Who Will Inherit Joel Stein's Kid?
By JOEL STEIN Monday, Nov. 30, 2009
One of my first thoughts following the birth of my son Laszlo — after figuring out how to get a
pizza into the hospital — was, "What happens if my lovely wife Cassandra and I die in a car
crash?" I'm not sure what kind of life I thought Cassandra and I would have driving around late
at night, wasted, without our child, but I wish we had worked harder to pursue it.
Still, it's possible that Cassandra and I could get into some sort of freak accident in which the
TiVo remote flew out of my hand and sliced both our jugulars, so we discussed whom we'd
choose as Laszlo's legal guardian. We immediately thought of my father and his wife, since they
are responsible, patient, happy, amazing with children and very rich. But they're old. Laszlo
would think music consisted of nothing but Steve Lawrence and Brenda Lee and was accessible
only through four-digit cable channels. Plus, they live in the Hamptons, so Laszlo would grow up
with a snobbery completely different from the snobbery we intended for him. (See iPhone apps
for new moms.)
My mom seems like a great choice, but I've seen my mom around other kids, and I have no
doubt that Laszlo would eat nothing but ice cream. She and her husband are warm and
adventurous, but they were both therapists, so Laszlo would have to pretend to care about all
kinds of pointless conversations that end in tears and, I'm sure, more ice cream. Also, they plan
to spend half the year at their place in Florida, which would be fine if they balanced that with the
rest of the year at the World Economic Forum.
Cassandra's parents are loving and good at baking, gardening, repairing stuff and other skills
that Cassandra and I pay people for. But they're a little too country; they think window screens
are for stuck-up people, and not once since I've known them have they been able to use their cell
phones. Besides, they live in Hoosick Falls, N.Y. — a town so small, there weren't enough people
to stop someone from naming it Hoosick Falls. Cassandra's brother Brian is very into video
games and anime and is definitely going to be our choice for guardian once Laszlo turns 15. Her
brother Ian and his wife Tricia just had a son exactly Laszlo's age, but they also live in a tiny,
rural town. And they're vegan. While there's nothing wrong with being vegan, it means they
don't eat meat. And talk about being vegan a lot. Though I think Laszlo will like all the animals
in the kingdom, I do not think he's going to want to live in a house with them. (See the 10 best
iPhone apps for dads.)
We considered my sister Lisa and her husband Mike for quite a while, since they live in a nice
suburb in a homemade-soap-filled home and share a lot of our beliefs. But that guy watches an
awful lot of gore movies, and he laughs at them. And they bicker a lot, and I'm defining bicker
broadly enough to include discussions between opposing players in NBA games. Plus, they don't
want kids, which is a big consideration when you're giving someone a kid.
That's when we thought about my college friend Ben Wu and his wife Kristin. They have a great
house in a really nice town near San Francisco that's not all that different from the one we live
in. They're good parents to two kids we really like. They share our thoughts and values about
religion, education, discipline, family, home, competition, money and not taking things too
seriously, and I know they'd love Laszlo as their own child once he was in their home. Besides,
Ben was going to have to teach him how to play sports even if we survived the TiVo accident. As
we discussed the Wu kids' hobbies, college funds and cute clothes, Cassandra looked at me and
said, "I want to be raised by the Wus." And the truth is, after taking all those babies, we owe the
Chinese at least one kid.
It is not an easy thing to tell your family members who have shown your child so much love that
you're choosing a dude from your freshman dorm as a godparent instead of them. Which is why
experts suggest you do it through a humor column in the back of a magazine. But we chose
demographics over love. The Wus went to similar colleges, had similar jobs and do similar
things with their time. Despite genetics and the 18 years we spent together, our family is less like
us than the people we choose to associate with. Which means, sadly, that one day Laszlo will be
fundamentally more in tune with his slacker L.A. punk-rock-bandmate friends than with his
parents. Unless, of course, the Wus get him first.