The Challenges of Being a Domestic Dad

For several years now, I’ve been a stay-at-home dad, feeding the kids, getting them dressed and refereeing all the fights, while my wife goes to the university to work. You may call me “Mr. Mom” or “Mr. Homemaker,” but I prefer a more respectable term: “houseband.”

Being a stay-at-home dad isn’t easy. Some household tasks, such as washing and drying women’s clothes, just seem to confound the male brain. You don’t know how times I’ve put the fabric softener sheets in the washing machine. They really come out fresh and clean.

Yes, domestic dads face many challenges. And as if that isn’t enough, we also have to deal with society’s expectations. Since my wife goes out to work, she wears the pants in the family and I’m left wearing out the couch. Or at least that’s what some people think. “You don’t want to work?” they ask, almost with disdain. “No,” I feel like saying. “I prefer the nice relaxing life of taking care of three children. It’s like a vacation really, especially since only two of them are in diapers and the third one has been fully trained to change them.”

Stay-at-home dads need more support and guidance. That’s why, as a veteran of the stay-at-home career, I decided to answer a few questions from newcomers to the profession.

Ahmed, London, England: “Because I stay at home, I do all the laundry in our household. But my wife always complains that I don’t fold the towels properly. Aren’t there many different ways to fold towels?”

Stay-at-home veteran: “Yes, there are 325 different ways to fold towels and each of those ways, if you ask your wife, is the WRONG way. As an experienced towel-folder, let me give you some key advice: It doesn’t really matter whether you fold your towels into squares, rectangles, hexagons or octagons. Since you do the laundry, the important thing is to fold the towels in such a manner that all stains and discolorations are hidden from your wife.”

Barry, Toronto, Canada: “I became a stay-at-home dad this year and am finding it very challenging. There’s so much work to do around the house and, with five children to take care of, it’s almost impossible. Got any tips to make it easier?”

Stay-at-home veteran: “Well, for starters, you can train the kids to do a little bit of work around the house. I’ve trained my oldest daughter, for example, to switch channels all by herself. My other daughter has learned to pour juice, slowly and carefully, all over her shirt.”

Ronald, Chicago, USA: “My wife and I were at an insurance office the other day, arranging coverage for our new car. The agent asked me how much driving I do. Before I could answer, my wife said, ‘He hardly ever drives. I’m the one who works.’ I felt really bad. I mean, I do a lot of work at home, taking care of the kids, doing the laundry, keeping track of what’s happening on Oprah. How do I get my wife to realize that I work as hard as she does?”

Stay-at-home veteran: “Congratulations! You are the 1,000th stay-at-home dad to ask me that question. I’m going to send you a wonderful prize: a loaf of bread. So the next time your wife tells someone she’s the one who works, you can say, ‘Oh yeah? Then tell me, honey, who is the breadwinner?’”

Rajiv, Mumbai, India: “I’m a new stay-at-home dad and I’m really enjoying it. I don’t know why some men struggle so much. Sure, there’s a lot of cooking and cleaning to do, but if you’re organized and diligent, you can make sure everything gets done before the servants have to go home.”

Stay-at-home veteran: “Thank you for your comment, Rajiv. I’d really like to see for myself how well your system works. Do you think I could borrow your servants for a few weeks?”

Kids Want to Put Hits on Vinyl Records

We called them LPs, 33s or simply ‘records.’ Somewhere in a friend’s basement, I’ve stored a crateful of them, vinyl albums of such artists as the Bee Gees, Abba and the Jackson Five. How cool is that?

Extremely cool, I say, and thousands of people agree with me, so what if they’re all addicted to bingo. One of these days, I’m going to take my records to the local retirement home, just to give people something to get excited about. “Holy mackerel, young man,” an elderly man would say, taking a break from the professional bingo league. “You’ve got quite a collection there. If you come up to my room later, we can play them on my gramophone. I may be old, but I like to keep up with the latest technology.”

I love it when an older person calls me “young man.” It sounds better than when a teen-ager calls me “sir.” I don’t expect teens to call me “young man,” but why can’t they try something in between, such as “young sir”?

I know I’m not really young anymore. I don’t have a page on MySpace.com, I don’t download music to my cell phone and I don’t have “Nelly” tattooed on my butt. But at least I know who “Nelly” is. (I’ve watched enough episodes of “Little House on the Prairie.”)

I grew up in that glorious era of the ’70s and ’80s, when we listened to music on records and cassettes. Every girl wanted to have Michael Jackson’s baby and every boy wanted to have his baby sister.

There was something special about records – you could almost see the music coming out of every groove. And the album covers were like posters you could display, making you look cooler than Kool & the Gang.

But it’s hard to get the younger generation to appreciate records, as I realized when I showed a record to my daughters, Lekha and Divya:

Lekha: “What is this, Daddy? A Frisbee? Can we go outside and throw it?”

Me: “No, honey, it’s called a record.”

Lekha: “A record? You mean like the record Mommy says you set whenever you eat pizza?”

Me: “No, that’s a different kind of record, the kind Mommy sets whenever she’s in the bathroom. This type of record plays music.”

Divya: “It plays music? What do we hit it with?”

Lekha: “Me first!”

Divya: “No, me first!”

Me: “Stop it, girls! You don’t hit it. It’s not a musical instrument. You play it on a record player. The music is stored inside the record. This is how Daddy listened to music when I was a youngster. Pretty cool, huh?”

Lekha: “Yes, very cool, Daddy. But how did it fit in your pocket? Did you have big pockets?”

Youngsters may make fun of records, but I’m going to have the last laugh. You see, vinyl records are enjoying a resurgence. Over a million ‘single’ records were sold last year in England, part of a “vinyl revival,” as CNN’s Jim Boulden called it. “Dance music just sounds better on vinyl,” he said, repeating what I’ve always known. Donna Summer sounds really odd on an iPod.

I’m very excited about this. Vinyl is making a comeback. Could white polyester suits be far behind?