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"That bath water is too hot for him...", "The diaper is WA-HAY too loose...", "He ABSOLUTELY does NOT like peas and carrots...", "Bedtime is 8:00 p.m. not a minute earlier...and not a moment too late!"

As the only stay-at-home parent of our son, I didn't have much difficulty establishing a profound sensitivity to his likes and dislikes, his biorhythms, his temperament - I even knew, give or take ten minutes, when and where he was scheduled to meet with his morning poop. With my husband far away at work every day, I soon became the family expert on our son. Who WOULDN'T think twice to consult me on matters concerning his well-being?

So you can imagine how surprised I was one day when, totally unannounced, my husband returned home from work with a toy for our eighteen-month-old son: his first radio-controlled car. "Oh honey," I laughed with a haughtily arrogant and patronizing smile, "Babies simply can't play with those ridiculous things! And look, it says that it has small, choke-able parts - you'll just HAVE to take that back!"

Expecting my husband to comply with my expert condescension, I was further taken aback when I found him at the kitchen table, opening the package and installing the batteries. I contemplated motives: perhaps it was a case of a second childhood? Perhaps his father had never let him have one of his own? Well, it didn't matter much since he'd see just how foolish his purchase was once my son tired of the cheap, plastic SUV replica.

Being made of plastic, when all other toys in our house were strictly wooden, I was certain that my genius of a son would recognize the lack of expert craftsmanship; that he would be able to FEEL the absence of handmade quality and care. He was no child by-product of industrialization - he was a unique individual who had been nurtured and studied nearly every waking moment since birth. (I was already teaching him to read.)

The moment the car revved up its stupid, noisy, plastic wheels, the gulf between the sexes suddenly tore through the ground between my son and I. My husband and son were instantly sitting together on the floor watching this puerile contraption zip back and forth while I got increasingly more annoyed with each passing minute. Surely this brilliant child would realize the inane stupidity of his own father driving around a toy car when he could just as easily drive around a real one! But that expected enlightenment never came and, for nearly three hours of torture, until the batteries (and I) had

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