Some Assembly Required
Trying to Put It All Together | 🔨 no. 017
In an ongoing effort to curry favor with my toddlers and establish myself as the favorite parent (i.e., I know mom’s cool, but so am I!), from time to time I'll come home with surprise toys I spent too much money on, usually something loud and obnoxious from VTech or something wooden and vaguely pretentious from Melissa & Doug, only to see the kids show some fleeting interest before discarding it on the living room floor, the loud thump signaling their preference for more modest forms of entertainment.
I’ve watched my daughter spend an hour transferring water from one plastic cup to another, transfixed by its movement and the little islands of water forming on her highchair’s plastic tray; my autistic son, meanwhile, delights in discovering different textures and sensations, often content to stick his smiling face over the stream of cool air coming up from the floor vent or reaching out to inspect the fuzzy intricacies of a sunflower on one of our walks.
While it always stings when my efforts to buy the kids’ love is foiled by the wealth of their imaginations, one of the ongoing, restorative gifts of being a parent is watching them marvel at the world and, in their enthusiasm, re-enchant it by breathing life back into the banal.
I try to lean closer to see what they see, to vacate my cynicism for an afternoon by briefly inhabiting their sensibilities. Being in their presence is an open invitation to recalibrate my standard for what’s worthy of attention. “As artists, we seek to restore our childlike perception: a more innocent state of wonder and appreciation not tethered to utility or survival,” Rick Rubin writes in The Creative Act. “Accessing childlike spirit in our art and our lives is worth aspiring to.”
Indeed and, in this way, I hope to be like them when I grow up.
Yet, content as the kids may be with finding their own fun in the world, toys keep appearing. I’m thankful for these material gifts, for the luck and privilege of having access to them.
Selfishly, though, I’m most grateful for the opportunity each new toy presents: “Some assembly required.”
I've never been very handy, more of a liability when working on the house than an asset, much more likely to leave asymmetrical holes in the drywall than to successfully hang a curtain rod. So, it’s nice to have an easy project, one where I can momentarily feel capable, even if it’s just sticking some plastic parts together and slapping on some stickers. I still walk away triumphant and a bit arrogant: dad the master craftsman.
Opening a box and dumping out a clattering bunch of plastic parts allows me to feel like I’m fully embodying my role as a dad. Ridiculous it may be, I take pride in even the most mundane tasks, like unscrewing the back of a wide-eyed robot to install an obscene number of AAA batteries.
It’s the same feeling I get when I clean and fill up the water table on the patio or when I babyproof sharp corners: some deeply felt sense I’m living up to my duty as a father, every action—no matter how trivial—a step towards building a better environment for my family.
I remember watching my dad put toys together, so meticulous even when adding decorative decals, determined to place them exactly the way they were pictured on the box, his patience counterbalancing my frenzied excitement.
No matter the scale of the project, no matter how many tiny parts, dad showed up and a fully operational toy appeared not too long afterward. Sometimes, he'd even build toys from the most humble of materials, like an intricate popsicle stick fort for my plastic army men.1
What I remember most, though, isn’t the fun I had or the toys themselves, but the comfort and security of knowing dad would always be there to make things right, to make sure everything buzzed, whirred, shot, blinked, lit up, or moved correctly, each successful action emblematic of his greater commitment to making me and my sister feel not only happy, but taken care of, attended to.
Assembling a toy was always an act of care.
It can be act of self-care, too, or so I’m discovering. The short time I spend hovering over the scattered parts of a new toy takes on an almost meditative quality, allowing me to be fully present in my “dadness.”2
Shamefully, it’s rare for me to be fully present in my role as a dad. My mind is always adrift, traversing between the different continents of my anxiety: finances, work, errands, dinner, my Substack’s vanity metrics.
And, as much as I aspire to be more mindful, to be here now, sometimes I don’t want to be present in my dadness: when my daughter tantrums because she wants cheese instead of ice cream, when my son pulls chewed food out of his mouth and rubs it in his hair, when I'm changing a defeated diaper whose center could not hold, it is absence I desire, not presence; not a literal absence, mind you, but one where my mind and soul detach and float away to some faraway sanctuary, leaving my physical body behind to pick up after the kids.
Dad is his own mess of parts—and is surely missing a few—and there is no instruction manual. I'm trying so hard, but sometimes everything feels incongruous, mixed up, and I’m left wondering out loud what the hell I’m supposed to do with all these different parts. Some assembly still required, apparently.
But, when I'm standing there, presiding over a collection of plastic parts arranged in neat rows of primary colors, I'm present not only with the task of assembling the toy, but I’m able to reconnect with how much I love being a dad, how deep my desire is to be a good one, how compelled I am to show I care, how much I feel it all right here in my stupid, temperamental heart.
I will build this toy for you; I will build a world for you; I will build myself back up for you.
And for me.
There is such joy in watching it all come together, everything clicking into place.
Thanks for Reading
I still have it by the way, and it hasn’t aged a bit. I look forward to watching my kids play with it.
Funny enough, dadness keeps autocorrecting to sadness, and this seems about right.
This is so sweet, Jacob. I'm at the stage where we're getting rid of toys and I find memories attached to each one; it's bittersweet. It also made me think of a mother I know who never inserted the batteries in any toys for her four children. The noise was too much for her. The kids, not knowing any different, played happily. It always cracked me up, and I admired that she knew her own boundaries.
My girls noted last Father's Day that "fixing things with Dad" was among their favorite activities.