The Perils of a Stay-At-Home Dad

Nine long years have passed since I took the reins as a stay at home parent. A lot has changed in that time as it has become a lot more socially acceptable for Dads to be the ones who stay home and have the women be the major breadwinner in the home. But for all that's changed there are still a few things that haven't and I feel it's my responsibility, as a domesticated dad veteran to point out some of the things you have to look forward to and ways to, perhaps, stop them before they happen.

1. Female Abuse....You will run into a lot of women, particularly the stay-at-home variety, who are just not happy with the thought of a Neanderthal entering their wonderful little clique. The thing that you'll run into most often is being asked if your wife is sick, or if you just have the day off work that particular day. There is an expectant air of hope in their voices when they ask, but when you reply that you are an SAHD, there is a momentary look of disgust followed by a really demeaning, "good for you", which is uttered in the same tone as they use when their 2 year old finally gets that first spoonful of pureed carrots into their mouth without spitting any down the front of themselves.

I don't think it helps that I am a heavily tattooed, pierced, shabbily dressed Scotsman (they can barely understand a single word I say), who lives in an upper middle class part of the South. I am deep in Stepford Wife country and my intrusion is the equivalent of an alien spacecraft landing on the White House lawn. So my advice is to stay out of the tattoo shop and try to adopt the affects of the area you live in whilst wearing perfectly pressed Dockers, a golf shirt and penny loafers.

2. Male Abuse....Be prepared for a verbal onslaught from your friends and perfect strangers, all of the male persuasion. They will take every opportunity to question your sexuality (even though they are all in their 30's, single, and living with 3 other guys), and abuse you for the fact that you watch the kids, prepare meals, do laundry, and vacuum. The irony here is that in the same breath they will ramble on about how lucky you are to be at home doing nothing but being a kept man.
The best way to avoid a lot of this is to avoid talking about how your latest laundry detergent just isn't getting out those stubborn stains, or how fresh your new linens smell. Instead stick to the old standby male topics; sports and women.

3. Soap Opera Addiction....You may scoff now but just wait. In those afternoon hours when the kids are having a nap and you are sitting down for a bit of quiet time with a fresh brewed pot of coffee, you turn on the TV and dial click and, before you know it, there is a stunning looking woman in some level of undress parading around the screen. You check the channel to make sure there isn't a free preview of The Playboy Channel that you didn't know about and are stunned to find that it's one of the regular channels. Before you know it you'll be doing everything in your power to get the kids down at the same time every day so that you can catch that type of action again. It's a curse but it is avoidable.

Keep the TV switched off or locked on ESPN. Do not channel surf!! If you don't sample it, you can't become addicted to it. And if you do end up hooked you will only end up talking about it resulting in further abuse from the males.

4. Losing The Ability To Speak Like An Adult....You don't even realize this has happened to you until you actually do it outside the house. You spend so much time with the kids, speaking their language, that you finally just adopt baby talk as your native tongue. The first time it happened to me I was talking to a friend about an upcoming trip I was about to take and I said, "I hope when I get on the big aeroplane, they give me a nice blankie." My friend was absolutely appalled and purchased me a "Hooked On Phonics" set for my next birthday.

The best way to avoid this is just to speak to your kids as though they were adults, being sure to avoid the sort of salty language that a lot of us tend to slip into. Your kids will develop a great vocabulary very quickly, and you won't end up looking and sounding like the village idiot.

I want to wish good luck to all my fellow Dad's and I hope that this article will help the new ones avoid the pitfalls I encountered in my early years' years.