Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First Century Parenthood, the latest book by blogger and author Drew Magary, offers lessons in the difficulties inherent in being a modern parent. In many ways the author comes off as a witty, sarcastic Everyman who loves his family deeply but talks candidly about how they frustrate him. Like some of the best fictional characters, his flaws make him endearing yet hardly a role model.
Most of the experiences in Magary’s book play up the theme of the neurotic, goofy dad and husband doing his best to lead his family through the trials of life with hilarity. My wife had to remind me that our son was asleep while I laughed at the author struggling to bathe his young daughter or trying to keep his kids from fighting. However, perhaps with a bit of newly discovered wisdom and a message to send, Magary devotes an alarmingly serious chapter to his DUI arrest.
After confessing to this, Magary further admits that it was not his first time driving under the influence. His wife was so furious that he recalls being terrified that she might leave him. What is scary to me is that after years of men just like Magary risking their lives and the lives of those around them, we seem to continue to forget that, as his title states, someone could get hurt for real.
If Magary is an Everyman then the chapter demonstrates that we apparently still need to spend as much time talking to each other about the dangers of drunk driving as we do warning our teenage children not to do it.
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