After planting the seed, the Dysfunctional Father’s weaknesses become more obvious and his strengths far less apparent. Before childbirth, a father’s primary role is to make his wife more comfortable and help purchase things that both mom and junior will need after childbirth. During childbirth, a father does little other than provide emotional support – if that. And from childbirth through age two, a Dysfunctional Father is equally useless. Because you don’t have breasts that produce milk (if you do, put this book down immediately and go see a doctor), you have little if any responsibility for feeding. And there isn’t much else going on other than the waste byproduct of all that feeding. Your child is too young to play football, doesn’t know what to do with a baseball, tries to get milk out of a basketball and tends to chew on remote controls and video game controllers.

For a mother, the situation is exactly the opposite. Women experience indescribable joy in coddling a newborn, discussing childbirth with friends and family, exposing their breasts in public and doing all sorts of other things that women enjoy and men hate. For women, the whole childbirth and baby experience is much like taking their boyfriend or husband to a movie like “Beaches” or “Pride and Prejudice,” knowing full well that while they will be moved by the experience and enjoy every minute of it, their poor boyfriend or husband will be contemplating suicide and wondering when Hollywood will finally make a sequel to Animal House. Women know this too; they will insist that you help with things like changing diapers and late-night feeding (responsibilities that you will carefully avoid, as discussed in later chapters), but will jealously guard their newborn from any situation in which you are responsible for anything important.

That’s not to say that men are worthless. Contrary to what women think, some men are fully capable of becoming loving and caring parents. If that is something you desire, you should put this book down immediately, see a doctor (probably a psychiatrist) and buy a book written by a woman. There are many such books on the market. They will try to teach you how to be a compassionate parent and raise loving and sensitive children. This book, on the other hand, ignores that topic and focuses instead on how men can (and should) get the most entertainment value from their children. The Dysfunctional Father focuses on more important life lessons, like how to throw a football, how to beat the latest and greatest video game and how to fart with your hands. That is, after all, what being a Dysfunctional Father is all about.