Critical Mick

Tim Bete is only a few years older than Critical Mick, but he looks positively ancient.

Tim Bete is this Ohio guy who writes a big healthy column nourished by good Middle American meat and potatoes, a spoon of sugar, each serving laced with religious inspiration, with a kiddie-sized side of nostalgia. Tim Bete includes Erma Bombeck right at the top of his page of acknowledgements. Tim Bete’s column appears in more than a dozen parenting magazines.

Tim Bete’s book, In the Beginning... There Were No Diapers: Laughing and Learning in the First Years of Fatherhood, is drawn from these columns. Tim Bete tells humorous stories about how he once flew First Class with his curious young son. Tim Bete takes his family miniature golfing in the middle of an Ohio winter. Tim Bete describes for readers a conversation that Noah would have seen if Home & Garden Television had a show called "This Old Ark." Tim Bete enumerates a Recipe for Disaster, and it has nothing to do with the analogy in paragraph two. Tim Bete writes "There is no cranberry sauce in Egypt," so sad for the refugee Holy Family. Tim Bete mentions Guinness, but only in the context of the Guinness Book of World Records for parents attempting to change diapers in an airplane bathroom. Tim Bete never- not once- talks about himself in the third person.

Tim Bete is a friendly opposite of edginess. Tim Bete has his own thing going on, but Tim Bete is so gentle, he sings Steppenwolf’s song as Born to be Mild. Man! Tim Bete looks funny, and writes that way too. Tim Bete is old and, yes, maybe a little wise. Tim Bete sets an example of how to raise three kids.