Future Value: Real Expectations for New Dads

​My Letter to a few Magazine Editors:

After letting our nanny go, I took on the seemingly easily managed task of staying home with our 2 yr old daughter. She wasn’t sufficiently potty trained  to attend a local Montessori yet... so the plan was to save money while contributing more significantly to the development of our daughter Catherine. Everything I read portrayed today's stay-at-home dads as an in vogue and growing sub-culture of creative elites and the affluent who placed family above leisure. After watching my umteenth diaper commercial featuring only dad's, I figured that I would be in good company…that there would be dad groups to join… and bonding over play dates....but what I found was quite the opposite.  You see, I don't live in Tribecca or L.A....so I was the only at-home dad in my neighborhood. And in suburban Philadelphia, most working dads are about as accepting of stay-at-home dad's as they are of drag queens.

Upon embarking on what has become a life-altering sabbatical transitioning from working dad to at-home dad, I decided to keep a journal as a form of therapy… since there was no-one with whom to commiserate. I now post those journal entries on my blog: www.dbadaddy.com

As I share the experience of taking on this, at times, overwhelming role I also share the resulting new perspectives on fatherhood. Most mainstream media continues to print articles that discuss the increasing popularity of women being the breadwinners and  fathers taking over the domestic responsibilities… but no-one seems to be addressing the incredible hurtle men face of overcoming the generations-long conditioning of gender identity. Not to say that successful professional women have it any easier...they are still very much a minority, but they do seem to share more company.

Please consider exposing the social and psychological  challenges men with successful professional wives face, when they make the decision to “stay home” with their children who aren't yet spending 5 or 6 hours a day at school.

I believe if more men knew more what to expect, they would be better prepared caregivers and not waste as much of what precious little time there is trying to figure it out. If there’s one thing I have learned…it’s the importance of understanding early-on that attempting to balance work and the full-time care of a two year old ensures that both will suffer. The benefit of staving off professional atrophy comes at the cost of a child and father both being robbed of as much joy and growth as this advantage can afford. "Leaning In" to both Mom and  Dad's career requires outsourcing... not commitment and balance.  

Buy-In: Taking Our Parenting Seriously

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We signed up for weekend classes at The Little Gym (a local children’s gym) when Catherine was about 20 mos old. The whole idea seemed like a giant play date with activities planned by a gymnast. What could be better than building coordination and friendships at the same time? 

After our first few introductory classes with an incredible instructor, we spent the ride home fantasizing about meeting other parents and our daughter’s early graduation from independent play to interaction “Norman Rockwell-style” with other children. 

The first thing we learned at the Little Gym was that very few people marry in their late thirties and have children in their early forties. We were surrounded by young moms and dads with whom we didn’t seem to have anything in common…most notably their seeing this venue as a “great opportunity for children to burn off as much energy as possible”…presumably without the risk breaking something (or someone) at home.

We thought it was a “class”… or at least supposed to be. They called it a “class”. Very few people seemed to mind that their children weren’t listening to the introductions at circle time or were off wandering around and playing on equipment while the instructor was explaining the next activity.

We were often in the minority of  parents (and some children) straining to hear over the children who were screaming. I guess some parents can ignore screaming and carrying on in public...as if it was just white noise to everyone.  These unaffected and inconsiderate parents accept it as normal and chat away with the other parents who are too cool and laid-back to care that their children might be acting like rabid orangutans.

The initial thought was that maybe we were just over-concerned micro managers. It just didn’t seem o.k. to us that no one seemed to reprimand or at least attempt to correct the behavior of children that didn’t wait their turn or worse... push our daughter out of the way.

Watching the little boy who hoarded all the bouncy balls or hula hoops while his father laughed it off, with what seemed like a touch of pride instead of embarrassment, was enough "scope creep" to dissolve my tolerance. I felt like we were getting an early glimpse of a future jerk that someone, someday, would have to work for…and the person clearly responsible for cultivating that personality.

Of course there was a small number of like-minded parents who seemed to share our view that most social situations are great coaching opportunities. They would correct impolite behavior and praise good manners. Although we would thank them for their courtesy, and try to parlay our appreciation into a comfortable ice-breaker, those opportunities felt to be few and far between.

We kept asking ourselves “Are we really uptight or just more mature?” Of course the latter was more pleasant to believe but irrelevant to the fact that we just didn’t fit in. So we bailed on The Little Gym.

We’ve since been to a few birthday parties since then and encountered, on average, at least one other parent that elects to stay in the same room with their children and monitor their play instead of blissfully hob-knobbing with other parents over Bloody Marys and Stella Artois… It’s nice knowing we’re not alone in our commitment to manage the development of a future adult.