A wild, unruly, but welcome
cool breeze finally carried the humid air and thundering morning storm away. With
the temperature now tolerable, the equally boisterous twin eight month old boys
were hoisted into the dual Baby Bjorn®, and the four year old girl climbed into
her stroller, ready for playtime at the park. Harry had packed all of the
necessary tools of the trade for a stay at home dad venturing out into the wild
with three babes under five years of age: diapers, wipes, formula, toys for the
sandbox, bottled water, granola bars and apple juice for the older child,
sunscreen, multiple changes of clothes including bathing suits and towels for
time spent in the splash pad, hats, sunglasses and the trusty first aid kit. Hoping
to kill several hours before mommy would come home to relieve him of daddy
duty, Harry was grateful to the sun and cool wind gods for providing him with a
reprieve from the monotony of a morning boxed in the house-cum-bunker. Sesame
Street had played on repeat all morning, and every book had been read, in order
to entertain the kidlets, who had risen at the ungodly hour of six a.m., and had
been trapped inside due to the torrential downpour.
The park, having replaced his
local watering hole, where the baby bottle was the new beer bottle, was a
bastion in which children of stay at home fathers could safely contain and
supervise their children. Simultaneously, these baby-carrier strapped beta-male
doting dads got their daily dose of fortification to unwind, clear their minds
and engage in some adult conversation with other fellow zookeepers.
“Hey David,” Harry called out,
waving to another father seated on a bench next to a stroller with a sleeping
infant inside. David was reading ‘Good Housekeeping,’ always hoping to get to
the Economist and Vanity Fair sitting at the bottom of the pile, but never
quite making it through the forest of recipes into which he always managed to
meander. David and Harry were both former attorneys who were happy to have
their respective investment banker and surgeon wives hunt and fish all day and
bring home their catch-of-the-day for their menfolk to fry it up at night. David’s
three year old was safely preoccupied with trying to urinate in the splash pad
without having to be bothered with pulling down his bathing suit. Harry’s four
year old ran over to the monkey bars, so he took the opportunity to sit down
gingerly, so as not to wake the twins who had fallen asleep on their walk over.
“I’ve got some great recipes
for you. They’re all easy to make in thirty minutes or less,” David chimed.
“There’s a quiche Lorraine in here that’s to die for. And, the best part is
that the kids will eat it too.”
“Wonderful,” Harry replied. “I
need something new to make for the wife and kids tonight. Now that the twins
are on solids, dinners for five have become trickier since we don’t all need to
gum our food. Also, the wife complained that my Chateau Briande had become
predictable and pedestrian.”
“Have you tried serving it with
a robust 2008 Chateau-Neuf-de-Pape?” David inquired.
“I’ve tried pairing it with so
many different varietals, but no wine seems to make a difference. My wife is
bored with wine, my cooking, maybe even me,” Harry pontificated.
John, another stay-at-home papa
whose wife was a politician, was sharing the bench with the other two men, and
gave Harry and David a knowing look of solidarity. All three men did everything
they could on a daily basis to raise their children, cook, keep the house
clean, take care of home maintenance and improvement, sometimes even décor when
instructed to do so by their wives who wanted new drapes or a new sofa, plan
vacations, schedule and create menus for dinner parties with friends, buy gifts
for everyone and take the children to every doctor and dentist appointment,
attend every parent-teacher interview, play date and any other conceivable
appointment, yet they all felt undervalued by their bacon-buying wives. The men
took no umbrage with frying it up, but they wondered, was it really too much to
expect their wives to enjoy how they made it, and kiss the cook in gratitude
once in a while. Keeping a close watchful eye on the kids at play, the men
quietly contemplated the double-edged sword of being the primary at home
caregiver for their children. Agreeing to the role reversal with each of their
wives was not a bad trade off. The wives
went off to lean into their respective careers, and the men welcomed having the
weight of carrying the financial burden off of their back.
In spite of being married to
powerful ambitious women, the men still felt a pressing need to out earn their
spouses. When the men sat down with their wives and realized that by not
working and having their women put in double time at work, allowing them to out
earn their male counterparts at home, the math worked in John, David and
Harry’s favour to opt out of the workforce after spending years in the
societally imposed and expect the role of being the main breadwinner. The first
year at home for each of the men was a novelty. Who wouldn’t like reading,
singing, dancing, watching educational programs and ogling the hot stay-at-home
moms who lost the baby weight at parent-and-tot swim class? Also, they
preferred handling their babies’ mood swings and crying fits over the temper
tantrums of their screaming bosses any day. The men took pride in keeping a
cleaner house than the former maid ever did, further justifying their choice to
stay at home since they were saving four hundred dollars a month on average by
not paying someone else to clean. Even cooking family meals was fun, allowing
the men to wax nostalgic about the times they blew shit up in high school home
economics and chemistry classes, now being able to do the same with
experimenting with ingredients in their kitchens. However, once the men
returned to their respective wives’ fertile breeding grounds, and with each
couple having expanded their brood beyond their first child, the full weight of
their decision made them wistful for days in the office and after work drinks.
