As a stay-at-home Dad, I get this comment a lot. "Oh, you stay at home? That's so great. Are you all just having a ball?" Of course, being the respectful person that I am, I say, "Oh yes. It's a lot of fun. Challenging, but fun."
Challenging is, of course, my euphemism for "I am spending hours every day (and night) suppressing the urge to go on a gorilla-like rampage tossing furniture and thumping my chest until my children bow with respect to my beastly rage." (Healthy, right?)
Stay at home parenting is not fun. It's somewhere in the vicinity of Dante's Inferno meets the movie Groundhogs Day--monotonous, hellish, thankless work with the worst co-workers imaginable. Seriously. HR nightmares, these kids are. And my kids aren't particularly bad. They're just kids. Well, one is a kid. The other is a 3 month old, so not even a kid. But still, they're both more or less on par with how humans their ages behave.
The problem with the question, "Are you having so much fun?" is that it is completely oblivious to the work a stay at home parent does. No one asks anyone else in the workforce if they are, "Having so much fun?" No one. It doesn't happen. "Hey Bob, how do you like dressing in an uncomfortable monkey suit and going into an office everyday at 9AM only to sit through hours of soul-crushingly boring paperwork and unproductive meetings while pretending to like people you would otherwise never in a million years choose to spend time with? Aren't you just having so much fun?" See? Ridiculous. Doesn't happen.
If you're not a stay-at-home parent and you aren't married to one and you've never had to spend a full 24 hour period (with no help for ten of those hours) with your child to appreciate the work, forethought, stress, patience, and artful flow of a day that comes with full-time parenting, you may be asking yourself, what's the big deal? I love my kids. They're a blast. This is for you people. The rest of you get it. Whether you're the one doing it or you're hearing about it when you get home and attempting to replicate your partner's skills on the weekend, you get the challenges, and you get that it can in no way be characterized as fun. It's survival. It's war. It's lion taming without the whip...You get the idea. Let's have a look.
A day in the life...
Let's start with a night of disrupted sleep: Three year old has to "potty," three month old has to eat, cat jumping on your head, three year old "has something in her eye and needs a warm wash cloth" or needs the song changed on her sound machine or needs her nose blown, which she tells me by yelling, "Ah-choo!" over and over as loud as she can into the monitor until I come take care of it.
Then comes the wake-up call. Despite my daily protests, my daughter insists on throwing open my bedroom door at 6:30AM like an action hero bursting in on a criminal and immediately launching into a cacophonous word salad of every thought, feeling, and observation she is having in that particular moment. If she wasn't three, this be would warrant a, "WTF?! Get out of my bedroom!" But, since she is three (and she's mine), I groggily attempt sincere answers to her questions, patient validation of her emotions, and suppressed contempt for her incessant observations. "Yes, those are green curtains on my windows sweetheart. Yep, these are my pajamas. My hair certainly is a mess..."
Breakfast involves making things my daughter asks for, but that I know she won't eat, trying to get her to eat them, and then throwing them in the garbage wondering why I don't just flush dollar bills down the toilet at mealtime and save us both a lot of trouble. I prepare her food first, get her situated at the table, turn on some music so she's stimulated and doesn't immediately run off to find some other form of stimulation, then attempt to make my breakfast. My breakfast usually ends with me eating cold eggs or soggy cereal with a luke-warm cup of coffee after thirty minutes of fielding her requests and "redirecting" her behavior.
My daughter and I finish breakfast around 7:30. This is when my wife usually brings out the little one. My wife has about 90 minutes most mornings to eat breakfast, pump, take a shower, get dressed, pack her lunch, wash her pump pieces (so she can pump again at work), and get herself out the door, all while redirecting our three year old to me while I try to bounce our three month old into a passive state of acceptance that he is no longer in the womb. He takes a nap after an hour of being awake, and, when bottle feeding, eats about every two hours. Sloane and I have organized morning activities every day of the week, which start between 9 and 10, and it takes about 45 minutes to get all three of us dressed and ready to leave the house. Are you doing the math? And you thought those algebra problems in high school were just nonsensical calculations.
To make all of this happen, I must drag my son from room to room while demanding that my daughter listen to me and change her clothes, brush her teeth and hair, and get her shoes on. Usually, this is interrupted by the fact that it has been an hour and baby brother is ready to sleep again. So, I put him in the Ergo carrier, throw a binky in his mouth, and pace the house like a psychotic person for five to ten minutes until he falls asleep (Lest, you ask why I don't just put him in the Ergo and then help my daughter, he will not tolerate the Ergo if he is not tired and will not fall asleep in the Ergo unless I am continuously walking and bouncing). I do this while reminding my daughter fifteen times that we're going to finish getting ready to leave the second he falls asleep. Once he's out, I finish getting my daughter ready, get my own clothes changed, teeth brushed, hair combed, etc, pack our diaper bag for the morning, pack the sleeping baby in the car seat, fight the whining three year old into her jacket, yell goodbye to my wife who I've seen (not talked to, because that wastes too much time) for about five minutes, and systematically pack everyone and everything into the car.
