[tweetmeme source=”luau” only_single=false http://www.URL.com]
There are all kinds of different reasons to run – health, sanity, competition, escape…
One of the reason I run is because I am a stay-at-home dad. No, I don’t run a business from home. I am not a dad who lost his job and is temporarily at home. No. I am a homemaker, I AM a stay at home dad.
Years ago, Jess and I decided that we wanted to have one of the two of us taking care of our children during the day. Fortunately, one of us made a salary that would allow us to do that. It wasn’t me – my salary at that time would have put us in a studio apartment in a bad neighborhood.
And so my journey as a homemaker and stay-at-home parent began.
That was over 10 years ago.
In very short order, I gained a new respect for the millions of women who had given up careers (voluntarily or not) to raise their children and take care of their homes. Homemaking is not an easy gig. I was quickly accepted among the moms I would regularly cross paths with – for which I was grateful. Not every stay at home dad is readily accepted into the stay at home community.
Still, despite the acceptance of the moms, and the feigned/ignorant jealousy of my male friends, I knew I was still a strange man in a strange land, an oddity, a curiosity (years ago, a store clerk, unable to wrap her brain around the fact that I was a stay at home dad insisted, INSISTED, that I must be a nanny).
To the moms, I am a nice guy who works hard (and isn’t it sweet), but I can’t ever share what they share. I didn’t carry Katie or Brooke inside me for 9 month. I can never know the emotional ups and downs nor the emotional bond mothers have with their kids. I can’t share in the more intimate conversations they will have with each other because, well, I’m a guy.
To the dads, I am an enigma, a riddle. How does this guy do that? But I don’t share the burdens of salary and employment that they do. I cannot know what it means to be the sole bread-winner – “the man” of the house.
It is a lonely place – a toe, if that, in each world, but not fully accepted, respected nor understood by anyone in either.
The truth is, as a stay at home dad, the economy scares me as much as the next man, but I have the added insult of knowing that my skill set is over 10 years out of date. I cannot suddenly be “the man” should Jess lose her job. Go back to school, you say? When, is my response. Were Brooke your typical child, I might be willing to bring in a baby sitter or a nanny or put her in after school care, but she is not. Move, you say? So that we don’t have to depend on Jess’ sizable salary to live in this neighborhood? Where, is my response. Were Brooke typical, we might have moved long ago, but, as much as we complain about the school system, unfortunately, it is still one of the best in the nation, IN THE NATION, for children like Brooke. No, we cannot move without putting Brooke’s future at stake.
It is depressing to know that I cannot cleave the chains that bind us to our situation and location. Despite all the good I know I do – and believe me, I know – I know my chosen vocation raises eyebrows, and at times leaves me feeling powerless…
***
Which is why running is so important to me. Through running I can exert my strength. I can look at 80 – 90% of the men on the planet and say, “I am stronger, I am faster, I am better at something than you.”
It is a male thing. A man thing.
But it is not for them, those other men, that I run.
No, it is for me.
It is to remind myself that I am still a man…still strong…still capable…still powerful…
I am…
…still a man.
Run Luau Run 
Yes you are and I hope, a proud man too! As I have said to you before, in the words of Salt and Pepa, “What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man”!!
Oh and you can handle your liquor, that alone makes you a great man!!!!
And you are. You are a great man. I’m proud to call you my friend. And you are one of the best daddies I know.
Jersey
You are a great father and an even better person! You’re one of the most honest, caring and well, just simply wonderful men I have ever known. You’re a man of character and integrity and someone whom I am proud to call a friend (and I don’t use that term lightly or often).
This post (as so many of your posts) really resonated with me, not only because I (almost) totally identify with it. But because it made me remember something I said to you at Smuttynose that I think made me come-off wrong and I never fully had the chance to explain what I meant.
