“So you’re a stay-at-home dad.  Awww, that is so nice.” I’m fortunate that my most salient reactions to my current occupation have been more or less like that.  (At the risk of perpetuating stereotypes, I admit that only women, if they do comment, are the ones that have said that kind of thing to me.  Men, if they react at all, are more likely to say, “That’s cool,” or “Oh,” the latter in a tone of voice that indicates no more surprise or judgment than if I worked in a paper factory or an accountant’s office.

I address my and others’ reactions to my being a stay-at-home dad (for this inaugural piece here on DadBloggers) because I’ve been interested in reading about some of the reactions of fellow at-home dads here at DadBloggers, for example:

“Actions Speak Louder Than Words”
“I Know I’m Lucky”
“Full-Time Father”

I’ve been writing about my life as a dad elsewhere for several months, however I have yet to discuss my impressions about my job title.  The one DadBloggers entry that really moved me to focus on this aspect was Phil’s piece “What Do You Do For A Living?” Since I’ve encountered almost no negative reactions, I was surprised by how often he seemed to face confusion or misunderstanding.  I was shocked by the sad story of the angry judgment of his friend.

The only negative response that sticks in my memory is from an elder friend of my mother-in-law.  She reported her friend’s reaction as, ”Imagine!  A man taking care of a baby!" This utterance hardly hurts my feelings because it leapfrogs so far back in history.  It skips right over the whole Daddy Day Care, Mr. Mom, “isn’t it hilarious to see a man do something so uncharacteristic as take care of a child” attitude.  This older woman’s remark seems to be a stamp of the traditionalists of her parents’ generation, if not her own.  It is so much closer to the chatter of the town gossip in Little House on the Prairie or Anne of Green Gables than it is to the present, that it seems like fiction.

I am very grateful for the fact that I’ve encountered little but supportive (or neutral) reactions to my being a stay-at-home dad, because, despite this fact, I have been self-conscious about it at times.  This feeling probably surprises few people, but looking back it seems a little strange.

When my wife and I talked about someday having kids and who would care for them, we never hesitated to suggest that me being a primary daytime parent would not only be possible but likely.  It made sense; I was an elementary teacher, I worked with kids.  My profession was much less lucrative than my wife’s.  (At the very least it was a no-brainer that I would be taking care of our child(ren) all day during summer vacation.) But it wasn’t like I felt these were circumstantial, practical concerns that led to culturally-irregular, uncomfortable conclusion.  I was fully under the influence of some very broad (somewhat anachronistic) feminist beliefs that any psychological differences between women and men were pure accidents and mistakes of culture.  Thus, I believed, men could do anything women could do except have babies, go into the women’s bathroom, etc.  So to, women could and should be combat soldiers, firefighters, CEO’s, and do everything thought of as somehow “for men,” except use a urinal.  Moreover, the bubble of college and graduate school (and the more liberal towns I lived in at that time) gave me the impression that traditional notions of gender differences were quaint, held by a silly minority, and rapidly dying.

Since then I have worked in classrooms and seen the powerful, mutually repelling forces of Disney Princesses versus Spiderman.  I have lived in smaller towns where many more people held traditional ideas about gender, and where, rather than simply disagreeing with feminist ideas, they were largely unversed in them or misunderstood them. Moreover, I have become more educated about how physical biological sex differences impact psychological ones.  I can’t say my views are not still feminist, but my opinions are more realistic and nuanced. I certainly have become more sensitive to and careful about traditional views of men’s and women’s roles.

Combine that sensitivity with relevant pieces of my personality (conflict avoidance, often seeking approval) and I’m a little less like RebelDad
and a little more like Phil.  So when I started staying at home with my son, I didn’t know what reactions I would get.  I was especially careful with men, notably those with less education, vastly different work fields, etc.  Unlike Phil, I never contemplated a cover story.  Instead, I would often qualify my position with all those practical constraints that I once thought so secondary:  “We decided to do this because we weren’t going to try to pay back all of our school loans on a teacher’s salary.” “It kinda’ made sense, me having worked with kids and all.” There I was, once the almost cocky feminist male, trying to make sure guys didn’t see me as a pansy freak just because I chose to stay home and care for my son.

Maybe I headed off some of the strange looks that Phil described.  Or maybe I was overly insecure.  Experience, though, has given me confidence enough that I don’t need to explain myself that much.

What has remained is anxiety about being perceived as an accidental laid-off dad (apologies to Laid-Off Dad), or - more to the point - a dad-who-just-doesn’t-want-a-"real"-job. I’ve become so proud of what I am, a guy who quit his job to help raise his kid full-time, someone who, along with his wife, believes that having a full-time parent at home is - to those who can afford it - worth so much more than a second income as to be, for us, imperative. The paradox is that I’ve become so proud of that status, I fear being mistaken for someone else, a lazy fella’ who thinks the at-home daddy thing is any easy way out, and seeks mostly child-care activities which can be combined with “the game” (or whatever his hobby may be).  In public, I also try to say enough and project enough parenting ability to avoid a common “mommy-centric” perception - being mistaken for got-stuck-babysitting-for-the-day dad.  I have gotten those kinds of comments.  (Daddy in a Strange Land describes a classic encounter of a similar attitude.)

