I'm a stay at home dad

Why does that feel like a dirty thing to admit?

Partially it's because I just earned my doctorate; it feels like a bit of a waste to have spent so many years in school only to do something I could have done without graduating high school. And partially it's because this wasn't our family plan. I was never going to stay at home with our 1 year old, Finn. In contrast, Danielle was looking for an opportunity to do so. I was supposed to be the career hot shot. "Say bye-bye to Daddy! You'll see him on Friday!" This isn't to say Danielle is chopped liver--she is an important, integral part of her office and has had solid bites from prospective employers in her job search. It is to say however, that THIS WASN'T THE PLAN!



End rant.

But now we have to make lemonade from these bitter, bitter lemons.

Finn and I have a really unique opportunity to bond, to form the type of relationship that usually only forms between mommies and their kiddos. How unique, you ask? Head to a park, to the mall, to a sports complex on a Tuesday at about 9 AM. Count the number of dads you see and divide by the total number of parents you see.

I'm guessing you'll see fewer than 1 dad to every 10 moms.

Which means that this is a bit of a lonely venture for a couple more reasons:

1. My wife holds together most of the parentships. She went to the postpartum new parent luncheons (while I worked). She keeps up with the mommy group email list serve. She is the glue that links Finn to his rug rat peer group. If it were up to the dads, all children would be raised anarchist cannibals.

2. Dads don't usually bond over kids. At least they didn't used to... or at least I didn't think so. Am I this guy?

3. Dads tend to be wolf packs of one, while being dads. Two moms can naturally transition from "cute shoes" to talk about breast feeding 30 seconds after meeting. Two dads pretend they are in an elevator or talk about sports. We are naturally wary of a new dude saying to us, "Hey, let's hang out sometime." Even when we are dying to make a new friend. We work all week. We golf (fish, football, poker, sleep, antique, etc.) all weekend. We have all the friends we need thank you very much.

4. It was hard enough to talk to girls when I was single and young and really trying hard. What they hell does a married father talk to married mothers about?! Seriously?! I actually watch The Bachelorette, but I can still totally end a heated talk about which is the better beau just by admitting this to a group of moms. It somehow makes me suspect...

So some solutions:

1. I need to try harder. I need to make my presence felt in the mommy group because there is no daddy group (even though I think toddler paintball would be so, so fun). I need to join the list serve. And I need to spend some energy to keep up the few dadships I have.

2. I need to be open to rejection. I'm gonna hang myself out there to meet a few good dads with strong morals who likes craft beer, running and politics. Right?

I'm not sure what to do about making dad-mom relationships easier, but that might just be an insurmountable social norm. I might just need to be a little more stereotypical around the ladies, brood a little more, check the box scores on my phone, laugh off boo-boos, deny watching The Bachelorette. Other comments/suggestions are welcome.