I Was Just Too Young To Be A Stay at Home Dad

When most teenagers upon graduating from high school were outside trying to discover what they truly wanted to become in life. I was at home tending to my 13 month old baby girl. Her mother was a 42 year old career woman so it was my assigned duty as the father to become a stay home dad at 19 teen years old. I had gotten so deep into my job that I even came up with a daily schedule. Unbeknown to baby Rebecca’s non caring mother Katherine.

6 am

My alarm goes off quietly. Baby Rebecca gets up at seven no matter what, like she's punching a clock, so I need to get up early to do things I otherwise don’t have time for: like how to get full custody of Rebecca or learning how to fill out an job application or learning patience in a sour relationship from Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil on OWN tv. Today I’m doing research on finding a divorce attorney, so I open up my computer.

7 am

Rebecca begins rustling and making her crib squeak. The Grinch Katherine gets up and I stop researching to make coffee and make breakfast for broom Hilda, opps! I mean my wife Katherine. Rebecca gets out all the large Lego blocks out of her toy box and starts building right away.

9 am

The old ball and chain leaves for work. I put Rebecca’s shoes on and we head to the playground at a nearby park. It's unseasonably cool and overcast, so when we get there the playground is empty except for my ex high school girl friend and our little boy, Vincent, standing near the swings. I put Rebecca down and say, "Look who's here! Go say hi!" but she wanders instead to the slide. I make a mental note to get full custody of him as well, Another person arrives who I haven't met before. He appears to be an older father, or perhaps a grandfather, with a baby in a bassinet stroller. It's nice to see another guy here, but he keeps to himself and leaves before I can say hello. V's mom walks over to tell me to keep an eye out if he comes back. Apparently he shows up nearly every morning and urinates in a corner of the playground. "It drives the other parents and the park employees crazy."

This is one of the things about being a stay-at-home dad. My gender tends to do the pervy stuff. Men who hang around playgrounds must be watched in case they’re pedophiles, public urinators, or creeps. I feel like I need to make extra clear I don’t fit in that group. It’s not like mothers grab their children and hug them close when I show up, but I can sense the possibility, in the back of their minds, that I might be a danger. Especially at first. This isn’t something I would normally worry about, but we just moved to the neighborhood and at the moment, the mothers are friendly, if a bit distant. I want Rebecca to socialize and have play dates and I want other mothers besides my ex to feel as comfortable leaving their kids with me as they would with each other. 

I love how happy my daughter is, and how generous she can be. She has her difficult moments, but overall I feel like I have an extremely gracious and thoughtful child.

10:30 am

Rebecca begins to yawn, so we head back for a small snack before her 11 am nap. I'm lucky today and she sleeps for a couple of hours. I manage to do a bit more investigating on my computer and even wash up the breakfast dishes before making lunch.

Mrs. Ebenezera Scrooge finally purchased us a 60 inch plasma screen tv. It’s hooked up to cable  (we watch movies and Netflix on it) but it's never on when Rebecca’s awake. She’ll be at least three or four before I intentionally let her watch TV, possibly older. My reasons for this are many and complicated, but since we don’t watch much anyway, it hasn’t been a big deal. The biggest effect on my day is that, since I don’t plop her down for an episode or two of Jerry Springer, the only time I have for work is in the morning and during her nap. She can (and often does) play by herself, but I still need to keep an eye on Rebecca when she's awake. The last time I tried ignoring her while she was playing, I later found six toy train cars in the toilet.

1 pm

Rebecca wakes and I make some lunch. We read and play inside for a little bit, then get ready for our afternoon play acting classes.

2:30 pm

Acting classes is great. It's at a local coffee shop where they clear the tables and put down rugs. There are 8 to 10 other children, mostly girls, mostly around Rebecca and Vincent and my third child Marilyn from another mother age and we rattle and drum and sing songs about how to act while riding on the subway and being a kid in the city. The whole thing is led by a talented and bouncy actress with tons of energy. Rebecca spends half the time staring at her antics in a daze, but she soaks it in. She often imitates those acting movements at home. In the middle of a puppet show, she runs off and sits in Marilyn’s mom’s lap Josephine. Then my other baby mama cuddles her, and other parents coo. A bit later, a little girl about ten months old crawls over and puts her hand on my knee. After some hesitation, I pick her up, cuddle her, then let her crawl away. The other parents coo.

As class winds down, the mother of an affectionate and gentle boy named D jokes that her son is turning into a little Lothario, as he's the only boy in the class. Everyone laughs and then the actor, a great and not at all creepy guy, jokes that he was hoping to have his own harem until I showed up and created competition. Most of the mothers laugh, but I cringe, just a little, inside. Other neighborhoods have a higher stay-at-home dad quotient, but I haven’t met many here. It would be easier to be part of this community if everyone could forget that I’m a 19 year old dad of 3 toddler children.

4 pm

We bounce to the grocery store and I pick up things for dinner. On our way back, I decide that our afternoon snack should be fried Frog legs. We live in Chinatown and there's a ton of delicious if junky snacks. It's a rare treat but Rebecca's been good. As soon as we enter she starts crying because she wants one. Frog leg! She cries and then cries harder when I don't give it to her right of way. Crap I mutter under my breath. Now she won’t walk, so I have to carry her, the Frog legs and the groceries home, while she’s wailing and fighting to get down. We make it and I give her part of a frog leg for her snack, but what a mess.

Many mothers, when they’re frustrated, cry. I don’t. It’s stereotypical, I know, but my reaction to frustration is to get angry. I want to slam stuff, punch a wall. It’s clearly behavior Rebecca can’t see, so to blow off steam and keep my general state of being calmer, I’ve been running. If I really hit my boiling point during the day, I take myself out of the situation: put Rebecca in her crib for a few minutes and go vent, or (the better option) wait until Joan Crawford from Mommie Dearest gets home, hand Rebecca off and go for a late-night run to see my other children and their mothers. But that’s rare. Today’s tantrum is no big deal and we settle into an afternoon of playing and preparing dinner.

7 pm

Throw Mama from the train gets home and we eat dinner. Then I hide for a bit while Aurora gives Rebecca a bath and puts her to bed. Sometimes I help, but mostly I leave it to my future ex-wife. I'm tired of being on duty all day and this allows Mrs. Eleanor Iselin to get some mommy/daughter time.

8:30 pm

Rebecca in bed. This is one of my favorite moments, getting some alone time with my wife who is 6 months pregnant. We chat and then she settles down with a bag of chips and watches a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation.

10:30 – 11 pm

Tomorrow I’ll have to spend quality time with Vincent’s mother and Marilyn’s mother. The two of them are with child also at 3 months and 3 and a half months pregnant respectively, so I set my alarm for 6:00, pray for a few minutes and go to sleep.