Introduction for Dads

I have chosen to write two introductions to this blog because there are two distinct audiences. Although this introductory section is aimed at fathers, I invite you to read the corresponding section for mothers - after all, you know that your wife is reading this section as well. Emotionally, many people would argue that men are more easily understood than women. There are a few very simple desires that motivate us. Without delving into academic research, I would suspect that most male readers of this book would be happy with three outcomes – beyond the truly important aspects of life (health, family and spirituality). First, we like money. Not that all of us are Gordon Gecko wannabes, but we like our toys and we prefer not to have financial stress. Whether we harbor ambitious career goals or are happy with continuous, modest progress, we are happier with a view more dollars than with less and prefer the additional options afforded by those extra funds. Second, most men would like some amount of time to spend with their male friends. The female response to this, whether we wish to golf, hunt, fish, watch sports, work on cars, or anything else, is that this time is unproductive and primarily spent conversing about insignificant events, drinking beer, using four letter words and producing bodily noises. If you remove the word “unproductive", this assessment is often accurate. For any relationship to work, the parties must respect each other. The male human animal by its nature he has many impulses that do not lend themselves to respect in mixed company. Speaking for myself, I truly enjoy playing golf. Because I have precious little time for golf, I play the game very poorly. That said, I truly enjoy the opportunity to toss modestly clever barbs at my playing partners when they hit a poor shot, and they enjoy the same liberty at my expense. Would I consider taking these same liberties if golfing with my wife? No. Would I ever suggest a career in school lunch preparation for her if a dinner turned out to be a disaster? Never. Time spent with male friends allows men to indulge in low stakes competition in ways that we would not try at home for fear of being disrespectful of our wives and setting a poor example for our children. “Guy time” may be characterized as immature, but it is a fun and productive as an outlet for healthy release of tension. Finally, we all seek to increase the level and frequency of intimacy that we experience with our wives. Like hunger and thirst, the desire for sex was programmed in us as the sole means of propagating our species. The fact that we share a home with a woman that we consider very desirable only serves to increase his desire. Of course, a stay-at-home mom who has spent the entire day changing diapers, nursing, cleaning up messes, and attending to a small crying being who is incapable of expressing their needs verbally is much less likely to be interested in sex than would a date who has ingested three margaritas. There is no magic formula to performing well at work and increasing your pay while spending 10 hours per week with your buddies and being intimate with your wife twice a week. If I were in possession of such a formula, I would purchase hours of advertising during every major sporting event, and you would be willing to pay handsomely for it. The best that we can do is to listen to common complaints and requests from our wives and do our best to address those situations in a manner that becomes second nature. By turning these requests into habits, we do them automatically. Most of the issues presented in this book are situations that can be made substantially easier with a few moments of effort at a time. You may get nothing more than a thank you for remembering to bring an arm full of diapers to the downstairs changing area on a Saturday afternoon. However, after she goes to that area four or five times knowing that there are very few diapers or wipes only to find that the items have been replenished, there will likely be a grateful reaction that makes those few discrete moments of action more than worth the effort. This book was written so that it can be digested in small chunks. The idea of investing two hours to read a parenting book seems a lot less than exciting when the majority of our time away from work is spent parenting. In addition, reading a book from cover to cover generally leaves us with memory of the overall point of the book and a handful of specific data points. My recommendation is to visit this site occasionally as it can be picked up and read for three to five minutes at a time. I suspect that most guys know where the optimal venue for three minutes of reading might be. By reading one or two sections at a time you will remember those 500 or 1000 words well enough to take a few minutes of action shortly thereafter. If you repeat those few minutes for a few days, they become habit. From there, you begin to make her life easier in what seems like small doses, but what is in fact much more significant in the time and energy that is saved. The time spent grabbing 15 diapers from the baby’s room after changing out of your work clothes and dropping them off in the kitchen may take a total of 45 seconds from your day. The time and energy required to get those diapers when returning from shopping with a hungry baby who has recently soiled himself may take 3 times as long, and it may seem like 10 minutes if the child is crying. For many of us, work is not fun. The good news is that for 14 hours each day we are generally out of the reach of those who make it so. When her full-time job is to attend to someone whom she loves but who has no conception of the strain that they are placing upon her, the task can be overwhelming. Doing your best to offer your wife breaks from this job is not only something she needs, but can be a source of helping you meet your own needs by improving her state of mind. Eventually, your child will be able to entertain herself for some period of time, will be able to express her needs to you, and will develop the ability to make choices that allow you to focus on more than watching over them 24 hours a day. Infancy and the toddler years can seem eternal. The good news is that your child will continue to grow and evolve into a "little adult" in what will have seemed like an instant. When that occurs, you will notice that you are beginning to regain the sense of self that you possessed prior to parenthood, that your wife is doing the same, and that life as you knew it was not lost - just put on hold. For now, focus on today and before long you will wonder how that tiny crying baby became that beautiful, intelligent, affectionate five-year-old. I hope that reading this book can take away some of the angst of being the husband of a stay-at-home mother. Oh yes, and consider turning on the fan while you are in here.