A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Dave as a Father

One of my favorite things to do as a little girl was to grab a book from my bookshelf and read it with my father and brother. We read books such as Green Eggs and Ham and The Berenstain Bears. These books and others like it are what I assume contributed to my love of reading. As I got older, I progressed to harder and harder books, finally culminating in Catch 22 during my junior year in high school. Even reading this book as a sixteen year old had its problems. At times, I was totally stupefied as to what was being said in the book and had to reread things over and over again. Reading Catch 22 as a nine-year-old girl, even with my father, would have been a horrendous experience and would have intimidated the love of reading right out of me.

However, to Dave Eggers, in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, reading Catch 22 to his nine-year-old brother Toph as a bedtime story seems to be a great idea. Trying to compare my father to Dave is like trying to compare a fish with a dog. They're completely different, with different styles, different ways of living, and different ways of raising children. My father, on one hand, is the picture of stability and cleanliness, and Dave, on the other hand, is the picture of imbalance and disorder.

Cleanliness is something that my father took seriously during my younger years. When my brother or I would leave our stuff out in the living room or kitchen, my father would take everything, throw it into a huge pile, and tell us to pick it up or it would get trashed. Eventually, my dad just gave up on me. My room always looked like a tornado had just hit it and after telling me twenty times a day to clean it up, my dad would just say, "Forget it." Because it was not only with my father, but with my friends' parents as well, this cleanliness is something that I always associated with parental authority. It was always just a fact in my life - parents are clean while children are messy. However, this isn't the case with Dave and Toph. Just as cleanliness is something that my Dad prizes, Dave is just the opposite.

Apparently, Dave and Toph have "an ant problem because [they] have not yet grasped the difference between paper mess and food mess" (71). Dave states that Toph is "relatively neat," but he's "converting [Toph] slowly, irrevocably, to [Dave's] own way, the slovenly way" (71). Their house is so messy that Dave has worries that "someone - the police, a child welfare agency, a health inspector, someone - will burst in and arrest [him], or maybe just make fun of [him], shove [him] around, call [him] bad names, and then take Toph away..." (72). Dave is paranoid about losing Toph because of his untidiness, yet he doesn't do anything about it. The solution is right in front of him. He's worried about messiness and the way to fix it is to clean up. H

owever, because of the fact that he's young and has never really had to deal with the maintenance of keeping a house clean and tidy, he doesn't have the experience or willingness to clean. Unlike my father, Dave doesn't have the parental authority it takes to keep things clean and orderly. He wants to be a friend and brother to Toph and this means goofing around and not cleaning up. He is unable to act like a father to Toph because Dave is basically still a kid himself.

And being only a kid, it's only natural that Dave would go out and have fun with his friends. One night, Dave is at the beach with Meredith when they are accosted by a group of kids. The kids actually mean no harm and are just having some fun; however, Dave finds that his wallet is missing. He blames the kids and calls the police, but when Dave gets home, he finds that his wallet had been on his dresser the whole time (165). Even during the time that Dave is out and about, he can't stop thinking about Toph. He has these visions of Toph being slain by the babysitter. Dave is out, trying to have a good time and be with friends his own age, but he can't. He feels guilty about having a life and going out with his friends while Toph is stuck at home with a babysitter.

But why should Dave feel like this? He is still wants to be a kid and experience the things that one should in their youth. However, although Dave is still a kid, he has taken on the responsibilities of an adult. He wants to be a friend and brother to Toph, but he can't because he also has to act as a parental figure to him. He has to juggle both worlds and feels guilty when he isn't able to.

In trying to juggle both worlds, Dave does often include Toph in his life with his friends. So much so, that Toph is being dragged into Dave's adult world. When Dave and Marny are talking about a new intern being only twenty-two and much younger than expected, Toph says, "Really? I thought he was our age" (253). Toph sees himself as being a part of the group of twenty-somethings that Dave hangs out with. He is missing out on being a kid himself because he is so ensconced in Dave's world. Dave wants to encourage Toph to spend time with children his own age, but "[he] [fears] that if [Toph] becomes too involved elsewhere, he won't be ever-available for [Dave's] own needs" (253). Dave is being selfish and keeping Toph too close. Toph isn't able to be with kids his own age because Dave feels like he needs him.

Unlike my relationship with my father, Dave and Toph's relationship is not a father-child relationship, but a brother-brother relationship. My father has a night that we call "cigar night." Every Wednesday night, my father's friends come over and they smoke a cigar in our backyard. It has become pretty much a tradition, so I can be sure that every Wednesday night I'll find my father and his friends outside having a good time chatting and smoking cigars. This tradition is something that makes my father so stable in my life. And although my father spends this time at home, it's not as if I'm smoking a cigar with them. I'm apart from my father and his friends, but he's still there with me.

In comparing Dave with my father, I'm not saying that Dave is a horrible parent to Toph. Dave is still trying to find himself as a person, let alone as a parent. He isn't ready for the responsibilities that parenthood brings because he's not even ready to take care of himself. Dave is trying to be Toph's best friend. By letting Toph do things like stay up late and leave everything lying around, he's being more like Toph's friend than his parent. I think that Dave makes a fantastic brother and friend, but not such a good parent. Eventually, and hopefully, Dave will learn how to set a good example for Toph and become more parent-like in his behavior towards him. He will be able to juggle his desire to be a good brother, friend, and parent to Toph and eventually be a good father figure like my dad.

Eggers, Dave. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. New York: First Vintage Books, 2001.