The measure of a man

Q: You're best known as a novelist. Why did you decide to put out a collection of autobiographical non-fiction?

A: It evolved over time. At a certain point a couple years ago, I started to think I'd probably written a fair number of pieces that in some way or another had to do with my life as a man. I'd given talks on the subject. I'd written various essays and columns and pieces [about it]. I sat down with this collection [of work] and gave it to [wife] Ayelet [Waldman] to read, and she started to pull out pieces that seemed like they'd make sense [as a volume].

Q: In the essay "Xo9," you talk about asking your son's permission to write about his struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder. How do you reconcile your impulse to protect your family with making personal revelations in your writing?

A: [Long pause.] It's tricky. It's not easy. I guess ultimately I do try to talk to my kids or whoever it might be. Sometimes, you don't know what's gonna be offensive or problematic or embarrassing. Some things that embarrass people are surprising, and other things you think will embarrass people don't at all. I try to be sensitive in that way. On the other hand, these things pass. Things that seem terribly embarrassing or made you uncomfortable can retreat; they have a tendency to fade away with time. I try to keep things in perspective. I don't want to make my children uncomfortable, so I always keep that in mind.

(HarperCollins Canada)

Q: In "The Art of Cake," you write about being thankful that you came of age during the sexual revolution, at a time when boys were allowed — and encouraged — to emulate their mothers. There's been a lot of talk recently about the "crisis of masculinity." As the father of two sons, do you think your boys have it better or worse than you did growing up?

A: I guess I'm mixed on that. Where we live, in Berkeley, California, I think men are much freer to find themselves in a variety of different ways. There's less pressure to conform to some norm of masculinity and manhood. Now, I don't think it's entirely successful in that regard — certainly, traditional models are still reinforced — but I do think it is easier for my boys, and for my girls, too. But if you're asking about how there's been some criticism of, say, the educational system that expects boys to be more like girls or treats boys as though they are girls in a classroom setting, in terms of the demands on their attention or the time period they're expected to focus on a particular activity before going on to another activity — well, there's probably some merit in that.

What I don't hear so much anymore is that it would be better for boys if they were allowed to be more like girls, that they'd be happier if they were permitted to act in terms of what's traditionally considered to be girl-like. I get the sense maybe it's better for us, for the institution, if boys are more like girls: we want them to be quiet and pay attention. Maybe that's the problem.

Q: Do you think we've made any progress around the fluidity of gender roles?

A: It was so shocking to me when I was a much younger parent. The first time we had a kid, I went into a Toys 'R' Us — I probably hadn't been in one since I was about 10 years old — and witnessed the stark naked certitude with which the toys were segregated by gender. I assumed that in my absence from the world of toys and children that there would've been be some flux — or that the flux that seemed to get stirred up when I was a kid would've gone on in my absence. There was something almost aggressive about the way that segregation was still present.

Q: You write lovingly about what you call "the wilderness of childhood" — a space "entirely free of adult supervision." Even in your fiction, there's a lot of reverence for the imaginative space of childhood. Do you think the fantasy life of children has become too mediated?

A: I think it's very possible to overstate that. There are still a lot of exceptions. Kids are still wired to be able to subvert the things that authority presents them with, and I still have faith in that impulse. I try to get into that a bit in my essay about Legos. [The changes that I see have to do with the fact that] the output that was traditionally clandestine and secret and belonged to children, that was kept on this subrosa level, it's been brought out into the open and exploited and sold back to kids by adults. There's something really wrong to me about that. I don't know what's to be done about it.

(Picador)

Q. In Manhood for Amateurs, you mention the rise of Wacky Packages — those '70s-era collectible stickers with scatological send-ups of popular products (like "Vile" soap) — as "a pivotal moment in the history of American childhood." You make a link between Wacky Packages and the popular Captain Underpants series of books for kids, which you despise.

A: Even though I was born in 1963, the children's popular culture of the '50s was still present and still offered. So much of that stuff was utter garbage — it was disgustingly treacly and still enforced a model of what a good citizen was, and promoted respect for your elders even if they were stupid. But it was so fruitful to be satirized and mocked. We knew that, and we did it on our own, [creating] obscene parodies of patriotic songs or whatever.

Today, there's no more or less garbage being produced for kids, at least percentage-wise — 90 per cent of [the material] is probably still garbage. But it's a kind of knowing garbage. It winks at kids, and it tries to pass itself off as self-mocking before it can be mocked by kids. I don't know what that's like. I don't know how kids create space for their own production. Maybe it's just harder, and they have to be more inventive and creative.

Q: How do you solve that?

A: I don't know. All I could suggest is to try and be aware of it and to notice what's happening, to think about it. So much changes in the world, and so many changes continue to happen so imperceptibly that revolution can take place without you even noticing. The best I can hope for is to get people to pay attention. That's kind of the highest moral responsibility we have. It increases your ability to imagine, and leads you to be a more responsible person.

You can't practice the Golden Rule without imagination, because there's no way of understanding how your actions will affect others. And it's hard to pay attention. Going back to the example of Legos — they're there in the store, with the same logo they've always had, and it takes a moment to realize they're totally different [from what they were in the '60s, '70s and '80s].

Q: Do you think that in passing on nostalgic parts of their own childhood, parents overlook how these things have changed?

A: Nostalgia can certainly make you less critical. I think you can have a wish for something to be as it was, which is such a common experience for most parents. Like, when you remember some book you loved as a kid. My wife used to love this series of books, The All-of-a-Kind Family. She excitedly found them again, and started reading them to our eldest daughter [and was shocked to realize] they were so saccharine and treacly. She remembered them as a sort of Jewish Little Women. That's a very common experience. On the other hand, I don't think there's anything wrong in using your children's childhood as an excuse — or an opportunity — to re-encounter things you loved as a child.