Token Diversity Family

Shortly after Isaac came home, a friend – a white friend – said to us, “This is great! Our child doesn’t have any black friends.” Immediately, the phrase ‘token black child’ rang in my ears. I was struck by visions of social events in which people fixated on what made our family stand out. As a multiracial family, Laurie and I both recognize that we stand out. In almost any crowd, we are treated like a novelty.

We know that as the parents of these kids we have signed up for a lifetime of explaining and educating people, and we try to approach new people with optimism, and hope they will use discretion and tact when asking questions or making comments. We’ve learned that inappropriate questions and comments typically catch us off guard because they can come at anytime and from anyone – strangers in the grocery store, acquaintances, and friends and family with whom we thought we’d be safe.

We recognize the importance of giving people the benefit of the doubt but only up to a certain point. Often times, the oddest comments have come from people who seemed uncomfortable and didn’t know what to say. When someone at work found out I adopted my son, he offered that his Japanese teacher had adopted a newborn but the birth father was contesting the adoption. I failed to see the relevance, so all I could think of to respond was “Okay.”

To be honest, I had a really hard time in the beginning with all the blatant staring and attention. I had to remind myself that if I saw a white man chasing a small black child through a crowded restaurant who was crying and screaming “I want my Mommy!” I’d stare too. But as his parent, the staring made me want to claim him all the more. “I love you, Son” or “Hold Daddy’s hand,” I’d announce. My wife and I don’t suffer the same kind of inappropriate conversations. My lot is to endure blunt questions like “Why did you adopt? Do you shoot blanks, or something?” and “Is your wife barren?” A lady once asked me, “Do you wear boxers or briefs? I’ve heard briefs can really mess up your count.”

Meanwhile Laurie gets asked, “How much did it cost?” and “What if their ‘real’ mother comes back for them?” Then, after she discretely avoids answering the questions, someone says, “I’d love to adopt. I don’t think I can handle another pregnancy.” Then Laurie gets to listen as the group discusses baby showers, breast feeding, and many other aspects of parenting we’ve yet to experience.

While Laurie and I prefer to be accepted as normal parents, as time has passed, we’ve accepted the attention that comes with having such an interesting family. At parties, hosts who know our kids nonchalantly introduce us, adding, “They have the cutest family,” ultimately forcing us to whip out pictures of the kids. For a while, it felt like we were being labeled; the couple who just got back from a trip, the couple who sells real estate together, and us, the couple who adopted. Inevitably, we became the center of attention, and I felt the eyes of the entire room on us as we talked about the same mundane things everyone else’s kids do.

Just a few weeks ago, Laurie and I attended a wedding shower where we knew only the groom and his immediate family. The mother has known Laurie for years and took great pride in introducing us to the other guests. “Come on, Laurie,” she said to a group of couples, “I know you keep a little photo album in your purse. Let’s see those little darlings.” It’s hard to feign modesty when you keep a small photo album handy for just such an occasion. But the guests genuinely perked up with interest: “Oh. My. Gosh.” “Aren’t they precious?” “You all are just a bunch of saints. Saint Billy and Saint Laurie.”

It might have been too over the top, but this was nothing we haven’t heard before, even the “Saint” part. Years ago, we might have felt awkward pretending to be humble. We’d feebly thank them, but we usually made them feel embarrassed rather than encouraging. But I’d like to think we’ve grown past that, to a point where I can humbly accept their adulations, where I can reach out and hold Laurie’s hand, put my other hand on my heart, nod my head, and say, “You’re right. We are terrific people.”

Call Him Mommy

Once Isaac reached three years old, I suddenly became aware of my language and temper. I remember vividly the day he said his first curse word. I was sitting on the couch watching the news while Isaac played at my feet and Laurie prepared dinner. She called out from the kitchen, “Honey, we don’t have enough potatoes for everyone.”

Isaac looked at me and said, “Dammit, we need to get some more.”

