The Daddy Shady Show

Upstanding Suburban Citizen Eminem Sets the Fatherhood Standard

A A A Comments By Chuck Eddy Tuesday, Dec 24 2002

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"My little girl knows me even if nobody else does. She knows that, at the end of the day, Daddy is not what he says in his songs," Eminem told Megastar last year. "There may be part of me that's like that, or that gets angry and wants to say those things, or maybe wants to actually do those things. But when I'm with my little girl, I'm not like that all. I'm Daddy to her."

So hopefully the guy who jokes about grown-ups sucking his wee-wee back in pre-school wasn't too fucked up by his childhood. Thing is, I have a feeling he's not clownin' at all when he criticizes parents who let their 12-year-old daughters wear makeup. For Hailie, that's five years away. He says hip-hop was never a problem in Harlem, only Boston, after it bothered fathers of daughters starting to blossom; what happens when Hailie starts to blossom? What happens when she starts to date? In two years she'll be in third grade, when a song by her dad says Slim Shady used to sniff glue through a tube and play Rubik's Cube. And in three years she'll be in fourth grade, and by then kids have the Discovery Channel so of course they're gonna know what intercourse is. And in 2012 he'll "be 40 with a 40 on the porch tellin' stories/with a bottle of Jack, two grandkids on my lap/Babysitting for Hailie, while Hailie's out gettin' smashed." At 17, if you haven't already done the math. Happy birthday, Hailie. And papa, don't preach.

illustration: Steve Rude

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Additional reporting by Daniel King