Man's Guide to Pregnancy: Part One: Why Monkeys Are Smarter Than Your Stupid Ass

        MAN'S GUIDE TO PREGNANCY: Part One 
          Why Monkeys Are Smarter Than Your Stupid Ass
              A Multi-Part Guest Post by Aaron A. A. Smith

Contrary to the sage and irrefutable pronouncements of Dr. Spock, Dr. Phil, Dr. Drew, Dr. Phil, Dr. Who, Dr. J, anybody with a PhD, anyone who got a B minus in their community college psychology class or a B plus in their community college women’s studies class, warlocks, unshaven patchouli women who believe that having a penis is an act of violence and oppression by which you have socially, economically and politically raped all women living or dead as well as literally raped all women with whom you have had consensual sex (N.B. If you are Kobe Bryant, Ben Rothlisberger, or pretty much any NBA or NFL player, I place the word “consensual” in quotation marks. Also you literally have raped them), “womyn” with a y (see above), super-intelligent dolphins, several bullshit surveys, your mom, the ghost of the Trix rabbit, and any asshole who is trying to sell his bullshit, self-help book, dvd, audio recording, or screenplay (I don’t know what a self-help screenplay is, but if you have ever written any screenplay of any kind, you are a pompous, pretentious asshole trying to sell bullshit. Also, fuck you. Also, your screenplay sucks), parenthood is not that fucking complicated. 

At least not at its most basic level. 

Think about it- it’s a basic, natural act in any animal species. We humans just managed to complicate the shit out of it. I mean, have you ever seen an otter, a lizard or the cast of the Jersey Shore turn parenthood into some angst-ridden, hand-wringing, neurotic existentialist dilemma? Fuck no. They don’t have the higher-level cognitive function to mindfuck themselves silly.

 Or take species that are a bit closer to us such as monkeys and apes. A few weeks ago, I was watching some spider monkeys in their cage at the zoo (by the way, this is an appropriate action, whereas standing around outside an elementary school and watching children is not, just in case you were unsure on this point). These motherfuckers had their shit down. They weren’t reading parenting magazines and taking about ways to cultivate the self-esteem of their little bastards (I can say that because I’m pretty confident that the baby monkeys’ parents were never legally married) or the relative merits of active parenting. No, they just slung those little fuckers on their backs, bounced around, ate fruit, fed the babies and generally shut the hell up. Sure they might occasionally fling their own feces, but let’s face it- they’re much more comfortable with their parental role that your spastic ass. That’s because monkeys have not needlessly overcomplicated the parenting process, and because they have adhered to the roles that millions of years of evolution and Jojobuja the Great Monkey God have ordained.

Baboons get it. Their behavior is a bit more complex than that of spider monkeys, but they still seem to pretty much have their shit together (at least when they’re not flinging it). They know their roles and they don’t overcomplicate it with whale song, unitards, and self-help books secretly published by the reincarnation of the ghost of L. Ron Hubbard (unlike us, by which I mean your dumb ass). The females are the primary caretakers, while most of the males sit around and bare their teeth at each other (a sign of dominance and aggression) and occasionally beat the living shit out of each other (also a sign of dominance and aggression). Sure, some of the wimpy-ass melvin baboon males sometimes play babysitter to baboon youngsters, but they only do it to impress female baboons  with how caring and sensitive they are, and because they’re saving up money for an X-Box. Some bullshit study by Harvard also shows that this tactic prevented dominant male baboons from giving the little melvin baboons swirlies in the men’s room toilet.  So in a sense, they’re complete phonies (see screenplay asshole above. Also, fuck that guy), but that’s their role. They stick to it. And they don’t give a fuck what Deepak Chopra, Dr. Spock, or the reincarnated ghost of L. Ron Hubbard have to say about it they keep it real. 

Of course, I still don’t trust baboons. I mean, how can you trust anything that’s ass looks like it’s been sitting on a transvestite serial-killer hooker clown’s face?

I would discuss our closest relatives, chimps, but all they do is sit around and masturbate all day. Wow, they really are like us. And by that I mean your dumb ass.

I think we used to have our shit together much better. Ask yourself this: did australopithecus or homo erectus (that was not a gay joke, so don’t write me about it) ever buy some fake fatass doctor in a unitard’s self-help DVD complete with soothing whale song to simultaneously lobotomize you and drain your free will? I think not. Dad went out to hunt aurochs, mom gathered berries, and if their little bastard (I can say that because I’m pretty sure austalopithecus parents never bothered to marry and homo erectus parents were not legally permitted to marry- ok there’s your gay joke, now you can write me)got too uppity, they didn’t try do engage him in a meaningful dialogue that would help foster his creativity and self-esteem and make him a more sensitive citizen of the world. They told his little ass to sit down and shut the fuck up, which probably sounded more like “Gloch, glack, po-aurgungh tock.”

This seemed to be the primary approach that humans took until the 1960s, when higher education, pompous guys on acid with ponytails and bullshit PhDs, unwashed and unshaven patchouli womyn, and a bunch of other sensitive, self-help snake oil salesmen convinced you that pregnancy and parenting are harder than Chinese math and that you need specialized training (which they will give you if you pay them), their self-help book or other related products (which they will give you if you them), a unitard (which they will give you if you pay them), and soothing, lobotomizing whale song (which they will give you if you pay them). Further, they have convinced you, and more importantly your wife, that if you do not waste your time and money on this bullshit, you are a horrible, terrible partner and human beings who probably eats live kittens and exposes himself at all the local preschools. 

So even though you now know this is all a bullshit pyramid scheme concocted by the reincarnated ghost of L. Ron Hubbard [source: Wikipedia], you still have to do it. So you’re pretty much fucked. But that’s ok, fellow traveler, because so am I. So am I.

And our journey has just begun, stupid-ass, retarded grasshopper. 

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Aaron A. A. Smith is a Historian, Juris Doctorate, Humorist/Fiction Author-to-be (his first book will be out in Winter 2011), and Beefcake Spartan Dada-To-Be. He lives in San Diego, CA. with his wife, Dani, who is pregnant with their first child, Ryker. He has officially launched his own blog about pregnancy and fatherhood, Asshole Dada.
http://www.assholedada.blogspot.com/

And, no, he will not join your Civil War reenactment troupe.