Laurie leaned her head around the corner, and we shared a look that said, “Did I hear that correctly? Did he just say that?” She came into the living room and kneeled on the floor beside him. “Isaac, what did you say?”

He responded, “We need to get some more.”

“No, but what did you say before that?”

He said nothing, just gave her a confused look. We waited for him to come up with an answer, but he clearly had no idea what he said.

“Do you think he really said it?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. Do you?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe he said, ‘Dang it.’ We say that all the time.”

Laurie rolled her eyes. “You know he didn’t say ‘Dang it.’ You say the other thing sometimes.”

“No I don’t.”

“You don’t say it all the time. But I’ve heard you say it once or twice.”

Isaac chimed in. “Are you guys fighting?” His voice was stern and authoritative—a dead-on impersonation of his mother and me.

“No, Isaac,” his mother and I said in unison.

We waited until after we put him to bed to continue the conversation. Laurie told me I needed to watch what I said around him. I said I’d already tried my hardest to phase out everything but “shoot” and “fiddlesticks” but sometimes those just didn’t do the job. I suggested he might have heard it anywhere—my parents, someone in Bible study, that kid at the playground with the Marilyn Manson T-shirt. I reminded her that he had recently learned how to operate the remote control. “Maybe he changed the channel when we weren’t in the room and heard it then.” Laurie didn’t buy any of it.

I couldn’t help but feel a little on the spot. We didn’t discuss any of the ways she was a bad influence on him. I didn’t mention his whining, crying, or constant compulsion to ask me for money. A few weeks passed before a better option would occur to me. Isaac was eating his breakfast as I was leaving for work. As his mother called to him from the next room to drink his milk, I kissed his forehead and said goodbye. He said, “Bye, Dammy. Love you.”

I turned around and asked, “What was that?”

“Oh. I mean, bye Daddy.”

I considered calling to his mother who was in the bedroom folding clothes. I wanted to tell her what he said—that the morphing of our two names sounded both humorous and blasphemous. But I thought twice about telling her. I imagined her saying, “You still need to watch what you say.”

At that point in both his and his little sister’s verbal development, I was used to being called Mommy. I tried not to let it hurt my feelings. As a stay-at-home mom, Laurie got significantly more face time with them. But at times it really bothered me. It seems like anytime I was nice or treated them in a nurturing way, they addressed me as “Mommy.” Then, one day Laurie called me at work and said, “Your son cracks me up. I just got on his case for something and he called me Daddy.”

I told her I didn’t understand.

“He was sassing me and I told him, ‘You do not talk to your mother like that. Do you understand me?’ and he said, ‘Yes, Daddy.’ Isn’t that funny?”

I thought about it for a second. When I’m nice to him, he calls me Mommy and when his mother disciplines him, he calls her Daddy. Great.

His verbal skills skyrocketed and for a while he consistently called his mom and me Dammy or Moddy. Vivi is now three and has inherited this morph. She’s so used to my leaving for work that whenever Laurie leaves the house, Vivi says, “Bye, Daddy.” While her mom is out shopping, I make dinner and, as I rush back and forth from the kitchen to the table, Vivi says, “Thank you, Mommy.”

This article can also be read at Wearegoodkin.com.

Card Stock

Last Valentine’s Day, I was shopping in the card section at Walmart a few days before the 14th. I must have looked at thirty cards; according to many reliable sources, I am picky. It’s a label I’m willing to embrace if it means I’m the type of guy who wants to pick a card that says just the right thing and doesn't cost nine dollars. When did greeting cards become so expensive?

I imagined giving Laurie’s reaction when I gave her something more practical, like a five-dollar box of chocolates with “Love You, Sweetie,” written with a sharpie all over the shrink-wrap. I’d say, “I thought you’d prefer the money spent on sweets.” She’d put her arms around me and kiss me. “You’re the smartest husband in the world,” she’d say. Do I know my wife or what?

As I walked up and down the crowded card section, I noticed that I was surrounded by women. This is a sharp contrast from my shopping experience last year, when I worked a late shift the day before Valentine's. I stopped at Walmart on my way home sometime after midnight, and was surprised to see the card section was full of guys, each of whom held a bouquet of flowers and nervously paced the sparse card selection. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who waited until the last minute.

