My Boys – The Early Years
This being the month of my 91st birthday, I find my mind wandering back to the magical years of the late ‘60’s and early ’70’s when my two sons graduated from their cribs into real beds and learned how to use the language. It all started for me in January 1996, in company with my first wife, Barbro.
It’s now the first weekend of the New Year, and the due date for the emergence of our first baby is drawing near. We don’t know what the gender will turn out to be (although truth be told, I’m rooting for a boy). Her obstetrician (let’s call him Dr. K) is out of town, but we’re told not to be concerned because his capable partner (Dr. S) is available.
Sure enough, Barbro’s water breaks. We’re aware that time is short. After notifying the hospital and Dr. S’s office, we proceed to the hospital where Dr. S will be meeting us. But when we get there, we’re told that Dr. S has not arrived.
I handle this news in the same impassive, controlled fashion I treat all such crises – namely, I start yelling, cursing, waving my arms and creating a real scene.
A senior nurse approaches to calm me down, saying something like, “Don’t be anxious, Mr. Freund – I’m sure Dr. S. will be here momentarily. And even if he’s delayed, the Chief Resident is in the building – a man well-skilled in obstetrics and able to handle the delivery.”
I feel a little relieved, although still on edge. A few minutes later, I notice walking down the hall a guy in scrubs whom I recognize immediately as one of my former drinking buddies from Cannon Club at Princeton. In fact, the last time I remember seeing him the two of us were down on the floor near the Club’s bar, chugging beers. I’d lost touch with him in the decade since we graduated.
“Dick,” I cry out – “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, Jim – I’m the Chief Resident . . . .”
I won’t keep you in suspense. Dr. S. never does show up; Dick Hnat (completely sober and quite skilled) handles matters flawlessly; and I break down, weeping with joy in Dick’s arms, when he enters the waiting room and certifies that my wife is in good shape and we have a healthy son.
I can’t claim to have thought much about being a father before it occurred, but bonding with first-born Erik and then with his brother Tom (who joined us in August 1968) became and remains one of the enduring joys of my life. Still, as gratifying as each of these five-plus decades of fatherhood has been, I often find myself drawn back into those memorable early years, when I watched the infants burgeon into smart, witty, engaging kids. Back then, I made notes of their most memorable pre-school utterances – something I always advise young parents to do with their youngsters – which I can’t resist sharing here.
One day Tom (not yet three) was writing out all the words he knew how to spell – “cat”, “dog”, etc. Viewing the list, I spotted a surprising word – “noon” – and remarked on it. “Wait,” said Tom, “that’s ‘no’ and ‘on’ – they got too close.”
Erik placed three dominos on the bed and asked me what it looks like. “I don’t know,” I said. “Well, try,” said Erik. “Okay, it looks like a house.” “Think again.” “It looks like a rhinoceros.” “Think again,” said Erik. “Okay,” I said wearily, “ it looks like an Indian on a horse with a bow and arrow.” “No,” said Erik. . . . “But if they were put down this way . . .” whereupon he rearranged the three pieces . . . “then it would look like an Indian on a horse with a bow and arrow.”
One day when Tom was 2½ years old, he hit Mommy (not very hard). She pretended to cry, “Boo hoo,” to make Tom regret his action. Tom murmured some soothing sounds, but when this failed to still the outcry, he tried the technique that had often worked so well on him – asking her solicitously, “Candy, Mommy?”.
A year later, Tom spotted Barbro wearing a sexy black nightgown, which was split up to the thigh on one side. “Hey, Mommy,” he said, pointing to the slit, “Let me show you where you’re going to be cold!”
Erik: “Buy me a Volkswagen bus.”
Mommy: “I’d like to but we don’t have that kind of money.”
Erik: “Well then, buy that kind of money.”
At bedtime, I was asking Tom the usual questions about his nursery school. Suddenly, he turned and asked me: “Where do you go to school?” I replied that “I used to go to Princeton, but not anymore.” Tom said: “I will go to Princeton, too” but then paused to add – “Not now, though, ’cause I’m in my pajamas.”
When Erik was three, I said to him, “Won’t it be nice, Erik, when Thomas can walk and talk and you’ll have someone to play with?” Erik agreed, though with this caveat: “But I’m going to have to teach him to jump because that’s not an easy trick to do.”
Karen, one of our au pair girls, shared a wishbone with Tom one night and cautioned him that if he told anyone what he’d wished for, it would not come true. Next morning at six am, Tom woke Karen in her room. “Do you know what I wished, Karen? I wanted a baby. But I’ve been thinking, and I don’t have any clothes or things for a baby – so that’s why I have to tell you.”
My parents had given me a new overcoat as an early Christmas present. The next day I gave Erik (not yet three) 35 cents and asked him to buy me a present. “Okay,” said Erik, “Maybe I’ll get you a coat – or something like that.” There was a pause before he continued: “Or maybe a piece of gum.” I guess I looked startled at the come-down from the coat, because he quickly added, “Or maybe two pieces.”
One night I took Erik (but not Tom) to a track meet, but only after I told Tom that from time to time I would do something with only one of them (such as when I just had two tickets), but it didn’t mean I loved the other any the less, etc. Tom seemed to understand and made no fuss. The next day, when Barbro and I were about to leave the house, Tom handed me a drawing he’d done, saying: “Here’s something so you’ll remember me . . . .”
Erik loved presents and I gave him lots of them. But he didn’t like me to go to work, and would often say “Daddy, don’t go to work,” or “Why do you have to go to work?” My stylized answer was: “I have to go to work to make money to buy you presents.” One day, though, he couldn’t stand that any more, and replied: “Don’t make more money, I have enough presents.”
We used to play a game where I would make up a hypothetical situation in which the boys might find themselves and ask them what they would do. Here’s what I posed one day to Tom: “You’re in a zoo, and a funny-looking man with a beard comes up to you and says: ‘Where are the lions?’ You tell him. One minute later you hear a shot. You go to investigate and find that a lion has been killed. A policeman comes up and asks: ‘What’s going on here?’. . . . Okay, Tom, What do you do?” Without hesitation, Tom answered: “I say: ‘I didn’t do anything!’ ”
Erik and I were talking on the phone – it was one of those nights in which I would not be coming home from the office until later than his bedtime – and after a while I said: “Okay Erik, see you in the morning. So long.” There was a pause and then he said: “I can talk to you longer if you’d like to.”
But things didn’t always go smoothly. One day, I took Erik to the Princeton Club and we had a good time, playing squash and exercising. That night, Erik was acting badly and I said in a stern voice, “You’re not the same boy I took to the Princeton Club today and had such a good time with and who behaved so well,” etc. A little later, he got worse – so I picked him up, smacked his behind and dumped him in bed. As I was leaving the room, I head him scream through his tears, “You’re not the same man that took me to the Princeton Club!”
One day, out at Fire Island, we set up a basket. Unfortunately, the big basketballs were too heavy for Tom – and the light one floated in the wind – so I said, “Let’s go down to the store and buy Tom a ball.” Fortunately they had the right one – an in-between size. We took it home, and Tom promptly sank a basket. Then he turned to me, worshipfully, and said: “You know just what to do.”
One of Erik’s best remarks of all came when I asked him, “What is a Mommy good for?” He replied “For Erik.”
I think my favorite moment with Erik came one morning when I was shaving and Erik was watching. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Erik? The President, like Nixon?” . . . . “No,” said Erik, “a man – like you.”