I have even worked through doubts, because of my strong belief in attachment parenting, that I am (or that a father in general is) a good choice for a stay-at-home parent.  But that story (you’re thanking me) is for another post.

For now, I remain a proud stay-at-home father who, respectfully, carefully, dares those around him to, ”Imagine!” yes, “Imagine, a man taking care of a baby.”

The term ‘fathering children’ can be defined as the act of raising children and it can also refer to their creation. Most men take this latter definition for granted.  For me, these definitions took on increased importance as I’m one of those men that had a few obstacles thrown our way delaying my wife and I from having children. In my case, it is because I am infertile. My sperm count is technically, if not physically, zero. Six months before my marriage, I was told I would never have kids naturally. My heart broke and my wife nearly jumped across the desk to kill the doctor for his awful bedside manner. My lifetime goal went from enacting both definitions to enacting only the first.

After years of failed IVF / ICSI treatments, my wife and I made the decision that we would attempt to start our family via donor insemination, using another man’s sperm. It was not an easy decision and resulted in a lot of soul searching. Many people would ask, “Why not adopt?” or “Why raise a child that was not your own?” These are good questions. The decision was made, as it is for many, so that my wife would be genetically connected to the child and so that she could control the pregnancy.  We came to look upon donor insemination as part natural and part adoption. There are many that would disagree with our decision and I have no fault with their opinions. I only wish that they respect mine.

Jumping back to our dual definition. I have learned, as I expected and hoped, that when there is love in a family and the desire to love a child, the fact that the child is not biologically yours does not impede a man’s capacity to be a father. By capacity, I am not referring to the fact that some would say we played scientist but to the fact that I feel and do all the things dads do, without thoughts of whether these kids are mine or not. I just do them because I want to.

Too often our society pushes aside a father’s role in raising our children.  There are some out there that believe that men can not love children that are not their own biologically but I disagree.

I want to be the best Dad they know. I want to father these children and I do. I have come to realize that the first definition is the only one that truly matters on a day to day basis.  And you know what? I do it well.

My 17-year-old daughter recently had a school project where she had a computerized doll that she had to parent.  You may have heard of these projects; the baby cries for real and she had to feed it, change its diaper, burp it, hold it, etc.  It had a series of sensors to register how she cared for it and was graded accordingly.  It’s a great idea. It gives them an idea of just how much responsibility it is to be a parent. Having our ‘Boo’ was the best birth control we could have provided our then 15-year-old son. He said it was too much work, so no way was he taking the chance of getting a girl pregnant!

The computer baby project has its drawbacks: namely that technology is fallible.  Her first attempt failed when the batteries ran down and her baby died of SIDS.  Her friend had the same problem, and on her second attempt, there was a bad sensor in the bottle, and her baby died of starvation.  Still, it’s a good idea and teaches a good lesson.

It taught us a thing or two as well.  Punky (our 10-1/2 month old) hated that baby.  She hated the crying sound it made, she hated seeing anyone else hold it and tend it, and she would try to pull it out of their hands.  It was like she was saying “Hey!!  You’re NOT taking over my place in this family!!” This is a bit worrisome, considering the fact that we’re halfway through another pregnancy, and she will only be about 14 months old when the next baby (Little Cat) is born. (I generally use nicknames online for their protection)

My parents were wonderful parents who taught me a lot of good things and made me the man I am today.  I credit them for many of my best qualities.  Still, all parents make mistakes, and the biggest one my parents made with me was in how they responded to a sibling rivalry between me and my next younger sibling.  It deepened the rivalry to the point that we were well into adulthood before we could put it behind us.  I don’t want that for my children, and I don’t want to be even a part of the cause of such a thing. 

The problem is that we routinely learn our parenting and life skills from our parents, without even realizing we have done so.  This principle is called Generational Transmission.  I don’t want to go on autopilot with my little ones and pass on the same sibling rivalry by making the same mistakes.  We already know some of what we will do to counter the jealousy and the feeling of being displaced by a new arrival, but I’m not sure it’s enough.  I would love to hear how all of you have dealt with the same issue. 

I don’t know if this is old hat for some, but to a newer first time father this may be an issue people are struggling with as much as I did.

Claire is almost a year old now and she has had almost seven ear infections since she was a small infant. This was a struggle for me because I am the parent who always gets up in the middle of the night when Claire wakes up crying and screaming. My wife has a horrible time getting out of bed and seems to have to wake up one cell at a time. So I am always changing diapers or getting the baby for nightly feedings but these hour-long screaming sessions in the middle of the night from pressure in her ears was killing me.

