Looking for the Audiobook Edition? Tell us that you'd like this title to be produced as an audiobook, and we'll alert our colleagues at Audible.com. If you are the author or rights holder, let Audible help you produce the audiobook: Learn more at ACX.com.
A Santa Fe dad shares heartwarming, comic, often ludicrous tales of raising a family in this laugh-out-loud book perfect for anyone who enjoys the edgy humor of David Sedaris or the whimsical commentary of Dave Barry. Waxing both profound and profane on issues close to a father’s heart—from exploding diapers to toddler tantrums, from the horrors of dressing up as Frosty the Snowman to the moments that make a father proud—Robert Wilder brilliantly captures the joys and absurdities of being a parent today.
With an artist wife and two kids—a daughter, Poppy, and a son, London—Robert Wilder considers himself as open-minded as the next man. Yet even he finds himself parentally challenged when his toddler son, London, careens around the house in the buff or asks the kind of outrageous, embarrassing questions only a kid can ask. A high school teacher who sometimes refers to himself jokingly as Mister Mom (when his wife, Lala, is busy in her studio), Wilder shares warmly funny stories on everything from sleep deprivation to why school-sponsored charities can turn otherwise sane adults into blithering and begging idiots.
Whether trying to conjure up the perfect baby name (“Poppy” came to his wife’s mother in a dream) or hiring a Baby Whisperer to get some much-needed sleep, Wilder offers priceless life lessons on discipline, potty training, even phallic fiddling (courtesy of young London). He describes the perils of learning to live monodextrously (doing everything with one hand while carrying your child around with the other) and the joys of watching his daughter morph into a graceful, wise, unique little person right before his eyes.
By turns tender, irreverent, and hysterically funny, Daddy Needs a Drink is a hilarious and poignant tribute to his family by a man who truly loves being a father.
{"itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":11.27,"ASIN":"0385339267","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":11.92,"ASIN":"1416915060","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":13.36,"ASIN":"1419704591","isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"0385339267::4B2ysFul5tlQnqA%2FyKfgaeXwuC%2FS6Bzw0rGp8xuwbixfr%2BDQ3vMIjPik6E0H7bqQkC7llpCieZ%2BTb%2BEX%2Fh2Otu0M4VoBPB2FtaNmC%2FhFGig%3D,1416915060::oK2JlQx%2BsV8EHE1XMu%2BbN8wqX2pV4boajVBq6DIeHaReG%2BmcEDVJ%2Fu8%2BRAQdJBYe%2FM%2Fcu%2F8VxthtxBtHggZZfOUzeC76xevDSoZiBN0hdY33amcWJnkIzA%3D%3D,1419704591::0YOXVQCaQ67MOW2300m4SyYrouzSGHiIneYZGieDRxpO8AOFWeeZjFf4FmkdPVI0XXwX0d9gko9a5VfTyK9LfuxWqXglhzCtr0EDeNWybmSFYSnkV%2F%2F0%2Fw%3D%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"currenyCode":"USD","shippingDetails":{"xz":"same","yz":"same","xy":"same","xyz":"same"},"tags":["x","y","z"],"strings":{"addToWishlist":["add to wishlist","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:"],"preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items"]}}
"Wilder's collection is spiced with sharp-eyed but never cruel observations of kids' befuddling behavior and hilarious scatology…. His love for his family comes through without ever seeming cloying…. Capture[s] the absurdity and joy to be found in the most important job a man can do."—Los Angeles Times “Robert Wilder’s hilarious and boldly candid essays about the realities of parenting go down like gin and tonic on a hot summer afternoon.”—People
"More profane, more ironic and at times more touching than a whole stack of well-meaning child-rearing manuals....Even if your husband or father or brother isn't much of a reader, Daddy Needs a Drink would be sure to make him laugh."—Cleveland Plain Dealer
Robert Wilder was born on Long Island but raised with his three brothers in Westport, Connecticut, a country block away from Martha Stewart. He has worked as a gas station attendant, dishwasher, factory worker, landscape grunt, grass cutter, lackey, busboy, waiter, concession stand clerk, housepainter, soccer camp director, dog show researcher, fundraiser, and advertising executive. He now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife, artist Lala Carroll, and their two children, Poppy, and London.
Wilder is a graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, New Mexico State University (M.A.), and Wesleyan University (B.A.). He has published fiction and nonfiction in Parenting, Salon, Creative Nonfiction, The Greensboro Review, The Colorado Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and elsewhere. He has been a commentator for NPR's Morning Edition, The Big Show with Honey Harris on KBAC FM in Santa Fe and Back Roads Radio. His fiction and essays have been nominated for numerous awards including The Pushcart Prize. His column, Daddy Needs a Drink, is published monthly in the Santa Fe Reporter. He is the former director of the Southwest Literary Center of Recursos de Santa Fe which includes the Writers Reading Series and the Santa Fe Writers Conference. Daddy Needs a Drink is his first book.
As a fellow author, and a new mom, I read this book thinking I'd find a dad who doesn't really get it but that it might be humorous. Well, I was wrong. He totally gets it every bit as much as the bored stay at home moms I know. If you don't laugh at the chapter entitled "Pussy" you probably don't have a pulse which means you have bigger problems than what book to buy. I definitely recommend this book to all dads who want to see that other dads know what you're going through. Good luck out there!