Me: Man, I wish I could be a SAHD! You: Well, it’s not as easy as it sounds! (or something to that effect)
What I meant, and wish I had been able to explain myself better at the time was that with my schedule (24 on/72 off) and the fact that my Wife works overnights, I basically AM a SAHD. I certainly am “Mr. Mom” with most of the operational responsibilities of running the household. Only I still have to work full-time.
I would give just about ANYTHING to not have to go to work and be able to totally focus on my family and the house. The house would be cleaner, things would be organized and I would be on top of all the little maintenance issues… My current to-do list items include: clogged drains, leaky faucets, short-circuiting lights, shelves that need to be built and a new dryer that needs to be installed (we bought it over a year ago and it is STILL in the plastic sitting in the basement).
I would’ve explained to you how I feel like I don’t “fit-in” with the Mom’s at the park, nor do I quite “fit-in” with most of my male friends who dish most of their parenting duties to their wives (I actually have friends who have multiple children and claim to have never changed a diaper), and certainly don’t take responsibility for any household chores. I’ve often had the conversation with many of them as to HOW their wives are able to do everything and STILL put-up with them. And many of them have wives that work full-time also. It’s just crazy.
It’s all a big part of why I run too. I’ve often said to my wife and other’s who question my running – “Running is the ONE thing that I do for myself!” Yet, while I am able to say that, I know that I also do it for them. Especially in periods like this (injury) when I can’t run. I realize that running keeps me sane, and makes me happier and easier to be around. How do I know this? Lex has been saying things like “Gee, I REALLY wish you could RUN!”
Beautiful post Matt. I admire you and respect you so much
wonderful post!
Oh Matt. Were half the “men” the man you are. You are. You are all that. And a bag of chips. Love you.
Love LOVE this post. It’s given me a lot to think about. Thank you. As a SAHM and a runner, I totally get it. That doesn’t explain the fifty milers though…. Those I don’t get. 😉
Wonderful post! Running is something we ultimately do for ourselves and you’ve nailed a lot of why I run.
I think it’s a pretty incredible thing that you do for your family. In fact, I think it makes you even more of a man. You’ve found a path as the dad at home and as a runner, and created that identity for yourself. Many people, moms and dads, can’t even figure out the one. I really admire that about you.
Luau, you are giving your kids a gift that most children never get and it will shape their lives in incredibly healthy, beautiful ways. Should they find themselves in relationships with men when they are adult women, they will hold potential partners up in comparison to you and will not settle for a man who can not measure up to their dad. And THAT will be a comparison that serves them well throughout their lives.
You are doing the hardest – and most important – work there is.
Luau, I won’t patronize and say I can imagine how it must feel because I can’t. But I can tell you that I think you are a remarkable human being. A remarkable MAN. As others have already written, you are giving your girls something irreplaceable. You are giving them time with their father and a different paradigm to view family life as well as a benchmark, as mom-nos said, against which they can measure the men the choose to be in their lives. The path you have chose is neither easy nor trivial; you can’t “phone it in.” Many, lesser, men wouldn’t be able to keep pace— either walking in your shoes or running alongside of you in a race.
erm, that should say “the path you chose” OR “the path you have chosen…” Really, I are a colledj gradjemat. I swere. 😉
It takes a REAL man to be a SAHD. What you are doing is selfless. You are sacrificing your career choices to be available to your children 100% of the time. Believe me, I get that. And it’s huge. And often thankless and undervalued by society when, quite honestly, it is the single MOST IMPORTANT JOB ON THE PLANET. You are teaching your beautiful girls about the value of life and parenthood and childhood and marriage. You are a devoted husband and father and I applaud you.
You are the kind of man that many men should aspire to. In a way it is easy to be a stay at home mom. It’s not always respected, but it’s understood and to a degree expected by some people. You are doing the unexpected. You are doing it well. And you are doing important work. (You also have a pretty awesome wife to back you up. 🙂 ) Even if you didn’t run, you would be stronger and more capable than many men out there. Be proud of who you are, because that you is doing a great thing.
Dude, you are THE man.