4 Reasons Stay-at-Home Dads are At a Disadvantage

Have you noticed how much more enlightened classic kids’ songs like Wheels on the Bus have become?  Here’s an excerpt from a version I heard recently.

“The mommies on the bus say, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ The daddies on the bus say, ‘I love you too.’ All through the town.” 

Letter to My Future Self

Dear 20-Years-From-Now Me,

I hope this letter finds you well. My apologies for the boring opening; I don’t write a lot of letters, particularly letters to myself.

Running on Fumes

What’s the most natural thing to do when you have a new baby in the house that never sleeps and a toddler entering the troublesome threes? Run a half-marathon of course!

On Narcissism and Social Media

While I’ve been off the blogging grid for over a year now (can hardly believe it’s been that long), I have managed to maintain a sufficiently narcissistic presence on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (my newest addition). If anyone out there follows me on any of those platforms, and if you do I sincerely apologize retrospectively and in advance, I’m sure you have noticed my periodic offerings, thinly veiled attempts to boost my ego and feelings of self-importance. Of course, I am by no means alone in my online narcissism and I do believe mine maintains at least a semblance of modesty compared to some others (you know who you are three times a day selfie, inspirational quote and current events opinion posters). I try to stick to posting family pictures on FB and typically mundane things on Twitter about my favorite sports teams, etc.

On its face, such routine social media sharing seems harmless, right? But when I think about why I do any of it in the first place, it does give me pause. If I’m being honest, how many likes or comments my pictures and posts get can positively or negatively affect my mood at least in a small way. Why is that? Why should I care if a relatively random smattering of acquaintances and near strangers enjoy what I have to share? And going a step further, why should people I don’t know very well care what I have to say or what my kids look like? Realistically, the only people that should care are people I’m close enough with that I could say it to them face-to-face or share a picture through email or text message. Despite understanding this reality on an intellectual level, I still feel compelled to put things out there to the more general public. Why? The only plausible answer is that the feedback I receive makes me feel relevant. And I’m guessing the same applies to most social networkers…not just me. We have a need to believe people care what we do or think. Such reinforcement offers us a feeling of permanence in our transient existence.

Let me give you an example of how silly this really all is. I’ve recently fallen back into obsessive sports fanhood after my year abroad and related misadventures in pseudo-intellectualism (if you want to read some cringe-worthy narcissism…check out my posts from a couple years back chronicling that time period…freaking ridiculous). I always come back to sports though…I mean, you’ve got to have something to fill the time, right? Anyway, I increasingly find myself itching to respond to stimulating arguments on Twitter about who is better, Player A from XYZ University or Player B from LMNOP College. It’s clearly very important stuff. No wonder I can’t help myself. Of course, every time I wade into such arguments with internet strangers it turns out the same way. I get that butterflies in the stomach feeling I always get when conflict is afoot and I write a stupid, pseudo-intellectual blog post about my experience that attempts to reach far-flung conclusions about the human experience. What purpose does that serve exactly? To my credit, I have maintained enough discipline to avoid online political arguments in the past several years. Those are even more self-indulgent than sports arguments. Of course, by maintaining discipline I mean hiding any and all conservative Facebook friends from my timeline and not following a single conservative on Twitter. Curiously, however, in light of all the contortions I go through to maintain my social network sanity…I haven’t gone so far as to remove myself from these platforms all together. Interesting.  I feel like my good friend narcissism might have something to do with that (well, that and a spoonful of boredom).

Anyway, enough of all this soul searching, I just put this delightful picture up on Instagram (complete with 27 hashtags). Gotta find out how many likes it’s gotten in the past 13 minutes….

(Wait, on a scale of 1 to Paris Hilton, how narcissistic is writing a blog post about narcissism that’s title starts with the word ‘On’? Man, I really can’t wait to see how many page views I get after posting this!)

Some nights...

Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck, some nights I call it a draw. – fun.

My wife always describes me as a heavy sleeper. She’s probably right, but I wouldn’t really know, because I’m asleep during the times that I would be able to evaluate my sleep characteristics. One thing I do know, for those of us who have been accused of imitating a log while sleeping, having an infant, baby, toddler (whatever) can produce some fun nighttime adventures and mishaps.

