to earn her affection. The most she’s ever interested in me is when I’m temporarily off the C-list and inching towards the B-list or hanging out with the A-list. She was really into Daddy when he took her to the premiere of Wreck-It Ralph, or when she found out that I was doing the Tonight Show on the same night as Simon Cowell because she’s into One Direction. I’m not fucking around. My relationship with Natalia significantly improved when Catch a Contractor started airing. It went from flying beanies and knees in the groin to snuggle time on the couch to watch Daddy on television.

If it seems like I’m beating up on Natalia here, it’s because chicks hold grudges and I need to set the record straight. My sister couldn’t tell you what century the Civil War took place in or who the first president was, but when it comes to the times my dad ignored her or disapproved of a boyfriend, she’s Ken fucking Burns. Girl brains are like computer hard drives that are so full of bad memories and resentment that they can’t actually compute. If chicks applied their elephant memory to actual history, rather than the history of the times Dad disappointed them, they’d all have masters’ degrees.

I can just imagine the stuff a twenty-eight-year-old Natalia is telling you in therapy. I’m sure I know one of them. My favorite time of the year isn’t Christmas; it’s the Coronado Speed Festival. That trek 125 miles south of Los Angeles, near San Diego, is my pilgrimage to Mecca. The past two years I took Sonny with me. I made him my pit crew, working on the car together beforehand, letting him do unimportant stuff like hand me tools and spraying down and wiping the fenders with a rag. We drove down together, stayed in the hotel together and even slept in the same bed. It was a real father-son bonding trip. He cherished it and was counting the days to the next one.

For the record, I tried to take Natalia in 2014. I wanted her to have as much fun as Sonny had. She didn’t want to go. I’m pretty sure she said no just to fuck with me. Anyway, Sonny will be telling his therapist, “Father worked very hard and would always try to make time for me.” Meanwhile, Natalia will be saying, “That asshole was never home, he was always working and when he did have time he would spend it with Sonny.”

I know it probably feels like I’m doing an unfair amount of complaining about Natalia, but the reality is that Sonny was just easier to deal with as a kid. I’ve always said Natalia was like raising three kids, while Sonny was like raising one old cat. She was just more energetic and she drove Sonny nuts, too. He was like a Labrador trying to take a nap and she was a caffeinated Chihuahua bouncing around nipping on his ears.

In fact, for this book, I did a little memory refreshing and listened to the radio show from the couple days around their birth. Two days after they were born I said, “The boy is a little quieter than the girl… it could all change… but at this point the boy is a little quieter.” It never changed.

Natalia was always more active and was the first to walk, at just eleven months old. She was long, lean and graceful, while Sonny was shaped like a butt plug. I remember she balanced herself on the edge of the couch, then took three or four tentative steps while holding the cushions before falling into my arms. But if I stood too far she wouldn’t go to me, and if I were too close, she wouldn’t bother. Enter the string cheese. There isn’t a person or a creature on the planet that doesn’t love string cheese. Even dogs love it. Someone with full-blown leprosy could hand me a piece of string cheese and I’d eat it. I thought this would be a good motivator and gave her a taste. Then I stepped back three paces from the sofa. Reaching out for the string cheese, she kept going and quickly put together a full twenty steps. I was so proud of my little girl. Not only did she have Daddy’s sense of balance, she wasn’t even a year old and understood how capitalism works. (Or at least drug dealing. “Here’s a taste, but the rest will cost you.”) But while I was tempting Natalia with mozzarella, Sonny was just rolling around crapping himself. So I knew, early and often, that Natalia was going to be more energetic and thus harder to handle.

That could be a good thing. I’m glad she has a motor. It didn’t make for an easy parenting experience, but it probably means a bright future for my little girl. Maybe Sonny’s a deadbeat asshole on government assistance now, and Natalia is a multitasking millionaire philanthropist opening schools for girls in Darfur.

And, credit where credit is due, things actually improved quite a bit as Natalia got older. When I wrote this letter, she was eight and I can honestly say that for the past year things have been quite good. I’m sure you, Mr. or Ms. Therapist, know that sometimes the best way to fix a relationship is to ease off a bit. It’s like when I do some of my races and I start to go into a skid. The instinct is to grab the wheel and yank it in the opposite direction. The truth is that if you just let go a little bit, the car will pretty much right itself. If you jerk the wheel in the opposite direction, you make things worse. Well, that’s what I did to address a lot of the abuse I took from Natalia. I just gave it some space and let her outgrow it. I didn’t hover and I didn’t shout back. That’s an ego thing, a parent struggling for control because they aren’t confident. I was. I knew it would get better, and it did.

I love Natalia; I just have to set the record straight because she has a history of misinterpreting or just flat-out lying about Daddy.

For example, after our Lincoln-Douglas debates about the EzyRoller, I tried to make it right before she left the house. I came up behind her before she walked out and gave her a hug from behind. She shouted, “You hurt me!” I was just squeezing her from behind and trying to kiss her on the forehead and later she told Lynette I was “choking” her.

One summer afternoon, I took her to the beach in Malibu. This is one of the most beautiful, and thus most expensive, spots on earth. We literally walked past Madonna’s and Cher’s houses to get to the sand. We were walking around looking at tidal pools and starfish. We spotted a small crab that had been beached and looked like it was struggling. To role model a little humanitarianism, I tried to save the crab. I dumped some bottled water on it to help it get back to the water. But in that process I accidentally turned it over on its back. So I gingerly flipped it right again and sent it on its way.

When we got home that night, I was in the bathroom and I heard Natalia down the hall talking to Lynette and her friend recapping the day. “Daddy found a crab,” she said. Lynette replied, “Did he? That’s cool.” Natalia said back, “Yeah, he killed it.” Lynette was horrified. So for the record, I’m not some sociopath who tortures animals. I dumped three bucks worth of Evian on it to save the fucking thing. But I’m sure Natalia’s claiming to you that I waterboarded it.

Her most classic lie was much earlier in her life. When the kids were two years old, I’d come home from work and pick them up. I’d grab Sonny and give him a big hug and bounce him around. Then when I would reach for Natalia she would say, “Poo-poos, Daddy,” meaning that she had a full diaper or was about to shit herself. It wasn’t time to squeeze her like the world’s worst toothpaste tube. But after about twenty-six times, I caught on and checked her. Nothing. She had figured out that Daddy doesn’t do diapers, and conjured a way to get out of my hugging her.

Since we’re on the topic, I know a little about Freud and the whole anal fixation thing and that it’s all about potty training. So let me give you the embarrassing details about my kids and their bowels.