I saw guys in ties and guys in coveralls. Regardless of class or race, we formed a band of brothers, each of us haunted by the Ghost of Forgotten Valentine’s Past. However, this year, I was an entire week early. This, to me, explained all the women in the card section. As I was looking through the "to her from him" cards, I noticed how so many of cards are apologetic: “I know I don’t tell you often enough…” “I don’t know how I got to be so lucky…” “Sorry this is late…” “For the woman I don’t deserve…” “You’re always so patient with me…” And I couldn’t help but feel a little offended.

Now that I’ve been married long enough to no longer be considered a newlywed, I figure I now have enough credibility to resent the image of husbands that sitcoms portray, specifically that men are bumbling, insensitive idiots? Sure I feel as lucky as the next guy to have a terrific wife, but I don’t feel the need to apologize for anything. Laurie knows how much I love her. Then again, there was that incident the previous week about the chocolates.

Laurie had returned home from grocery shopping at Walmart. She walked in the door, came over to me, and kissed me on the cheek. “I saw the box of chocolates I want you get me for Valentine’s Day,” she sang. “Well, if you were already there, then why didn’t you just buy the stupid things yourself?” A split second before she started crying, I asked myself, “Did you just say that?” It sounded a lot funnier in my mind. And yet I heard the words said in a voice that sounded a lot like mine.

We finished putting the groceries away in silence. Then she retired to our bedroom while I spent the rest of the evening sitting on the couch, half-concentrating on whatever was on TV, and trying to think of a way to justify what I said. But I couldn’t, at least not without feeling like a bumbling, insensitive idiot. I tried to think of how to make it up to her. She’s so good at showing me how much I mean to her. She tells me she loves me with little gifts and little gestures and spending all day cleaning the house because she wants me to come home to a nice house.

I tell her I love her when I pay the utilities bill. Why can't I be creative like her? And now I couldn’t even buy her the box of chocolates because now they’re tainted. Oh God! I thought. Why am I such an idiot! It was sometime the next day that I found myself at Walmart where I made my way straight line to the card section. I weaved in and out of the women perusing the cards they would buy their husbands, along with dainty little treats. I felt their eyes on me and wondered if they thought I was really sensitive, the kind of guy who always remembers to tell his wife how special she is. And for a moment, I allowed myself the fantasy.

That’s right, Ladies, I’m buying my wife’s Valentine’s card a week early because that’s just the kind of guy I am. Then I tried not to be too noticeable when I started looking through the “I’m sorry” cards.

First Attempt at Fertility

Note: this article is about our first test at a fertility clinic. I've made every attempt to make this as discrete as possible. But as those who have struggled with infertility will tell you, discretion isn't always possible.

Laurie, and I started trying to get pregnant a month before our first wedding anniversary, and, about a year later, we started looking for help. Laurie had dreamed her whole life of becoming a mother. She got her first babysitting gig when she was eleven – the type of parents who would hire a preteen to babysit is a mystery to me – and she even went to college to study child development. When we met, she had already received her bachelor’s degree and was a nanny for a two-year-old boy. By the time we married, bought our first house, and were ready to build our family, the boy had started kindergarten and Laurie was working in a candle shop.

We had no idea how to get started with infertility treatments, so we asked our gynecologist who recommended the most recognized and expensive clinic in town. She told me they’d probably start by taking my sperm count, and I asked how were they going to do that. She stared at me blankly for a moment before she said, “They’re going to analyze your semen.” And I was about to ask again how they were going to do that when Laurie touched my arm.

When I called the clinic and asked for an appointment, the receptionist asked, “For what purpose are you making an appointment?” I had no idea what to say and I panicked for a moment, wishing I had prepared something discrete to say. The lady on the phone must have had experience with embarrassed men and bailed me out. “Do you need a count?” she asked. And I quietly said yes.

