A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

By Kate Stanton

I refuse – absolutely REFUSE, do you hear me? – to believe we’re all doomed to become our parents. I am determined to avoid this fate because it would mean turning into my dad, the love child of Frasier Crane and Danny DeVito. I am not exaggerating. If you met my dad, you’d see that this is the most uncannily accurate description of a person ever written. Dad has the personality of Frasier Crane; he’s a demanding, pontificating elitist prone to long-winded lectures about wine, jazz and international relations. Dad also has the jumpy, diminutive physical presence of Danny DeVito; they are both from New Jersey, and speak so similarly that watching DeVito play a degenerate wacko on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia makes me want to crawl out of my skin.

It shouldn’t surprise you, then, that I have a complicated relationship with my dad. He’s not the fatherly ideal. I wasn’t raised with his gentle guidance or strong but silent presence. Instead, I grew up with a loud, opinionated, emotional and impatient man who starts convulsing if he has to wait over two seconds for a waiter to bring his pinot. I’m usually embarrassed to be with him in public. Dad is a former professional diplomat who is so undiplomatic he will say, “Fuck the French!” directly to French people IN FRANCE. He is never wrong; to him, almost all other people are [insert New Jersey accent] “fuckin’ imbeciles”.

I’ve spent my life trying to