For example, we have, for reasons that are not completely clear to me...I feel like I missed out on that decision, positioned the output portion of the baby monitor on the bedside table right next to my ear. This by no means should suggest that I always hear the baby when he starts crying, but I think my responsiveness is improving. However, one night/early morning recently when the “I’m awake” cries starting echoing in my subconscious, I found myself reaching for the monitor in an ultimately futile attempt to locate and activate the snooze button. Despite being in just a slightly better than log-like condition, I do remember that hitting snooze was my intention. Sadly, this effort went on for several minutes longer than I would like to admit. It did get me thinking, do these monitors have snooze buttons? And if not, why not? I’m thinking you should be able to set the snooze duration to something like mildly neglectful, moderately neglectful, or Octo-Mom. Anyone out there with connections in the baby monitor industry…make this happen.

Of course, rousing myself and getting out of bed is only half the battle. On one particularly up and down night, I managed to entrap myself in the maze of doors that is our bathroom and closet junction. This one is a bit difficult to explain without knowing our apartment geography, but my theory is that I thought I was sleeping on the couch, which would involve a left turn after getting up and a straight shot to Jacob’s bedroom door. Unfortunately, I was actually in bed, and the left turn resulted in a head on collision with the delightfully overlapping doors in the corner of our room. As with the monitor, I groped futilely for the missing bedroom door handle for several minutes longer than I care to admit. I can only imagine it looked a little like this...

Michelle said to me in the morning, “I was wondering what you were doing over there in the corner.” Thanks babe!

I tell you, some nights…

Guys know about a lot of things...

…apparently baby stuff isn’t one of them.

Guys, guys, guys. Some of you really need to step up your game. The tidal wave of house husbands is starting to make you look downright foolish. Now don’t get me wrong, I know guys aren’t stupid. We know a lot, about a lot of different things––like sports, cars, blue jeans, fishing, the list goes on and on. And I’m right there with you fellas. As many of you probably know, there’s nothing I enjoy more than getting under the hood and working on my car’s carburetor…or struts even. Yes, I would go so far as to say strut repair is one of my favorite leisure time activities. However, just because us guys know all about such manly things, doesn’t mean we can remain completely clueless about our offspring. Look bros, I’m on your side, I really am, so consider this some constructive criticism. After all, the house husband movement is just as much about male empowerment as it is about female empowerment. All of us need to become more well-rounded.

Let me give you a few examples of this male blissful ignorance I have encountered in recent weeks. Presented for your reading pleasure in bulleted list form (take note, here I am exhibiting my well-roundedness…the ability to use both numbered and bulleted lists).

• I was at one of my favorite local sandwich shops recently (let’s call it the St. Louis Bread Company to keep things anonymous) when a really nice guy approached me while we were waiting for our orders and asked about my stroller. First, to my most loyal readers, I know what you’re thinking, “What happened to your air of inapproachability? Have you gone soft?” (Newer readers, if you’re lost, check this out to help get you up to speed (and aspiring bloggers…that is called self-citation, blogging is all about self-promotion)) Trust me, I have not gone soft…well, with one small exception. There is nothing I like talking about more these days than baby equipment and/or baby statistics…I will go to any lengths to spread the house husband word. So, I was practically giddy when our sandwich shop gentleman asked if my stroller was one of those convertible stroller/car seat things. “Yes, indeed,” I responded, barely able to contain my excitement. I then launched into a nuanced description of the stroller’s features and lay out, complete with pertinent hand gestures. As I was explaining that there was a car seat component that lifts out, but that it had a height/weight limit that Jacob had outgrown, my protégé shook the deer in headlights expression from his face and said, “So, it’s almost not worth getting, huh? Since they outgrow it so fast.” Now, I could be underestimating this guy, as he might be planning to kick it seriously old school and put his baby in a cardboard box in the backseat for the first six months or so, but I’m not entirely sure what his other options are as far as newborn car seats go. My hypothesis, he was suffering from a very common guy problem, a lack of understanding that babies don’t reach Jacob size within 2 or 3 months and zero appreciation of baby weight/height ranges in general. Our next example will illustrate this further… 
• I was at another one of my favorite sandwich shops recently (let’s call it Subway) and the cashier (a guy, obviously) asked how old Jacob was, because he was, “A beast!” I told him he was around nine months. He said, “Yeah, I have a 12 month old, but she’s tiny…like 28 pounds.” 12 months…28 pounds? I guess that might be tiny…if he has a baby elephant.

