Thursday, August 30, 2018

MR. MOM

MR. MOM

I have a confession to make. I want to be a stay at home dad. I'm a feminist first and so I think that any of the two parents could be the bread winner for the household. More so than that, I already had my career. I spent 15 years working in television and I can honestly say I'm okay with it being over. I have a good nest egg to fall back on and some income generating in different projects I set up along the way. But the short of it is, I believe that both adults in a serious partnership should be able to achieve the goals in their own career.

I don't subscribe to the notion that the female has to be the stay at home mother. To begin with, they do not get as much credit as they deserve. It is seen as an easy job even though it is anything but. More than anything, it is far more difficult than a standard 9-5 Job.

A study conducted by the AVEENO baby surveyed new parents with 31% claiming that staying home with kids is much harder than returning to work. The struggle was pretty real in it that the basic idea is that as a stay at home parent, most of your meals will be consumed with one hand and that you can actually function fairly well with four hours of sleep and a cup of tea will never be finished again between having to chase around the kids and most of all, the insanity that comes from watching the same television programs or face the wrath of the little ones.

It's really true. When you are in your 9-5 work place, you get to socialize with other human beings that can... get this, communicate with the same level of intelligence. Being social is a huge relief in the long run of things in terms of keeping your sanity.

"Becoming a parent is an amazing experience, but we understand that entering this new chapter of life can also bring with it a great deal of stress and worry, so we wanted to discover more about what new parents experience in the first few years, what they wish they had known and how best we can support them."

With that being said, of the 1,500 UK parents who were asked, 55% said that having a baby was "hard work",  20% admitting parenthood was "very difficult." and many who just said that being a new parent is difficult.  Despite all that, 48% of the parents polled described their journey into parenthood as the "perfect experience". So I guess the take away is that it's fucking hard as hell and for that, you're actually going to value and claim to enjoy it more or you'll just go insane. Because in the end, if it's tough as nails, then of course you're going to justify it as being well worth the hard work.

Here's the real odd part of the survey. Well. Not so much odd but more true to form. 71% said that they admitted that the mixture of social media and parenting made them feel more competitive in capturing this new and scary life.  22% said that social media platforms added a whole other level of pressure to be the perfect parent. Which, let's be real, social media in general just adds pressure to be something you are not and constantly living chasing the next instagram perfect person. When in reality that profile is so filled with lies that it's a joke.

In the end, it was stated that no matter how many parenting books or studying up on the subject you do, parenting is fucking difficult stuff to do an going to a 9-5 job and being able to take sick days, fuck around and all that bullshit is far more easier of a thing to do than staying at home and taking care of the crumb cruncher for not only 8 hours, but the whole 24 hours. Even on the clock while you are sleeping those simple 4 hours.

It may be hard work, but at the end of the day it's rewarding in that same sense. Because nothing easy is ever really worth doing. And that's why I feel like I don't mind being the stay at home father for whatever partnership I get into. I already did my daily grind. I have the financial aspect set up and I would want my partner to not have to fall in to gender roles because society dictates that females are mothers.

Seems like a strange blog post, I guess it was more stream of consciousness than anything else. A little rant and a little bit telling of myself.  I don't mind being the stay at home dad. I guess I can easily say that now even though I don't have kids and all that.

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