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Self-esteem for Stay at Home Dads |
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Written by Michael Paranzino
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I will leave to others the annual Father's Day rite of praising dads,
which typically lasts anywhere from five to thirty minutes per year.
Instead, I want to mark Father's Day 2003 by speaking to a small subset
of dads out there, and trying to boost their self-esteem.
I am talking, of course, about stay at home dads.
While our numbers are small - I was doing the at home dad gig for 14
months before I actually met another one - by all accounts we are
fast-growing.
Of course, when your sample size is tiny, it is easy to enjoy explosive
growth. The next time you read that the number of at home dads has
recently doubled, remember this probably means it went from 34 to 68
dads nationwide - and that includes a few working dads who just sleep
in on Saturdays but get counted in the statistics.
Stay at home dads have a terrible image. We had the recent cover story
in Newsweek that portrayed at home dads as a collection of out-of-work
dot commers still blabbering about "mind share" while realizing that
the only "viral" marketing they still work on is the pink eye their
kids spread like wild fire at the playground.
(Note: my working wife, a neurobiologist, just glanced over my shoulder
and said pink eye is a bacterium, not a virus. Now my self-esteem is
even lower.)
We endure the occasional snub from moms on the playground who think
they recognize us from the sex offender registry or wonder why we're
not out making a buck like their own husbands. After all, even Eddie
Murphy in Daddy Day Care brought home some bacon.
And perhaps worst of all, we are about to become a laughing stock in
France. A French reporter, interviewing me the other day for an
upcoming feature in a French magazine, said men in her country will
laugh heartily at the notion that some American men stay home all day
with their children.
Zut alors! I'm a punch line for Jacques Chirac.
Truth be told, we brought this on ourselves. Consider the acronym many
stay at home dads use to describe themselves. A typical example: "I'm
John, a SAHD to Emily, age 3, and Colton, age 1." Running around
telling everyone you are sad may explain that Newsweek cover story.
Or how about one of the leading stay at home dad web site? It's address: Slowlane.com.
What - was the name Loser.com already taken? Now I'm all for slowing
down to smell the occasional rose, but if you brand yourself as the
little old man in the far right lane barely able to see over the
steering wheel, don't be surprised when no one shows you any respect.
It's time for stay at home dads (and SAHM's, for that matter) to get
some spine and some marketing savvy. First, lose the "stay" in "stay at
home dad." I don't want to make light of Agoraphobia, but c'mon, it
sounds so confining. Plus, it's false. I would love to be able to stay
at home just one entire morning. My kid demands to play outside even in
rain and the bitter cold.
Next, the very phrase "at home" has a stigma, and it focuses on the
house, not the children (which is why we're home in the first place). I
have an alternate phrase, but it raises the hair on the backs of the
necks of working parents who hear it. "Full time father." Hey, sorry,
but in this country, every group gets to name itself. Tiger Woods is a
self-described Cablinasian. I am a full time father. (Note to Tiger:
I'll plop my kid in day care if you need a new caddy. I'll never
suggest the wrong club, either.)
In short, it's time we at home dads go on offense. Sure, it may ruffle
some feathers, but it sure beats being SAHD in the slow lane.
Michael Paranzino is preparing to launch a site to chronicle the ups and downs
of raising his son at http://www.fulltimefather.com.
Want to start your web business today?
Everyone has a dream. Some people actually pursue them.
A Man's Reach Should Exceed His Grasp
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