I arrived at the clinic early for my appointment and sat in my truck for a few minutes psyching up my courage to go in. I tried to prepare something to say to the front desk. Was it like a bank? “I’m here to make a deposit?”

When I finally went in, I told the lady at the front desk that I had an appointment. She pointed to the electronic screen on the counter, which directed me to sign my name. After I signed in, my name and info immediately disappeared. I thought, “This is innovative. In case my mother or a busload of nuns or any other symbol of purity comes in after me, they won’t see my name and ask me what I was doing there.”

I sat down across from a sad-looking couple; the man was reading a sport magazine, and the woman’s head lay on his shoulder. She had a look of utter despair on her face. Normally, I would break the awkward ice with a joke, but something told me that asking the couple, “So what are you here for?” wouldn’t inspire a genial response.

A nurse called my name and led me to a private room in which a small cup sat on a cabinet. She told me I could leave the specimen in the room when I was finished. Then she shut the door and I sat in the room, staring at the lock on the door. I got up, checked the lock, and sat back down – I did this three or four times. Then I looked up to make sure there wasn’t any recording equipment mounted to the ceiling. There was a cabinet beside me with some drawers, and I wondered if there were men’s magazines in there, but I didn’t look. I heard telephones ringing and voices outside. Why hadn’t they soundproofed the room? I got up and turned off the light switch, thinking this might provide me some illusion of privacy. But the darkness only amplified the ringing phones and voices. An inch of light glowed from the bottom of the door, so I crouched down to make sure anyone who just happened to put their cheek to the floor wouldn’t recognize my shoes.

As I sat in the room, flipping the light switch on and off and delaying the inevitable, I remembered that our gynecologist told us to start with a sperm count because it was the easiest and least invasive test we’d take. While I worried that my count might be too low, I also worried that if it was fine that the next few tests would all involve Laurie and be much more painful and intense. I thought about the sad wife I saw in the waiting room and wondered what kinds of procedures she had already endured. Months later, after I got to know couples who had struggled for years with infertility, I would recognize couples like them as common, in which the wife’s dreams of becoming a mother had been annihilated by years of unfulfilled promises from doctors and the husbands walked around in a confused daze wondering what had happened to the woman he’d married and the happy marriage they’d once had.

When I exited the room, I looked back at the cup sitting on the cabinet and felt relieved that I didn’t have to carry it around the office and hand it to the lady at the front desk. I walked down the long hall, turned a corner, and approached the front desk where a new receptionist sat. I thought, “This lady has no idea who I am and what I’m here for.” I worried I’d have to explain, but I first assumed she knew the situation. So I cleared my throat and asked, “Anything else?”

The receptionist said, “No, thank you. We’ll call you in a few days with the results.”

On the drive home, I wondered if people could tell that I’d just undergone a sperm test. It was as if I’d crossed a threshold in which I stood on one side and the rest of the normal, fertile world stood on the other. This became a harsher reality when my count came back normal and the clinic invited Laurie to return for a series of treatments including regular blood tests and sonograms. They injected dye into her and prescribed daily doses of golf-ball-size pills. And when I refused to give her shots of hormones into her stomach, she injected them herself. After a very painful, expensive, and unsuccessful IUI, we quit infertility treatments and began the process of becoming foster parents.

Earlybird

A few days before Halloween, Laurie called me at work and told me she had just finished Christmas shopping for the kids. “Target had a Barbie car on clearance. Toys r Us was having a sale and let me use a coupon.” She paused a moment to catch her breath. “And Kohls was having a one-day-only sale Black Friday sale.”

As a single income family of five (seven if you add the dogs), Laurie and I have to follow a strict budget. A few years ago, we had some financial struggles and had to make some harsh decisions. We cut up our credit cards and have been cash only ever since. I got a second job and Laurie looked for ways to save. Since then, our roles have been simple: I earn the money and she spends it.

