Nothing to be SAHD about

I’m not going to lie to you. Being a stay at home dad (SAHD) with my son is a pretty sweet deal. I had read and heard many stories of men receiving awkward looks from moms on the playground, and condescending looks from people in shops. Although this may still be the case in some corners of North America, in my corner of North North America (i.e. Canada) I think we’ve moved on. If however slightly.

In many ways I find society treats fathers excellently, with men easily getting 80% of the credit for 20% of the work (the 80/20 rule applied to parenting). Put the kids to sleep... what a man. Give them a bath... so caring. Get up in the morning with them... where does he get the energy? On the other hand it seems the baseline for contemporary motherhood is ever broadening to include every aspect of a family’s well-being while men are lauded for simply going for ice cream. Men – in my experience – are getting anything but the short end of the stick here. Heck, when cruising around with an 8 month old you are pretty much treated like a pregnant woman, maybe even better, because no one treats you like they know what’s best for you.

For kids, playgrounds are obviously special places. One of the many great things about kids is that they are completely unaware of the many rules of normal social behaviour, especially on the playground. Just the other day a five year old walked up and asked to hug my son. During the hug my son countered – quite happily – with an (unsuccessful) eye gouge. I think you get it. For many fathers however, I think they are somewhat disappointed to discover that – even on the playground – certain rules of social behaviour still apply.

I find the stories of self-conscious SAHD’s getting weird looks from mothers on the playground pretty interesting. I think this probably says more about men than women. I sincerely hope that I am not fostering stereotypes about men who stay at home, but I think part of the story here is the fact that many of the men who do, are probably not all that skilled in the art of chatting up women. Why do I suspect this? Partly because I am someone who would never be accused of having this skill. Even though there is nothing more disarming than a child, you still have to do some talking. Sure, the conversation is markedly different from that in a singles bar (or so I am told), but the basic rules of asking questions and paying attention to the answers still apply; even if the context is different. And it is the context of parenthood and child rearing that men don’t come by naturally. Arming yourself with “how old is your son?” and, “what’s your daughter’s name?” isn’t exactly rocket surgery but alas, many of us still need to work at it.

Even though men are increasingly taking on more and more caregiving responsibilities, which is well chronicled in a new book the Daddy Shift, we remain stuck playing catch up. Much of this is of our own doing. My son is now 8 months old, and I can’t recall having a single conversation about fatherhood, parenthood, child rearing etc. with another dad that wasn’t a) initiated and carried by mothers, or b) anything beyond a stated agreement between two men that being a dad is, in general, terrific. Which I think goes part of the way to explaining why we still live in a world with Father Involvement campaigns designed to “show dad’s the critical role they play in their children’s lives”.

Of course I offer no solutions to this dilemma. I won’t allow myself to be added to the list of those calling for men to improve their communications skills. Nor do I accept that everything is worth talking about. Take sleep for instance. I know its a bit rich coming from a guy with a blog, but I would like to make this commitment to you the reader: I will not be writing about sleep. Ever. I have nothing to add to this already well-worn ground.

I guess if men don’t really talk to each other, there will always be books. Chances are if you are reading this, I don’t need to say anything more about books on child rearing. The thing is, I can’t quite bring myself to take more than a cursory glance at it. I know I should. But I just can’t, at least not right now. Perhaps I will eat my words, but I just feel too busy playing to be bothered to read about it. And the fact that hanging out with an 8 month old actually feels pretty easy most of the time, at least when I don’t allow the feeling that I actually have no idea what I am doing to creep into my thoughts (maybe books can help with this?). It all bears mentioning that my wife has, of course, done most of the heavy lifting getting us to this point (see: the 80/ 20 rule). At the same time, I am under no illusions that raising kids (especially a group of them) is or will be easy. Its just that it seems so right now.