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Mr. Mom? Whatever…**
Proudly stating that other people’s opinions
have no bearing on your decision to become a
Stay-At-Home-Dad is one thing. Living outside the
vacuum of self-importance is quite another. Yes,
what other people think about your family
arrangements should not influence your decisions.
However, you will interact with other people darn
near every day. Those people will have opinions.
You may be introduced to those opinions. When that
happens, you will have to deal with
them—either the opinions or the people who
share them with you.
A very good case in point is the title that many
people label us with: “Mr. Mom.” Some
SAHDs feel this is a slam against us because Jack
Butler, the character played by Michael Keaton, was
comically incompetent and was forced to be the home
guard because he was fired. Real SAHDs choose to
stay home because it is better for our kids (and
our wives usually make more money than we do). We
are as good or better than most Stay-At-Home-Moms,
thank you very much. Any comparison between us and
the bungling Butler is nothing less than an
insult.
If you want to take it that way, I suppose. I
have found that the archaic attitudes that
don’t allow for men to stay home are not as
common as I had expected. Maybe I live in a
particularly enlightened part of the country, but I
doubt it. No offense to the middle of Michigan, but
the last really great thing that was produced here
was the Mackinac Bridge in 1957. We live too far
north to take any credit for the Red Wings.
My take on the Mr. Mom comment is that the
people who call me that simply have nothing more
clever to say. When they find out I am a
Stay-At-Home-Dad, they are either so surprised or
confused that the first thing that pops into their
head is a movie made in 1983. They might be
thinking what a womanly wuss I am, but chances are
better that they are distracted by trying to
remember if “Breakfast Club” came out
before or after “Mr. Mom.”
(“Breakfast Club” came out in 1985. Both
were written by John Hughes, who also wrote
“Weird Science”, one of the best movies
of all time!)
Why do I think this? My two youngest daughters
are identical twins. They have the same genetic
makeup. They look exactly alike. We dress them in
clothes that are the same design but different
colors. When they wear the wrong colors, even my
wife and I get them confused.
“Oh, your daughters are beautiful!”
passersby tell me nearly every single day.
“Are they twins?”
“Of course they are twins!” I think
loudly, “They are the same size, they have the
same hair color, eye color, face shape. They look
exactly alike!”
When I tell them that, yes, the two girls who
have no visible differences at all are in fact
twins, they almost always say, “My (BLANK) was
a twin.” The (BLANK) would be filled in by
anything from “mother” to
“hairdresser’s uncle”.
We would discuss the advantage of twins or how
cute mine were or something like that, then go on
our merry ways, never to speak to each other again.
It all seemed rather pointless. First of all, if
you have to ask if my girls are twins, you are an
idiot. Secondly, why would I be interested in the
twin-ness of your distant relatives?
Then I realized what was happening. Small talk.
I’ve never been good at it, so I started
listening carefully to what people were really
saying:
“Hello. Your daughters caught my attention.
It would be rude of me to just stare at them as we
pass each other with our shopping carts so I should
say something. I think I will comment on their
cuteness and obvious identicalness. I would feel
very foolish if, by some weird chance, they are NOT
twins, so I will ask if they are twins instead
stating the obvious. Besides, you already know they
are twins, so my telling you would not be a good
way to open a conversation. It was nice to see your
daughters. Thank you for pushing them into my view
today.”
Personally, I’m glad people just skip that
long monologue and ask if the two mirror images are
twins.
And so it goes when I tell people I am a
Stay-At-Home-Dad. People don’t know what to
say. The conversation will be brief, so there
isn’t a lot of time to think of something
clever. Their brains reach back into their memories
for some connection, some way of relating to
me.
“Let’s see. I’m not related to
any Stay-At-Home-Dads. I don’t even know any.
In fact, I don’t really know what a
Stay-At-Home-Dad is. It would be rude to ask that,
and to be honest, I’ve got other things to
think about today. Maybe some other time. There has
to be something I have in common with this man. His
daughters sure are cute. I wonder if they are
twins.”
©2008, Mark
Phillips
* * *
Women, it's true, make human beings, but
only men can make men. - Margaret Mead
Mark
Phillips is a Stay-At-Home-Dad and freelance
writer. Along with raising his four children, he is
developing a franchise called “The Vacuum IS a
Power Tool.” It is designed to help SAHDs
maintain that which makes us men, instead of hairy
Mom-substitutes. He earned a B.S. in
Communication/Theatre Arts and teaching
certificates in English, public speaking, and
psychology from Eastern Michigan University. After
six years as a high school English teacher and
Director of Dramatic Arts at Powers Catholic High
School in Flint, Michigan, he changed careers and
became a Stay-At-Home-Dad. www.TheVacuumIsAPowerTool.com
or E-Mail
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