Laurie started by clipping coupons from the Sunday newspaper, but her skills at stretching a dollar have grown dramatically. She bought a subscription for a Sunday paper, clipped every week, and learned which groceries stores accepted double and triple coupons and which had the best sales. Sometimes, her shopping trips took hours because she visited several stores. “This store has the best produce but this one has better prices on toiletries,” she told me when she came home and handed me a fistful of receipts. “Look how much I saved.” I saw at the first store she spent $100 and saved $60, and at the second store she spent $80 and saved $40.

“How did you do this?” I asked her as I unpacked three bottles of shampoo, two boxes of garbage bags, and too many cans of vegetables and soups to count. She explained how she got most of these for free or for less than fifty cents, but I didn’t understand a word of it. “It’s not like these things ever go bad,” she said. I agreed, and found a few extra dollars in the budget for ways to increase our pantry storage.

Then she started building relationships with the employees working the cash register. She befriended a young cashier at a local pizza buffet, who always accepted double coupons, which allowed the five of us to eat for $10. Laurie learned to look for the teenagers. “Older employees will read the coupon and call over a manager to approve it. Then the people in line behind me glare at me. But teenagers don’t usually question coupons.” She reads the small print and double checks the receipts when she comes home to make sure they rang her up correctly. She’s learned how to diplomatically defend her coupons to the salespeople and managers, whom I’ve witnessed double take the receipts they hand to her.

She also became a master at planning the children’s wardrobe. Coupons would come in the mail or the newspaper, and she sets them aside and regularly checks websites for ads and sales. Then, when her favorite stores advertise a sale, she comes to me for a little extra cash. I used to freak out when she told me she needed a hundred dollars, but experience has taught me what she can do with what is actually a pretty small amount. In April, she’ll take the money and buy the children’s entire winter wardrobe for the following year. Then in October she buys shorts, tank tops, and swim suits, and spends all winter telling me how she can’t wait to dress the kids in their new summer outfits. She buys clothes that are one or two sizes too big, explains that they’ll grow into them, and shows me the red tags proving she bought a shirt for $2 and jeans for $3.

She’s also learned to shop off-season. The day after a holiday, I set aside a few bucks for her to buy decorations, costumes, wrapping paper, etc. She buys Valentines cards in March, and Thanksgiving décor in December, and spends all spring telling me how she can’t wait to use her new gravy boat.

We learned from numerous financial advisors the importance of planning in advance for special events we know are coming up, like vacations, back-to-school clothes and school supplies, and Christmas. We started planning this holiday season last January when we reviewed last year’s budget and made adjustments. We allotted $400 for the three kids (five if you add the dogs), which I gave Laurie in cash a few days before Halloween. In one afternoon, she spent most of the money and called me to tell me how excited she was about the deals she found.

“I may need a little extra money because I bought more than I meant to, and I still have a few things I need to get.” I told her I could move a little money around in a few days, and she said, “That’s okay. I'll wait until I get some coupons in the mail. Then I’ll check the websites and let you know what I need.”

I told her I was proud of her for doing such a good job. Then I told her I had to get back to work. I hung up the phone and sat down at my desk, excited that since she had done her job it was now time to do mine.

Epilogue: Laurie wanted me to call this story "Doorbuster," but it seems wrong for a husband to write an article about his wife with this title. It seems to refer to size of her butt rather than her shopping savvy. What do you think?

The Staffing

A month after J came home, we received an official letter in the mail addressed to any parties with an interest in the child. We were invited to attend a staffing at the Department of Family and Protective Services – a meeting to discuss the future placement of J.

“So this is when they decide who gets custody of J?” I asked Laurie.

“No, its too soon,” she said. “More than likely they’ll proceed with reunification because they’re legally required to give the birth mom a chance to work her service plan. Then they’ll reconvene in a few months to reevaluate.”

Laurie and I arrived at the CPS building a few minutes early and had the front desk page J’s caseworker. While we waited, we reminisced about our first foster child who we brought to this office for visitations with her birth mother. We said goodbye to her in the parking lot when we dropped her off for her weekly visit, knowing afterward that her caseworker would drive her to a distant relative. I remembered wondering what she would be thinking after her visit when we weren’t there to pick her up.

