Pat Byrnes - Captain Dad: The Manly Art of Stay-at-Home Parenting

CAPTAIN

DAD

THE MANLY ART OF STAY-AT-HOME PARENTING

PAT BYRNES

Guilford, Connecticut

An imprint of Globe Pequot Press

I dedicate this book, as I do my life,
to my lovely and loving wife and our precious children.

Copyright 2013 Pat Byrnes

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.

Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.

Fourteen of the cartoons in this book originally appeared in the New Yorker.

The illustrations in this book were created in pencil, pen, watercolor, crayon, colored pencil, digital, and whatever else was handy at the time, on whatever medium was also available.

Project Editor: David Legere
Layout Artist: Joanna Beyer

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN 978-0-7627-8520-9

Printed in the United States of America

E-ISBN 978-0-7627-9423-2

Introduction

I was a cartoonist. I made my own hours. My wife had a more traditional job without the flexibility. From a purely practical standpoint, it made sense that I be the one to stay home with the kids: I was home already. I gave it no more thought than I have just given it. Which is still more than I had given it in my life up to then.

Then the baby came. And there was no time to think about anything. There was only doing. Then my wife went back to work. And I was the only one doing it. The Primary Care Giver.

Got that? Primary. This is my full-time job. Round the clock. Round the calendar. So if you see me on the street with my kids (as if you would see me any other way), dont ask me, Giving mom the day off? Im not filling in for my wife. Im nobodys substitute. Im the guy in charge, and Im doing this my way. The guy way. Dont call me Mr. Mom.

Say hello to Captain Dad!

CHAPTER 1

The Words All Women Have
Been Waiting to Hear

I became a parent at the tender age of forty-five. And I wasnt simply living in my parents basement up until that time. I had had a career. Several, in fact. I had been an aerospace engineer, an advertising copywriter, a voice actor, and a cartoonist. And I overlaid those with countless moonlighting quasi-careers in multiple disciplines. I had directed radio commercials, produced live shows, and been a nuisance in statewide political campaigns. On the side I even renovated an old, beat-up house with my own hands, swinging a hammer from the hour I woke to the minute I collapsed, for months on end.

Bottom line: Hard work didnt intimidate me. Twelve-hour days, six days a week was not a deal breaker. Crushing deadlines, ultracompetitive backbiting, and unpredictable last-minute changes were par for the course. It was a life on the brink, but I was an unrepentant workaholic, and stress was a comfortable old friend.

So. Becoming a stay-at-home dad? Why, that should be a walk in the park, and I didnt mean just literally. Raising a kid? Childs play! Of course, this was before I knew what that phrase really meant.

Today, having been at it around the clock and calendar for more than eight years, I have to concur with what women have been saying for centuries.

Being a stay-at-home parent is the toughest job there is. For a woman or a man.

There. Its been said. By a man. So it has to be true. Cut out this page, ladies. Frame it. Buy copies for your mothers and grandmothers. You have been vindicated. Men were wrong for pooh-poohing and nodding their patronizing assent simply to end the conversation. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Dead wrong.

But now a man has admitted it. In print. Ill even say it again in my deepest, manliest baritone, on behalf of every human male, using those three little words every spouse longs to hear.

You were right.

I am sorry you had to wait so long for that. The trouble is, there just arent that many of us who understand how hard this job truly is.

But that doesnt mean that men dont suspect how hard it is.

Scientific surveys have found that nearly one out of two married men says he would love to do this. And I dont mean that the scientific surveyors asked two guys and one of them nearly said yes. I mean nearly 50 percent of the literally several guys who got cornered by this question said yes. I think their verbatim answer was, Yes, dear.

So, how many guys actually follow through on that? According to the 2010 census, only around 158,000 American men stay home full-time to watch the kids for at least one year. Or one in 163 dads.

One in 2 says hed do it; but only 1 in 163 actually does it. What does that tell you?

Exactly! It tells you that, in any sex-related situation, men lie .

Take me, for example. I said, I work at home, I make my own hours. What I really meant was, I had been searching for twenty-five years before I met you. Ill do anything not to face another twenty-five years of rejection!

Instead, now I face twenty-five years of giving my two daughters my every ounce of sweat, attention, love, determination, patience, worry, guidance, trust, insight, worry, hope, passion, worry, and worry. All so they can grow up, finish school, and leave me for lives of their own.

Surely, letting them go will be the hardest part. But I figure that what I am doing nowThe Hardest Job in the Worldis preparation for that. It should leave me too exhausted to hold onto them for a minute longer.

CHAPTER 2

Now What?

You just got home from the hospital with the baby. Youre awash in excitement and cute little blankets and pithy insights like, Your life is going to change completely. But while youre tired from trying to sleep on that ridiculous foldout in your wifes hospital room, youre not yet bone tired from three consecutive weeks of the sleepless nights to come. And lets not forget the excitement of seeing the meconium give way to poop you can actually wipe off your babys butt with something less toxic than kerosene. Most of all, however, you have your wife with you. Your wife whom you once loved a whole heck of a lot, but now love in mind-boggling new ways as she nestles your newborn against her breast. You dont even feel jealous about the boob competition. Talk about love!

But.

Now what? What happens next?

Life. Life is what happens next. It is messy and unpredictable, but thats the last thing you want or need to hear right now. You need something concrete to hang onto. So here is some concrete guidance on the concrete stuff you do and do not need.

New Baby Things You Can Live Without

• A million baby how-to books. Find one that answers the most pressing questions you have at the moment and stick with that one. If there is a best answer, then youll find the same answer in all the other books. If not, youll find different answers everywhere, and you wont be in a mental condition to comprehend that all that means is that there is no best answer. And this will only make you start to worry. So why not be happily deluded that you have the best answer right there in your favorite new baby manualas long as it is not this book. I cant handle that responsibility.