I was about ready to invite our doctor to pull up a cot in our house or at least buy her a new car with all of the co-pays I was giving them every other day at the doctor’s office. One concern was the antibiotics that she seemed to be taking as often as we changed diapers. If an infant is on too many antibiotics for too long, they will become immune to them and we didn’t want that to happen in case she had some bigger infection along the way.

After the 7th infection, they sent us to an ENT doctor who said she needs tubes. As a first time father, I had a profoundly visceral feeling that I was making a decision that directly affected someone who was not ME. That scared the heck out of me, but my wife and I weighed all of the pros and cons (too many antibiotics, waiting to see, late nights with the crying baby, etc). We only talked to one person who expressed any consternation, so we went through with it. It really only did take about SIX minutes total. I entered the waiting room, grabbed a coffee, poured in some sugar, stirred it, and they were already calling us back to the recovery room.

Anytime she’s in the water since then, she needs to have wax ear plugs. This is a concern of ours because she loves the water as much as a fish, and when we get back into the pool this summer it’ll even be harder. Just this week she was diagnosed with her first post-tube ear infection. Nothing is perfect, but there’s a lot less pressure and the infections can drain, which is part of the purpose.

I don’t know if others have been there or if there are other dads out there who are going to be there, but let us know your experiences. My wife had tubes and I didn’t. My neighbor can barely hear because she should’ve had tubes and never did. I don’t know the right answer but I know what we chose.

We’ve talked a lot about discipline and how we reach the ultimate goal of obedience over the last few weeks. I have been able to share my views and my methods on discipline with anyone who would read them even though they are a little over the top for some, and disagreeing with Big Daddy seems to be a fun activity here. Discipline is a huge part of training our children, but we as mom and dad do so much more for the kids than obedience training and I think that if you’re not careful, you will miss out on why we are doing it in the first place. The spiritual growth of the kids is first and foremost. If we have perfectly obedient kids that are on the road to hell, then what was the point? If, after 18 years of training, they want nothing to do with your faith or God at all, then all was in vain. You see, we are raising the next generation of Christians; not businessmen, not rich entrepreneurs, but Christian leaders. Now if you’re not a Christian, you obviously are not doing this; but I am, so that’s my goal. So how do you do this? You drag them to church with you 3 times a week so they get plenty of God, right? Only if you want to see how fast they can run at age 18. Deuteronomy Chapter 11 is the preferred method of the Taylor home.

18 Therefore shall you lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul; and you shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for symbols between your eyes.
19 You shall teach them your children, talking of them, when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
20 You shall write them on the door-posts of your house, and on your gates;
21 that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of the heavens above the earth.

You should make it a part of your life, not a Sunday morning routine. Right now my family is trying to memorize Matthew 5-7, its around 100 verses, and I hate to admit, but my 7 year old son has the first 20 down, and I’m still struggling through 1-10. But we have these verses written on our walls in the kitchen and in the living room. Its always there, reminding us all who we are. My 3 year old has a good bit memorized too. Right now Gavin is listening to the new testament on CD before he goes to bed. He’s going through 1 disk a night. Its covered in 15 CD’s. That means he will have completed the entire new testament in 2 weeks! Most adults could take up to 6 months to read it. We have instilled a love for God in him that we continuously feed and nurture. And we are doing the same with the girls. As Christians, we are called to be evangelists, but what right do we have teaching others about God, if we neglect to win our own kids.

I could go on about that for a while, but I’ll move on. We also train our kids in purity. My wife just bought Avery (the 3 yr old) a book called “The Princess and the Kiss”. It about a princess that is given a special gift from God when she is born, her first kiss. She is to hold on to that kiss until she finds the right man to marry and give it to him. In this world of free love and sex on demand, we have to protect our children from falling into this trap. And using my very large gun collection will unfortunately not do the job. The values need to be ingrained in their heart from a very early age. If you wait until it’s applicable, you better get out the guns. We should also train our boys to be men, not just older boys. They should be taught to treat women the same way we expect our daughters to be treated. Respect and reverence should be shown to a wife and your example will teach more than your words on that one. And for us, getting rid of the TV was necessary to show them that we weren’t finding joy in the things we were teaching them not to do. Sex is one of the best parts of marriage and I don’t want to see that ruined for them by not equipping them with the tools necessary to fight the temptation that is sure to come. That is why we homeschool, because the kids that they see will give them those temptations long before they are ready to combat them.

Kids are an amazing gift, but to get the most out of them, you have to be willing to give a lot of self. They will know if your boat, job, cars or anything else is more important than them, and you will know too as soon as they can make their own decisions and sometimes before that. So enjoy them, train them, and be a Godly example to them. You owe it to them. Don’t let them down. And remember, they WILL be trained in life, but who will do it? You or the boy down the street with a Mohawk and 16 rings in his head?