MyThreeDaughters

I saw a story in the paper (that’s this thing that lots of people over 35 read to gain knowledge and figure out what’s going on in the world) on Wednesday. An advancer for Father’s Day, about stay-at-home dads. One of the dads quoted in the story said when he took his kids to the library, the moms would stay at arm’s length: There would be a gap, then me, then another gap, the dad said.
I thought about my Mr. Mom friend Brian. He’s been staying home with his two children for seven years now. Drops ’em at pre-school, goes into the school office to load money onto the lunch card, takes ’em to the doctor.
Brian’s got some hippie in him, and he smokes Camel Lights and wears saggy jeans sometimes, and in the wintertime a Pittsburgh Steelers wool beanie pulled down low, and when I read the story in the paper (knowledge, local happenings) I wondered how far of a gap there is on either side of Brian during storytime at the library. Bigger than one space, I guessed.
But here’s the thing. Brian’s doing the hard work that the stay-at-home parents do, the real day-to-day mental sloggery. When I stop by to visit, he often reports first not about the Steelers, but what’s going on with his kids. The other day, he related a true reverse psychology ploy he had pulled on his son, and it worked, and he concluded with a satisfied, rumbled, “Yyyyup.”
So here’s to all the parents, including my stay-at-home wife, who endure the daily sloggery without completely losing it.
And on father’s day, cheers to Brian, one heck of a unique Mr. Mom.