Clark - Love, sex, fleas, God: confessions of a stay-at-home dad

B RUCE C LARK

Love
Sex
Fleas
God

confessions of a
stay-at-home dad

In many respects this was a difficult book to write. At various times in the sometimes-painful process I have taken strength from, and would like to acknowledge, certain people:

Wife: Your hair looks lovely.

Pieter: Believe it or not this started with you.

Jack: A posthumous thanks for helping me reflect on my humanity.

Keryn: Fellow traveller. Remember the Alamo.

Angus & Anastasia: Each time I look at you I, very briefly, believe in miracles. Thank you.

Published in 2012 by Umuzi
an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd
Company Reg No. 1966/003153/07
First Floor, Wembley Square, Solan Road, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa
PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa
www.randomstruik.co.za

2012 Bruce Clark

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

First edition, first printing 2012
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 978-1-4152-0170-1 (Print)
ISBN 978-1-4152-0464-1 (ePub)
ISBN 978-1-4152-0465-8 (PDF)

Cover design by publicide
Cover photograph from Gallo Images/Getty Images
Text design by Nazli Jacobs
Set in ITC Veljovic

THE CLOCK IS TICKING.
You have fifteen years.
If youre very lucky.

This book is not about self-pity. Nor, in a country brimming with angry people, is it about anger. Well, all right, there is some residual anger, a lingering whiff like the smell of a drying carpet. But where once great big cancerous mountains of seething rage were my defining characteristic, there is now something else although Im not sure what. Is it regret? Resignation? I dont know. I do know, though, that I am no longer Mr Angry.

I wish Mother were still alive so I could tell her that my test results were back; the anger we all feared was malignant is in fact benign. She would reply with something profane and quick-witted, something slightly derogatory and most certainly at the expense of the medical profession. Her scathing remark would, no doubt, make me laugh; we would face off yet again two hot-tempered, blue-eyed red-heads but this time exchanging friendly fire.

I wish this book were something dramatic, something sweeping, something Homeric; I wish I were describing my odyssey in a way to have people talking for hundreds of years. It already has all the ingredients for a poor mans version: hours of philosophical musing over the rails of a ship, endless travel from someplace to someplace, lots of fighting, eventual peace, even a few albatrosses. I wish I were writing something kick-ass just to prove that I can or, rather, just to prove to myself that I am more than what I have turned out to be: an underachieving and talentless man. It would be so immensely satisfying to be able to point to my dramatic, sweeping, epic, kick-ass book and say to the world, Look! See? I really was more than just the sum of my parts.

But Im afraid there is nothing sweeping or Homeric about this it is not that type of book. Its just a book about a stay-at-home father, a middle-aged, once-angry white male, who couldnt keep a job, so was forced to raise his children instead. The father in question is me. Its a book about parenting written by the worlds most unsuitable parent. Its a book about how not to raise children; its the anti-manual for responsible parents.

Being a stay-at-home dad is a simple job that is surprisingly difficult. For a long time I was touchy about it particularly the word only.

What do you mean Im only a stay-at-home dad? Have you ever tried it? Have you any idea how much of yourself you need to give? Not just for an hour in the evenings, or a few hours after golf each weekend; not just when you feel like it when youre in the parenting mood. I mean all day, every day. Do you know what its like to pour your energy into something that will respond with shit and tears? My daughter doesnt try to hide the fact that she hates me. I walk into the room with a smile plastered on my face and she climbs up the wall to get away from me. Have you any idea how hard it is to be kind and gentle in the face of such open hostility?

I wage a never-ending battle with relevance; I clinch no deals, make no important calls, fly on no business trips, slay no dragons nor win any bread. I dont get to strut about in any alpha-male manner. Where once I thought of myself as somehow important, I now know I am not required for the world to spin; this fact depresses me so much that I have to wrench myself back from falling into deep despair. The stimulation that I felt from being employed in my case, writing computer code has gone. I cannot remember ever being useful to anyone, or for anything. Instead of job satisfaction, all I feel is... tired. A lot of tired and more than a little of bored.

Im becoming acquainted with fear. There are things that scare me now that never crossed my mind when I was a single, childless person. I was unaware of the dangers of the world. I negotiated traffic, ladders, deep water, rat poison, electrical sockets, power tools and sharp objects without a second thought. Im even afraid of words now. Perhaps the two that instil the most terror are single parent. I cannot imagine doing this job on my own. A consequence of this is that I follow my wife like a bloodhound as I watch over her health.

When did you last have a pap smear?

About six months ago. Im due for another one.

Well, make an appointment. When did you last have a mammogram?

A while ago.

Well, make an appointment. What about the dentist? How are your teeth?

Babe! Stop it!

Sorry and what about the doctor? When was your last medical?

When Christine is lying in the bath with her eyes closed, I pry open one eyelid with my thumb and peer into her face. How are you feeling? All good?

Babe!

I plan my day around my childrens lives. Ballet or gymnastics get to determine how much time I have to myself. I jealously guard my tiny amount of me time yet, when I get some, I dither. What can I do with an hour here and an hour there? Should I follow in my mothers footsteps and do something altruistic? Should I launch an impossibly late attempt at a new career? Should I write a book? Should I take a nap? I do nothing. Tomorrow it will be different; tomorrow, or perhaps as early as next week, I will reinvent myself.

The years of unemployment have taken their toll. My self-esteem is too weak to defend itself; I feel as if I have a slow leak and must periodically self-inflate. While waiting at schools at pick-up time I yearn to have a slightly different conversation from the one I usually have.

I see you are always fetching your children; what do you do for a living? an arbitrary mother usually asks.

Im a stay-at-home dad I look after our children, I reply. The words Im a fighter pilot and a chemical engineer and a speleologist and a chef and a fast marathon runner and a surgeon and a symphony conductor and Im on my fifth novel and I juggle sharp knives remain imagined and unsaid.

Oh, how nice, she will answer, how refreshing; your children are so lucky. And wheres your wife what does your wife do?