Chris Rock Joins the Club

by John Ettorre

So there I was at home one wintry Saturday afternoon, feet propped up on the couch, thumbing through my New York Observer, a distinctive salmon-colored weekly newspaper for urban sophisticates. I enjoy it for several reasons, not least among which is that it reminds me of the long-lost days when I too was an urban sophisticate, spending leisurely hours with the Sunday paper at a breakfast spot, reading, eating, people-watching and generally drinking in the city’s passing parade. What could be better?

Of course, this was BC – Before Children – a time so distant that I might as well hire a team of archeologists to search for fossil remains from that phase of my life. And so I get a fix of vicarious pleasure from my little salmon-colored, urban-sophisticate paper. A pathetic suburban-dad coping mechanism you say? Right you are!

Anyway, as I was cruising along through the paper, my post-sophisticate eyes stopped at a story about Chris Rock, the X-rated comedian. Normally I’d glance right over that on the way to something a bit more wholesome. But for some reason, I happened to linger just a moment, before I caught notice of something that did interest me: old potty-mouth Chris was waxing enthusiastically about his status as a new father.

Imagine that – a guy who’s paid millions to riff about unspeakable parental-advisory subjects had suddenly turned into an emotional marshmallow over the birth of his daughter. And just listen to him: "I don’t know, it made me look at the universe, I guess. I have so much in common with so many people now — with most of the world — where I didn’t before. I can literally have a conversation with any parent in the world."

Heck, even I could do this kind of G-rated stand-up!

I know precisely what he means, and you probably do too if you’re reading this. Funnyman Chris has stumbled over the immutable, comforting truth about parenthood – the fact that there is a universal community of parents that surrounds you when you enter the fraternity. Parents — like old war vets who once served together in ‘Nam — have an instant affiliation, an unspoken bond. We understand each other on a gut level, nodding indulgently as a toddler goes into full-scream meltdown at the mall. Others might glare and huff audibly at such a parent; we merely smile in a gesture of silent solidarity.

Of course, non-parents find this endlessly obnoxious and even a tad cult-like. They’re often outraged by our chumminess, by our set of secret handshakes. They’ll roll their eyes as we begin comparing notes about the stupidest little things about our kids, and reach for the barf bags when we dig into wallets and purses to fish out photos of our little darlings. And the former urban sophisticate, pre-parental me can sympathize. While some parents might be ripe to take up arms over a recent report in the Boston Globe about militant married couples without children, who wield so-called "vasectomy zoning" to separate themselves from what they consider obnoxious "breeder" families, I do understand their point. We can be a little obnoxious sometimes. Heck, even the formerly Playboy Channeling Chris Rock is going all Family Channel on us at the prospect of being a parent.

Still, I’m a little awed by the hunger that most parents have to share their stories with each other — to compare notes, to benchmark frustrations and achievements, to commiserate and draw psychic strength from each other. In just the few months I’ve been writing this column, I’ve been overwhelmed by the response of readers eager to talk about their parenting challenges and joys. My modest offerings have released a small flood of people who drop me a note or stop me in person to talk about parenting.

You know what I especially love? It’s the way most of these parents tend to immediately dive right into their own stories about kids and parenting, dispensing with the banal niceties that writers tend to hear from readers: "Saw your article. Loved it." But not parents. They delve right in, and begin to tell their stories.

A wise man once told me this: Remember that when you tell someone a story, it tends to trigger in them a simultaneous story from their own life. And this parallel soundtrack is playing in their mind even as they listen to or read your story. But don’t feel bad about that, he advised. To the contrary, it’s the highest compliment anyone can pay a writer or storyteller, that you’ve somehow touched them on such a deep emotional level as to release their own memories of similar events.

Now that he’s a parent, and now that he’s bravely voiced his emotional awe at the notion of having children, I think I’ll be enjoying Chris Rock’s work just fine from now on. Where once he was just another funny but foul-mouthed comedian looking to gain attention from an attention-deficit-disordered culture, now he’s something else altogether, something much more interesting. Now, he’s one of us.

Welcome to the club, Mr. Rock.

John Ettorre is a Cleveland-based writer and editor who has also worked in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Over a 20-year career, his writing has appeared in more than 70 publications, including the New York Times. His online weblog, Working With Words, can be found at www.workingwithwords.blogspot.com. To reach John, send e-mail to: jettorre@voyager.net or leave a message at (440) 708-2994.