Daddy Needs a Drink is a delightful peek into Robert Wilder's child-filled life, highlighting the ridiculous charm of his kids, Poppy and London, and the daily dilemmas and lessons parenting has taught him. From the first few pre-pregnancy tales, one of which involves listening in to his neighbors' dalliances via baby monitor, through his kids' adventures and misadventures, Wilder proves that he's laughing at himself most of all.
More than just "cute kid stories," Wilder explores the ways teaching his children right from wrong can often be unsettling for other adults, such as when his son decides to say the word "pussy" at many an inopportune time (not to mention "hipple") or teaching him about dwarfs ("dwarps" in London-speak). He explores his son's addiction to his nuzzies (blanket lint) and their attempts to wean him off of them.
Wilder also has an eye for the hypocrisy of other parents and teachers, pointing out their excesses and eccentricities. On the beach, he describes sitting near "High-Maintenance Mom" while he makes sand mermaids for his kids. When High-Maintenance Mom's daughter comes over to see what the fuss is about, Wilder writes: "The little girl left her mom and wandered over to what must have seemed like more fun than an outdoor office where your boss ignores you." No matter how much he may roll his eyes at certain parenting conventions, Wilder will never be the kind of dad who blatantly ignores his kids.
And, while humorous, Wilder exhibits a vulnerability that's refreshingly honest, most notably when he shares a crying bout upon observing his daughter on the playground.... He's a dad who's willing to go above and beyond the call of duty, wearing a filthy Frosty the Snowman outfit, buying outrageous amounts of school supplies, and generally humoring his kids without spoiling them. His essays about his own father, whose love for Sam's Club knows no bounds, show their own deep connection.
Wilder's greatest gift is in making readers laugh, but never at the expense of anyone else. There are stories that his kids will likely one day laugh right along with, and he includes himself in the punchlines. He touches on telephone etiquette for kids, how to deal with his children's voluminous output of artwork, and balancing the needs and wants of two adults and two kids harmoniously, while also giving a glimpse into the rest of his family and his friends' adventures in parenting (where the terrible twos extend onward well past that famous age). This is well worth reading, whether you have (or even like) kids or not, and while his love and awe for his kids is clear from every page, Wilder manages to be hilarious and tender, but never sappy. Wilder doesn't claim to have all the answers, and learns along the way, painting fatherhood as an ongoing journey of learning, growing, and being changed by his role as a parent, and his humorous writing is all the better for this lack of a master plan or know-it-all advice. I will be giving this book to all the new dads I know.Read more ›
If you are a parent or wanting to be a parent, you should definitely read this book by Robert Wilder. It is a collection of his memories as a father, from the first time he changed his daughter in an Olive Garden Restaurant men's room, to having worn a snowman suit called Frosty and baking in his own fart and stench just to get the love of his daughter. Wilder also narrates the frustrations of being a parent and drastically looking at it in a very side splitting and hilarious way. If you want a book that will make you "pee-in-your-pants-laugh-out-loud-kind" of way and if you want to see the different lengths parents will do to get their children's love, this is the book to read. You will also find in this book how a family friend reacts when his 3 year old son drops the "F-BOMB word", or when a 6 year old girl asks Wilder, "Daddy, what is rape?", and a kid's question on why the sky is blue followed by who, what where and when interrogations. Although this book is about parenting and children, Wilder's language is on the rated R range, which I think is a very effective tool for the adult readers to find amusing, not to mention one chapter that has rated R dialouges with.
Hilarious, closely-observed, refreshingly honest, moving in unexpected ways. The book deftly avoids the saccharine territory of so many books about parenting and just nails the strange, important details of domestic life. "Crying in America," a triptych of essays, is at the book's heart and ought to be shared widely.
In short, a great read and one I'm passing along to people of all stripes - men, women, those who parent, those who have been parented.
I'm not going to lie...I am not done with the book, YET! But in a wierd way, I don't want to finish it. I want it to keep on going...I want it to always be there, to crack me up with its unique and witty writing style. I want it to be there to make me laugh so loud, I startle my dog. I want to keep reading the funny accounts of Mr. Wilder's life...the parts that make me laugh even when I'm not reading...when I am walking around the mall, or sitting at the teacher's lounge eating lunch. Everyone says, "What are you laughing about?". I say, "Read the book!"
Trust me people, its HILARIOUS! You won't want it to end :)
Great book! I thoroughly enjoyed it - laughing out loud too many times to count! I bought another copy for my brother and his wife, who just had their first child 2 months ago. They agreed that "Daddy Needs a Drink" is better, and certainly more comical and realistic, than all the "how to raise a kid" books in circulation!
Gave this to my dad for fathers day, and he told me it was a bit embarrasing. Some sexual stories, etc. He may be sensative, I haven't read it. Just be aware if you are giving it to a prude! (:
As an author (50 Things Every Guy Should Know How To Do) and a parent (Joshua, 2 1/2) I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Mr. Wilder not only has an entertaining, engaging writing style, but he is the rare person willing to admit that parenting has its downside. "Daddy Needs a Drink" was honest and refreshing. I highly reccomend it to anyone thinking of having kids or those who already have them because its nice to know that other people feel like this.
