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

A couple of times the nightly pee routine did cause some tension with the wife. I came home at midnight once, after two live podcasts in the midst of an incredibly busy week. Lynette was luxuriating in a bathrobe on top of the 1,000 thread-count sheets watching Homeland . I literally didn’t even know what day it was, I had been so busy. I walked in and told her how burnt-out I was. She agreed that I needed to take a break from the road gigs, and then reminded me it was midnight and that I needed to take Natalia for a piss. I said I was too fucking tired. She said, “You’re right.” Then added, “Wait an hour, then do it.” It wasn’t malicious. It was worse. It just didn’t occur to her to do it herself. In her defense, when she saw me deflate at her suggestion and nearly pass out from exhaustion, she got the gist and took care of it herself.

As I said, Natalia beat Sonny in the potty-training race. He was still in pull-ups when she had moved on to panties. I tried to create a little quarterback controversy, a little competition and use her as leverage. I started shaming him by calling the pull-ups diapers, which he’d always angrily correct me on.

And a quick tangent on gender roles. One night, we ran out of the Spiderman pull-ups. All we had were Natalia’s now no-longer-needed Dora the Explorer ones left. When we attempted to put Sonny in them, it was like trying to put a cat in a crate. He was crying and infuriated that we would even consider putting him in pink girl pull-ups.

Also, when it comes to the Underoos and pull-ups in general, I don’t get it. Aren’t you supposed to idolize Doc McStuffins and SpongeBob and whoever the kids’ character du jour is? Why would you want to pee on them? Aren’t we just training kids to be into weird stuff sexually? We’re essentially telling them that if you love someone, you should take a leak on them. This is a golden-shower fetish waiting to happen.

The potty-training issue with Sonny was more about the backside than the front. He was a little obsessed with having a clean butthole. So if you, as his therapist, are seeing some OCD behavior that might be why. He would demand that we wipe his butt for a long time, until I made him start to do it himself. We’d go back and forth. He’d be calling from the bathroom, “Daddy, wipe my butt.” Then you’d hear me shouting from down the hallway, “Wipe yourself.” He wouldn’t give up the ass ghost on that one for a long time. He was worried he’d miss a spot. We eventually reached a compromise, where he’d bring me the toilet paper and I’d dust it for dook and make sure he had a clean wipe. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t think shaming my son about his anus was a great plan. That’s the kind of thing that will land him in some horrifying porn. So rest assured, therapist, I did my best.

I can think of one pee-related incident with Sonny. There was a weekend when Lynette was going to Chicago to see Bruce Springsteen and taking the kids with her, which meant I got to drive her Audi. After they had been dropped off at the airport, I got a call from Olga but, through a broken cell connection and broken English, all I understood was that there was a problem in the car. I wasn’t sure what it was until I looked in the compartment on the passenger-side door. I found a Ziploc bag full of pee. Apparently, on the ride to the airport Sonny just couldn’t hold it. I used to be a bed wetter, so I get it. I don’t mind the piss in the bag, I just mind the part where it stayed in the car. I called Sonny that night for our usual good-night conversation and tossed in, “And thanks for the gift you left in the car.” Not getting the irony Sonny said, “That’s not a gift.”

So, therapist, I pray that this letter was unnecessary and that their asses have not graced your couch because the sweetness I’ve seen from Natalia as she’s gotten older has continued and Sonny has remained as mellow as ever. But if not, then I hope it cleared up a few of the misconceptions or straight-up lies that you might be hearing in therapy about dear old dad. My wish is that they regard me as firm but fair. But if the twins are in therapy, the one thing I hope they don’t say is, “He did his best.” That’s a tell that you had a shitty dad. It’s the lowest grade you can give a parent without completely disowning them as drunken abusive assholes. If either Sonny or Natalia are telling you that I did my best, then all the defending I’ve done of myself is useless. But, rest assured, if they are at least halfway functioning people it’s because every good thing they’ve said about their mother is completely true.

IT ISN’T THATI don’t try to be a good dad. I get involved with their lives to the best of my ability. Sure, I’m not the kind of dad who lets his daughter put makeup on him or gets down on the floor to bust out the gluten-free Play-Doh with his kids. But I do make an effort. It is just that every time I’ve tried to engage with the kids, it has blown up in my face.

My first mistake was reading to them. I’m not a great reader (which I’ve, ironically, written about in my other three books), so it’s an embarrassing chore. When someone wearing a Curious George onesie is correcting you on your grammar, it’s time to take a long hard look in the mirror. I’ve always been a terrible reader. I was never formally diagnosed with any reading disability. I was tested for dyslexia and passed. It’s one of the few tests I wish I had failed. At least that would be an answer as to why I couldn’t read the back of a cereal box when I was a kid.

People always said to me, “You must have been dyslexic.” I wasn’t. Why is it that when a white kid can’t read people say he’s dyslexic but when a black kid can’t read people say he “fell through the cracks.” This is a racist thought. I was as white as they come, and I fell through the cracks known as my parents and the Los Angeles school system. That said, Dyslexia would make a great black name. Sounds like a good wide out for the Steelers.

The problem is that I went to a crappy free-range hippie school where we were taught more about hating Nixon than loving the alphabet. Then I spent years doing construction with addicts and idiots and the latest tome from John Irving didn’t really come up around the hose that was our water cooler. In fact, on a construction site being educated could be a hindrance. You’d be mocked mercilessly. “Hey, Alex Trebek, why don’t you use that giant brain of yours to figure out the nailing schedule on that shear wall.”

When I was in the sixth grade, I had to go up to the chalkboard and write the Phys Ed schedule. I had to put the girls in one column and the boys in the other. I spelled girls with a U. Gurls . That was the end for me. So reading has always had not just a physical, but an emotional barrier, too. It makes me feel like crap. Thus, reading to my kids was a tough putt. But I powered through. And I’ll tell you what I learned. All those years of not reading were worth it. Kids’ books are some of the worst pieces of shit ever committed to the page.

One of the books I was tasked with reading to Sonny when he was around five was Danny and the Dinosaur .

This piece of shit was written in 1952. You can tell right away, because the kid on the cover is blond and white, as are all of his friends in the book. Today, it would have to be a multicultural rainbow and there’d have to be a kid with leg braces or a wheelchair. But the kids in this book looked like Hitler Youth.