See guys, it’s really just the basics. Heights and weights. Car seats and strollers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no expert on baby stuff, but I’m getting to the point that I can get by. That’s our goal guys…the ability to get by. Remember, since we have successfully played the expectations game over the past several centuries, the bar is so low that we can practically topple over with very minimal effort. Together we can do this.

2:30

So, what are you supposed to do at 2:30? I hate 2:30. By 2:30, I've used up all my best baby-entertaining material. Hilarious voices, walks in the stroller, each and every toy in the toy bin, random car rides, flap books that teach us how to do everything, you name it. By 2:30, Jacob has either already napped, or more likely these days, won't be napping without an epic struggle. And I do mean epic, like Biggie v. Tupac Hit 'em Up style epic. And to make the situation even more dire, How I Met Your Mother never comes on before 4:00 and Keeping Up with the Kardashians is only occasionally on, on a seemingly random schedule I've yet to decipher -- ahem, not that I care. And if all of that wasn't enough, at 2:30, Michelle won't be home from work for 5 more hours. How is that possible?!? 

What won't I do to serve my readers? #dedication

Thus I ask again, what are you supposed to do at 2:30? I mean, everyone knows what to do at 4:20, but alas, for 2:30 there seems to be no easy answer. Luckily for all you non-working schlubs out there who can't just kick back and chow down on some bon-bons...or whatever it is working folk do in their corner offices...because a miniature human is ceaselessly propelling himself across the floor in a furious army crawl in unending pursuit of the glory that is Baptism by dog-bowl water (see above), I've been toying with a few ideas to mitigate the 2:30 problem. In random numbered list form they are as follows:

1.   Make a Starbucks run. Mundane and hackneyed, I know. Also, not particularly effective or desirable from a time-killing or health perspective, but remember, we’re desperate here. I’m assuming that if you’re reading this, and thus have access to the internet, you probably live within 5 minutes of a Starbucks. However, 10 minutes of relief is better than nothing. As to the potential long-term health impact of Starbucks wares, the key is, the effects are likely long-term, and really, who wants to even think about living to see a post-Keeping Up with the Kardashians world anyway?

2.   Drive around until the baby finally falls asleep…then drive around some more because once he’s asleep there’s really no other option. Granted this option is riddled by at least three problems. Let’s call them A, B, and C to keep things clear and organized. 

A.  Driving around for an hour or so is probably more boring than playing with the baby for the same amount of time. By playing, I of course mean stopping the inevitable attempts at one-by-one devouring of the vertical blinds. And driving is definitely more boring that listening to the Dinosaur Trains theme song on endless loop.

B.  Driving around wastes gas and hurts the environment. This never fails to nag at my conscience. I really don’t need the planet’s degradation on my head, on top of everything else.

C.  Driving around wastes money. Of course, if we were really worried about saving money, we probably shouldn’t have had kids in the first place.

3.   Suck it up and tough it out. Not terribly appealing because it usually results in a crying mess….and the baby doesn’t like it that much either.

4.   Make up some type of grooming or general baby care activity (e.g., bath, feeding, awesome hair style experimentation) that doesn’t really need doing, but can serve to fill a few minutes. We’re really grasping at straws now…

So, what are you supposed to do at 2:30? Take home point…I really have no idea.

Dude, seriously?

The Wait, Didn’t I Used to Have a Blog Edition

So yeah, to all my legions of loyal followers out there in the blogosphere, I apologize for abandoning you. In my defense, I did have a baby almost 10 months ago now (well, my wife had a baby…I hate when men try to take credit for these things, and don’t even get me started on people who say “we’re pregnant”), so I have been busy. Well, maybe busy isn’t the most accurate descriptor, let’s go with occupied. I think all you parents out there will get where I’m coming from on that one. Nothing makes you feel simultaneously extremely busy and completely idle and non-productive as taking care of a young child. Never in my life have I watched so much mind-numbingly pointless television to pass the time during feedings, play time, naps, etc. Let’s just say, if you need advice on redecorating your house or the latest update on what your favorite Kardashian has been up to, I’m your man.