We drive to preschool, open gym, the library, or the play room; I throw in one earbud and listen to the Morning Edition podcast on NPR, turn the obnoxious kids songs or Thomas the Tank Engine audiobooks we've heard fifteen million times to the back speakers, and hand snacks to my daughter over the seat while focusing on the road. This is honestly one of the best parts of the day--kids strapped in seats, baby usually sleeping, me listening to adults talk about adult topics in polite, coherent, articulate English. It's a little piece of Nirvana for about 15 minutes. I drive slowly.
At our activity, I get Sloane's coat and shoes off, get baby into the Ergo and bounce my way around the room/ gym as Sloane runs around like a squirrel on Red Bull. If it's preschool, I must persuade her to sit and listen during storytime, to share during playtime, not to throw toys, steal Play-Doh from the other kids, etc. Open gym is the stuff, because there is nothing for her to steal, throw, hoard, or hide, just lots of soft structures for her to run around on and bounce off of. "Preschool" is actually a free co-op on Tuesdays and Thursdays and lasts two hours (I have to be there). Beck, who I have to say is an extremely chill baby so far (but still a baby nonetheless), will usually sleep for part of it before needing to eat. Eating means me bringing a thermos of boiling water and a cup along and trying to guess when he'll be hungry so I can preemptively heat the bottle so he doesn't lose his mind in a room full of people while I spend five minutes trying to heat it and soothe him (and myself) at the same time.
I used to be able to actually play with my daughter during these activities. Now, much to her chagrin, I usually have to bounce nearby and try to be involved in whatever capacity Beck (or Beck's sleeping body on my chest) will allow. Sloane hates this and is growing increasingly spiteful of her brother's neediness, which is resulting in more and more attempts to get negative attention. This makes my job that much more pleasant. I totally get where she's coming from, I do; it's shitty; she got a raw deal and yet, it's totally not okay for her to turn into a raging sociopath just because we had another kid. So, after three months of threatening to leave places early or sit her in time out, we've finally started a responsibility chart wherein she gets smiley faces or frowny faces next to each behavior or responsibility she has done appropriately or inappropriately. If she gets more smiles than frowns, she gets a reward. It's only been a week, but it seems to be having some positive effects.
Anyway, back to our day. We get home from our activity around 11:15-Noon. It's been two hours since I fed Beck, so he's ready to eat again. Unfortunately, this is also the time Sloane has been eating lunch for her entire life and she's prone to much larger meltdowns than Beck if she isn't fed somewhere close to this time of day. So, I haul everyone and everything back inside, get shoes, coats, hats, etc off, hands washed, leave Beck in the car seat as long as he's happy (if he's not, I do all of this with him in one arm), throw a bottle in the warmer, while it is heating (it takes 5 minutes) I make Sloane's lunch and get her bib on and make sure she has no other requests from me before I retrieve the bottle and attempt to feed Beck. I say "attempt" because he is becoming increasingly distracted and picky with regard to eating. If Sloane is nearby, he won't eat. If I'm trying to eat, he won't eat. If there is any other stimuli in the room, he's watching it and not eating. Also, he likes his milk hot. Not warm. Not room temperature. Hot. Or no deal. Thus, while he is being distracted the bottle is cooling and two ounces in he won't eat it anymore. I think he's finished and start to get up, he roots like a wild beast, I sit back down and try again, he cries and looks at me like I'm an asshole for suggesting he drink room temperature milk. So, I heat it a little more. No problem; finishes the bottle. My little primadonna.
For those keeping score at home, I haven't eaten since my soggy cereal six hours earlier, so I'm not in a great mood and trying not to let that creep into my frustrations with my kids. Beck may give me five minutes to make my lunch, or he may sit in his swing and grunt at me like stuck pig until I pick him up again. In order to eat my lunch I must sit directly next to his swing with my food and interact with him between bites. Sometimes I am not entertaining enough and he insists I hold him on my lap while I eat. Where is Sloane throughout this you ask? Well, I started what is perhaps a not-so-healthy habit of letting her watch PBS shows on our tablet during lunch. It keeps her in her seat, eating, and it used to allow me to make and eat my lunch and even get some other life logistics taken care of. Now, it keeps her from distracting Beck while he eats and her from nagging me while I shovel food in my gullet while talking to a baby like a cartoon character full of helium. We all make concessions. People in glass houses, and all of that.