With more children, mommy’s late hours felt more like time was standing still.
And, with her lack of appearance at the occasional Gymboree class that she’d
managed to attend when they were only parents of one enfant terrible, mommy had
become a mythical creature the likes of the Loch Ness Monster.
“I can accept that my wife may
not like my cooking, doesn’t even notice my new hair cut, or the fact that I
lost the spare tire that I gained during each of her three pregnancies because
I gave up my gym membership to save some money. But, would it kill her to show
some appreciation for the fact that I re-stitched the entire hem of her
cashmere coat that she tore by catching it on her fifteen hundred dollar Manolo
stiletto in one of her après work politico happy hours? She doesn’t even invite
me to her office parties anymore,” John whined. “I feel like an underpaid,
underappreciated employee there to service her, which by the way, I only get to
do every other Wednesday night after the kids have gone to bed.”
“I know what you mean,” David
said commiserating. “Since staying at home with our two kids for the past four
years, my scrotum had literally shriveled up. It must be from all of those late
night feeds, right? It happens to women’s breasts, so it makes sense that it
happen to men’s nuts who take over feeding the baby?”
Harry and John nodded in
unison, each making a mental note to call their urologists for an urgent check
up.
“Well, when I asked my wife
about it, she laughed at me. Said that I was nuts, no pun intended, to think
that my balls could shrink from late night bottle feeds the same way her boobs
did from breastfeeding when she took her three month mat leave,” David
continued.
“Do you think your wives are
cheating on you?” Harry asked.
“Talk about a wild non
sequitur,” David cried.
“Why, what have you heard?” John
asked defensively.
“Nothing, calm down,” Harry
advised. “I just wondered is all. I mean, when we worked our long hours, there
was always the opportunity to get laid at work. Not that I ever acted on it.
Besides, you’re the one who said you don’t go anywhere with your wife anymore
and that she doesn’t appreciate you. The thought must have crossed your mind?”
“To be honest, I did ask her
once, but she said I was crazy. She said with her long hours she wouldn’t have
the time to have an affair even if she wanted to,” John advised. “Plus, she
said she would never have one because it would cost her too money much if we
divorced. She’d have to pay for a nanny and pay me alimony.”
“Even if mine doesn’t cheat,
she certainly is embarrassed by the fact that I’m a stay-at-home dad,” David
offered.
“But, it was a joint decision,”
Harry remarked.
“Doesn’t matter anymore.
Whenever someone asks her what I do, she tells ‘em that I’ve retired. So
everyone thinks she married a geriatric sugar daddy. Then, when they meet me,
they think I’m a trust funder, and neither of us bothers to correct the misconception,”
David stated. “I really don’t need to deal with anyone’s judgment about putting
my career on hold to take care of the kids. But, I’ve come to miss working.”
“I don’t miss working at all,
but I can sympathize with feeling underappreciated,” Harry offered. “I love
that I get to watch the kids grow up and I will be responsible for helping them
mature into responsible adults. Plus, I’m tired of billable hours, nasty
clients and worrying about making partner. We really can’t complain – our lives
are fairly stress free.”
“That’s nice in theory, but
don’t you miss adult conversation? Using your brain?” John asked.
“I’m using my brain every day
teaching the kids. I’m using it right now having this conversation with you two
schmoes,” Harry replied.
“Yeah, but your thinking is
still shortsighted,” David countered. “Obviously, you’re going back to work
when the kids are in school full-time. What will you do then? Think of all the
years you missed trying to chase the corner office. Your only employment prospects
will be to start over as an associate or to try to build a law practice out of
your house”
“Hell, no!” Harry retorted.
“Hell, no!” Harry retorted.
“So what will you do when there
are no more kids to take care of?” John asked.
“I plan on knocking my wife up
every few years until her eggs dry up. And, after that I will IVF her frozen
eggs with my super sperm. I intend to be up to my eyeballs in pampers until my
wife will have made enough money to retire,” Harry stated deadpan.
Like a lightening bolt, Miranda
shot up from her restless sleep, with heavy chest pains and beads of sweat
pouring down her furrowed brow.
“Honey, wake up!” Miranda
commanded. “I just had a horrific nightmare.”
“It’s ok baby,” Harry said
half-heartedly, still three-quarters asleep, rubbing her back.
“No, it’s not. I just dreamt
that you were at the park with other stay-at-home dads and you were plotting to
keep me pregnant until my uterus falls out so you’d never have to go back to
work,” Miranda recounted. “And, one of the dads thought his balls shrunk from
feeding the baby. Thank god it was only a bad dream.”
Miranda lay back down, ingested
some melatonin and quickly fell back asleep. When Harry was assured that Miranda
was safely ensconced in a REM cycle, he snuck out of bed, quietly creeping into
their master bathroom, where he pulled out and poked another few holes in
Miranda’s diaphragm.
© 2014. Naomi Elana Zener
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