After my wife’s maternity leave was up, I took over the child care duties so she could go back to work. Guess that makes me one of those (supposedly) increasingly more common stay-at-home Dads (I prefer house husband, but that’s just me), although I’ve yet to come across another one personally. To be fair, I try not to leave the house or interact with other people when I can avoid it, so my sampling method might be a bit flawed. Why did I make this highly magnanimous sacrifice (not really)? Because I can “work from home” (aka I’m unemployed) and I was willing to put my career on hold for the good of my family (aka my wife can make more bank than I can). Anyway, getting to spend so much time with my wonderful, beautiful baby boy, filling a traditionally female-dominated role, has taught me some things that might be of interest to men and women alike. I present them here in numerical list form for no particular reason, because that’s how I roll.

I win!

1. This one’s for all the “working” men from the beginning of time who have dumped all the childcare responsibilities on their wives/partners. You stink. Especially those of you who have wives that work outside the home as well and yet still do most or all of the child care. I don’t care how much money you make/made and how you are the bread winner and how manly you are in fulfilling your very manly duties. You have no idea what unassisted child rearing does to a person. I mean, I split the duties pretty much evenly with my wife and I still find myself going nearly insane sometimes. Ahem, I mean, insane with wonderfulness and joy of course…because having children is nothing but happiness and sunshine (whew, I think I covered that well).
2.  Gender roles really are fascinating when you think about it. I mean, I find it pretty awesome that I often get heaped with praise for not completely ignoring my child. This has happened on numerous occasions in the past 10 months. I particularly enjoy it when my wife is present and the praise heaper usually adds a comment aimed at her that goes something like, “You’re so lucky!” Presumably because she didn’t marry a Neanderthal? I’m not sure if men have just been playing the longest expectations game in history (i.e., setting the bar progressively lower with selfish neglect of familial duties) or are just complete jerks. Probably the latter…we’re not that smart. Not to mention, we’ve even managed, through our historical control of all of our society’s key institutions (don’t knock it women, that’s what you get for lazing around with the kids all these centuries), to ingrain this expectation gap in official records and policy. For example, the Census Bureau counts father-provided parenting as child care (i.e., babysitting), but mother-provided parenting as, well, parenting. The only possible conclusion one can draw from these fun little instances of misogyny that pervade our society…being a guy is awesome!  
3. You know one thing that is awesome about taking care of an infant (disclaimer: I remain completely clueless about the different monikers for young children and the differences between them – baby, infant, etc – so forgive me if I use them incorrectly or interchangeably)?  The satisfaction one gets from getting your child to take a nap. For example, Jacob (my baby) fights sleep like Chris Brown and Drake in a nightclub. If he doesn’t fall asleep while drinking his bottle, you’re basically out of luck (I have to point this out, did anyone notice I used “bottle” in a completely different context in the sentence after referencing Chris Brown and Drake…I kill myself sometimes). Try to rock him, he throws himself back and screams; try to lay him down in his crib, he screams; try to lie down with him in the bed, he makes a Kamikaze-style headlong dive off the edge of the bed. So when/if you do get him to sleep after all that, the only thing to do is snap a picture (see above), text it to your wife with the caption “I win!!” and crank up some Zombie Nation and jump around a bit in celebration (note: make sure to leave the room before cranking up the Zombie Nation...speaking from experience here).
4. Hands down best thing about being a parent though, you can win any argument about anything (and I mean anything…don’t try to limit yourself to things that are actually related to having children) against anyone without children by giving a condescending snort and saying, “You obviously don’t have kids.” Boom, game over. I noticed this before I had a kid and it always annoyed me…not anymore. My time has come.
5. Ever find yourself making sound effects to go along with every day activities, like getting dressed, closing a door, or putting something down on the table, even when no one is around? Ahem, me either (darting eyes side to side).  
6.  Ever find yourself talking to or smiling at your dog in way that suggests you are anticipating some kind of verbal and/or facial expression response? Pshhh…no, I certainly don’t ever confuse my dog for my kid (eyelid twitching).
7. Know what I really like to do while the baby is sleeping? Nothing. 
8. Do you disagree with or don’t understand anything I said in this post? You obviously don’t have kids.

JAK

Announcing a new addition to the family (this time it's for real).  Perhaps more later, when I collect my thoughts...

Imitating Taio Cruz at less than one week old...that's my boy.

Perspective...