Ok, so everyone is fed, we're getting to what used to be my favorite time of the day: Naptime. For two years Sloane has taken a 2-3 hour nap starting at 1PM and I have done...whatever I want to do for two whole hours. I used to run on our treadmill, or write, or read, or prep dinner, or plan our weekend, clean the house, etc, etc. But alas, no more! Now, this is the most hellish part of my day. Mainly because it used to be so, so sweet. Here's the problem. Beck ate at noon, Sloane finishes lunch around 12:30. If Beck starts acting tired, I'll tell Sloane to play while I put him back in the Ergo and return to my psychopathic pacing until he's asleep again. If he's not looking tired, I make the horrible decision of bringing him to bed with us to read stories and spend the entire winding-down time trying to keep him entertained with one hand whilst holding a book (and attempting to turn pages) with the other. We get through it. Sometimes it requires stopping storytime altogether, getting him to sleep and trying again with a little girl who is now very tired and irritated and letting me know it. By 2, she's usually in bed and Beck's usually asleep. This is when I get my daily false hope that I will have a moment to myself to recoup. Everyday I get excited when they both fall asleep at the same time and everyday I am disappointed when he wakes twenty minutes later because it has now been over two hours AGAIN! and it's time to eat. He wails. I heat a bottle. He eats with eyes closed, teasing me even further into believing he might go back to sleep, which literally never happens.
At this point, we're eight hours into our day and I've had one twenty minute break. Patience gets infinitely more difficult. Now I'm left entertaining a three month old. There is nothing more boring than entertaining an infant. People always told me with Sloane not to wish away those early months. That's bullshit. They're painfully boring months. People only say this because babies are insanely cute. But if you're with one 24/7 seven days a week you will see that they do nothing but eat, sleep, shit, make a lot of noise, and...smile. If they didn't smile so much, they would never survive infancy. Cuteness gets humans to their first birthday. It's true. Look it up.
By the time my daughter wakes up around 3:30-4 I'm genuinely thrilled to see her. I barely notice that she is speaking stream of consciousness at the top of her lungs because I'm so excited someone has returned who can speak a reasonable amount of the English language. Unfortunately, it's been two hours again, and I have to immediately put her off to feed her brother. On a good day, she deals for twenty minutes. On a day where she wakes up cranky, she whines and demands things while I'm in absolutely no position to help her, which distracts Beck from eating, which makes the bottle cold, which makes this seemingly easy task a huge pain in the ass.
Once we get through it, this part of the day can be relatively fun. In warm weather we'll go to the park, in cold weather we usually stay inside and play with her cornucopia of toys and art supplies. I get on the floor with both of them. She's rested and excited I'm actually able to interact with her, and he's content because he just ate and likes watching his sister act like a crazy person (until she gets too crazy and scares the crap out of him, in which case he cries and I scold and we can't play anymore).
Around 4:30-5, Beck will take another short (20 minutes) nap. I do the usual Ergo routine, lay him in his swing, and start dinner. If Sloane is content with an art project, or building with legos, or the like, I let her run with that. If not, she has some apps on the tablet that she gets to play while I cook and listen to All Things Considered. I love to cook, so this can be an enjoyable time unless Beck doesn't sleep, or wakes up halfway through the process or Sloane gets whiny or impatient with me. I have to be prepared for an instantaneous melt down from one child or the other at all times. So, things that could be fun, or at least not stressful, rarely turn out that way.
Dinner is ready by 5:30-6. My wife gets home from work around the same time. Beck wakes up and wants to eat the second she walks in the door, which is usually okay by her because she pumped four hours earlier and needs the relief. Unfortunately, this makes eating together difficult because Sloane needs to be fed or she'll get fussy. Sometimes my wife eats as fast as possible and then feeds Beck (if he'll allow it), sometimes she feeds him in our living room, which is off the dining room, where she can hear us (but not participate so as not to distract Beck) and watch her dinner get cold. Dinner for Sloane is similar to breakfast in that she barely eats anything (it's amazing this girl can get out of bed with as little as she eats) and instead runs circles around the table until I want to puke or yell.
After dinner is a whirlwind of persuading Sloane to clean up her toys, doing dishes, giving baths, reading stories, singing bedtime songs, and tending to Sloane's fifteen nightly excuses for why she needs to get up or have us bring her something. Oh, and feeding Beck, which, when he's breastfeeding happens about every hour and takes thirty minutes. My wife is literally feeding him 85% of the time she's in the house with us. Once Sloane is down for the count, Beck still hangs on for another hour or so, which means either walking him in the Ergo, or Allison feeding him in the bedroom until he falls asleep. By then it's 8:30-9. Sometimes Allison goes to bed right away. Sometimes we try to watch TV for an hour. Sometimes we actually attempt to talk to each other. Regardless, we're both completely defeated by 9:30, so, we go to bed for a night of interrupted sleep and start the cycle over.
I'm not saying there aren't fun moments in stay at home parenting. And, to be honest, it is much more rewarding than many other jobs I could be doing, but please, enough with the "You're so lucky! Isn't it so much fun!" business. It's a job unlike any other, but certainly a job. Actually more like six jobs, with no breaks, no lunch, no benefits...you get the point. It's rough. Show some respect.
