Oh, baby!

Last month I attended the "Father Breakfast- at my four-year-old son’s school, only to discover I’m not the dad I assumed myself to be.

On the morning of the breakfast. we entered his classroom to find a collection of his classmates and their fathers scattered around the classroom. My son grabbed my hand and led me through the class to the coat room/storage area, after looking at several containers including one where you build crazy-looking bugs. he pulled out a container with baby dolls. “I want to play with this, he said, holding the container out in front of him.

It was at this moment that I discovered I wasn’t the dad I always thought myself to be.

Like many progressive fathers, I believed I was beyond subscribing to stereotypical notions of gender. If asked if I would have a problem with my son playing with dolls, I would have said I didn’t. With reality staring me in the face, however, I was different.

Instead of accepting my son’s choice, I looked at the dolls and wanted to discourage him from taking them out onto the classroom floor. “Is there something else you want to play with?” I asked, gesturing toward the bugs.

My son, perhaps not hearing me, had already grabbed a mat and was setting up camp in the most conspicuous spot in the entire classroom. I took a deep breath, exhaled and joined my son on the floor.

I joined my son, not as the foward-thinking dad who laughed at the insecurity of other men, but rather as a dad who was embarrassed at his son wanting to play with dolls.

"So what are we doing?" I asked.

My son handed me a doll with flowing hair and big lashes and said, "This is my little brother, George." "He looks like a girl," I said.

"We're just pretending, Dad. He's my brother, okay?"

Convinced that the other fathers were nudging each other knowingly while watching my son and I play, I decided to trick my son into playing with the babies in a stereotypical way, which is to say rough and tough.

With enough bass in my voice to make Barry White proud, I said, "Look, this little guy can fly. He's a super baby! Let's go make the city safe from evildoers."

My son took the doll from me and placed it on the mat. He sighed and said, "He can't fly. We're just a regular family. He's my baby brother and you are my dad."

My son spent the next few minutes filling me in on how we were going to play. He was adamant that there would be no superhero play on this day. As if he was speaking to someone with little sense, he kept pushing the idea that this doll with long hair and cute eyelashes was his baby brother.

"We want some Golden Oreos, Dad. Can you get us some?" my son asked.

"I'm not sure a baby should eat cookies," I said.

"Dad, do you remember that we’re just pretending?"

Aside from the desire to eat cookies, this was a side of my son I've never seen. I've watched him don his "Thing" feet and stomp around the house telling everyone it's "clobbering time!" I've seen him pretend to be the Incredible Hulk and crush puny humans and Hot Wheels alike, but being an older brother who cares for a baby brother that doesn't (and will never) exist was a first.

For the next 30 minutes or so, my son and I had our pretend family member. We fed his baby brother cookies and milk. We prepared his brother for a trip to the playground. Finally, we put the boy to bed. When asked if he should go to sleep as well, my son informed me that big boys like him didn't go to bed the same time as babies.

At that moment, I was proud of my son. I want all my children, especially my two boys, to know that there's nothing wrong with being caring and nurturing. Despite what conventional wisdom might be, they need to know that having feelings and caring for someone is just as masculine as, say, having action figures fight pretend bad guys.

Just when I made peace with the idea of my son playing with dolls, he packed them away and returned with a container filled with farm animals. "Do we get to be farmers?" I asked.

He handed me a few animals, opened his hand to reveal a calf and then said, "This is my baby brother, George."

I began to wonder if my son was privy to information my wife was keeping from me. As quickly as they came, I pushed those thoughts out of my mind in order to enjoy playing with the animals. This, of course, was easier said than done.

It's one thing pretending to be the father of a boy with long hair and cute lashes, but this whole calf thing was beyond weird—especially when we pretended to feed George the calf cookies and milk.