I know I haven’t blogged forever. It’s kind of fallen off my radar, I guess. But after this last week or so…I feel like I need to write to get some things off my chest.

This disgusting situation at Penn State has really touched a nerve with me. I’m sure most of you have read at least some of the sordid details. If not, just have a look at any major web site to get caught up…if you can stomach it.

As you all know, I love sports. It’s one of my biggest passions. But after all this, both the “scandal” and the reaction, I really don’t know what to think about sports anymore…and our society’s obsession with them.

Are our priorities so far out of whack that people can seriously debate whether a “legendary sports hero” is being treated fairly or unfairly in the wake of the serial abuse of 10s (if not 100s, I fear) of children…of which he was no doubt a central facilitator (by omission)? Are we really talking about playing a football game on Saturday…when almost all of the coaches on the sideline had substantial relationships and histories with a child rapist and one of them caught him in the act and did nothing to stop it?

How messed up are we? PSU students rally and riot in support of a facilitator of child abuse and mourn an old man’s sports legacy. Seriously…who cares? It’s all a game and none of it makes the slightest bit of difference. As a committed sports fan…that’s hard for me to say, but it really doesn’t matter. Legacies? Wins and losses? None of it matters.

The only thing that matters is the children who have been irreparably harmed by this. My heart aches for them.

As for sports…they must remain what they have always been, merely a distraction from our real lives and a good source of exercise when we actually participate, rather than watch. It’s high time for a little perspective.

Who is this guy?

I was browsing through the books section of Amazon today and came across a book that was number one on the "Hot New Releases" list in the "Social Sciences" section. The title suggested that it was something about the end of American dominance. I was interested, because that is no doubt an interesting topic, but I didn't recognize the author...some guy named Mark Steyn.

Anyway, I looked him up on Google and it turns out he's a Canadian-born radio talking head that blames most all of the world's ills on Obama and the "Pelosi Congress."  He's also known for guest hosting the Rush Limbaugh show.  Quite a sterling resume.  Interestingly, he dropped out of school at age 18 and was a DJ for 6 or 8 years before going into "journalism." 

This made me wonder, why is it that so many of the right-wing blow-hards (and politicians...like Rick Perry with his sterling 2.2 GPA and no post-graduate degrees) are so undistinguished in their educational careers?  And more importantly, how is it that when they write books...they get classified as "social science" or "economics" rather than "drivel" or something else more appropriate?  It's sad that so many people eat this misinformation up and craft their entire worldviews around it.

One thing that is both good and bad, I think, is that people who are educated and knowledgeable enough to write valuable and informed commentary don't because they realize just how much they don't know.  So, there's a void in which the vitriolic hacks prosper.  Like I said, it's sad...

I hate getting old...

So I turn 30 a few months ago and since then everything's really been falling apart. Messed up knee, sore sternum, earthquake, riots, revolutions, Rick Perry...what else can go wrong?

On the plus side, Steve Jobs quit...so I feel like I should be next in line for the Apple CEO job.  Seems only natural really...

So, yeah...

...as you might have noticed (or more likely...you haven't) the ole' blog has been a little slow lately.  When I last checked in, we were still in England. We're now back in Titusville.  That's the main development.  Our trip home was ok, if long (about 26 hours door to door).  Our 2-hour layover in Iceland was pretty great...kind of foggy, and we caught a glimpse of Greenland from the plane (snow capped mountains and melting glaciers...freakin' climate change). And of course it's been great to see all our families.  They were very happy to see us, as were our dogs.  With the dogs it's a little more obvious, with the face licking and all...with the people it's a bit more subtle.

Anyway, I really haven't decided what direction to take with the blog now that the traveling and adventures are in the books. I mean, don't get me wrong, now that I'm home...it's pretty much back to the rat race. And while I'm not insanely busy, Regis and Kelly isn't going to watch itself. 

My first instinct is to go all-in on progressive issues and development.  Being back in the cauldron of American politics (with the debt ceiling debacle and all) has got me stirred up.  And I would love to vent about the right wing idiocy that has taken our country's political (and hence economic) system hostage.  But, all that seems kind of weighty and mostly makes my head hurt, stomach churn, and heart beat fast, so it's more likely I'll stick with more important stuff like Qdoba...and pop music conversational nuggets.  I guess you'll have to wait and see...