There are few male voices inside the mainly female sections at the New York Times which are assigned as Family, Family Values, Raising Children in a Religion, Raising Children Without a Religion, Day Care, Trauma at Day Care, Trauma at the New York Times, Rape Makes Guys Nervous Who Should Be Nervous, Rape, Education, Education in Day Care, Recipes, Recipes in Day Care, What to do When Your Baby Cries For 10 Years, and Jobs at NASA. I know it’s tough. I have been there. I am still there.

I apologize. I am a man. But I get some of it. The day it hit me that my life was about to change, I was pushing the baby thing (being a man, I have no idea what you call a buggy, it sounds like a bug) in the park with my new infant. I had to get us outside because the inside was rotten and indifferent. I did not know who this woman who was my wife, was anymore. It became apparent I would be working and parenting alone. All alone. But I could not make that break. I could not do it. Maybe, I could fix my wife. But no. All the leaves were brown. And the sky was grey. I was in the park again. On another winter’s day.

I’m looking up. She was asleep in the buggy. A plane.

California.

My wife became a lone world traveler. There was no way to reach her. I’m sorry, but I didn’t have time for it. The diapers had to be changed. The milk was different. Now, let’s try some solid food. Let’s not. I had to take the baby with me on job interviews. In California, I was not crazy. Maybe a little. It’s not a joke. What does crazy mean.

Obviously, for women, it means a few notches down on the validation bed post, it was her duty to take care of this baby because what was wrong with her. I had a lot to learn.

The timeline I constructed for the New York Times was necessarily fluid. It’s about Identity. It is always about Identity. Because Identity is about class and caste.

The image of the wife and the kid – and me – was an image I would have to learn to smash myself into small shards of glass. There is no reflection to it. It was a black hole, and I’m not, not, not going down. The kid and I went everywhere together.

I had never thought to bring a blanket to the park to sit on as you watched swings. And she was missing this. All of it. Neurology. I was too young. To get it. I didn’t have time to be depressed nor did I deal in any way with the rage women would throw. At me. I’m busy. More busy than you will ever know. The fluidity is a buffer. Us Against the World.