J’s case worker, Jen, came to the front office and led us through a series of halls with small visitation rooms with donated toys and cartoon murals, past a set of doors with a sign reading “No Children Beyond This Point,” into a room with fold-out tables arranged to look like a conference room. Several people were already seated with notepads and file folders ready. No one introduced themselves to us or asked who we were. Jen, who was also Isaac’s caseworker three years ago when he was a foster child, is petite, soft-spoken, and awkward. Her demeanor seems better suited for work in a library rather than with troubled children. I hoped she might introduce us to the group, but when she sat down without saying anything, I waited until someone acknowledged us.

I’m not sure who initiated the conversation. More than likely, someone mentioned J and Laurie jumped in. She rarely needs an invitation to show off our kids. We might be in a meeting with adoptive families or at the grocery store with total stranger and, within seconds, she whips out the little photo album she keeps in her purse and passes it around. Ordinarily, I’m amused that she is so proud of them, but here it seemed unprofessional. These were hardened caseworkers who didn’t seem interested that he liked playing in the pool or that our dogs loved him for his many odors.

Finally, a woman sitting across from us said, “Well, let’s get started. Why don’t we go around the room and introduce ourselves and what our role is with the child.” Jen started, followed by her supervisor, a lawyer representing CPS, a lawyer representing J’s attorney ad litem, someone representing CASA, their supervisor, someone representing kinship placements, their supervisor, and an attorney representing kinship. The facilitator asked Jen how J came into foster care. Jen nervously cleared her throat, picked up her file folder, and pretended to look through it. She spoke for less than a minute and said “um” no less than ten times. At first, I thought she was being discrete, but when she didn’t even know if the bio mom was working her service plan, I worried that Jen had no idea what was going on. While she went to a lot of trouble to locate Laurie and me to place J with us, she also allowed Isaac to wallow in a neglectful foster home when he was a baby. Now, J’s fate as our legal child rested in her hands. With the exception of the birth mom Isaac and J share, I’ve never had more conflicting feelings toward another human being.

At first, I felt intimidated by everyone’s credentials. But after two minutes of discussion about the case, I realized Laurie and I were clearly the most informed people in the room. The group took twenty minutes before they got caught up on facts Laurie and I knew off the top of our heads.

I entered the meeting knowing that CPS is required by law to give the bio mom a chance to work her plan, regardless of her past. So I was not disappointed when they concluded by giving her the chance for reunification. After years of foster parenting, I’ve learned that CPS typically talks more about the rights of bio parents and less about the long-term well being of the child, although they claim the two are synonymous.

Jen walked us back through the maze to the front entrance. She and Laurie talked about J’s next visitation with his bio mom, but I was too distracted. While I may have been a little embarrassed when Laurie passed around the photo album before the meeting, I now worried I’d missed the chance to represent J. The group of caseworkers had been in meetings for hours and we were one of the last of the day. To them, J was another name on the page and I had failed to bring him to life. I wished I’d made a scene. “I want to be his Daddy. I’ll do whatever it takes.” I wished I’d shown them pictures of J on my phone eating watermelon and reading books. For that matter, I wished I’d have brought a slideshow, a PowerPoint presentation, or the frigging laptop, which has over two hundred pictures devoted just to his first week with us. “Here’s J playing with Oscar in our playroom. Here’s another one of him playing with Oscar in our bedroom. Here’s one of him playing with Oscar and Lucy. Here’s one with him, Oscar, Lucy and Vivi playing in the playroom. Here’s one with them in the back yard.”

In my head, I know this wouldn’t have made a difference. While these antics make good prime time drama, real life doesn’t work that way. Several in the group had used the word “reunification” with a wink and a nod, and someone even said, “We all know where this case is heading,” meaning that termination was inevitable. So until then, the fate of our family rests there.

Love is a Verb

A few weeks ago, a piece I wrote called "Trials and Errors" was published in the anthology Love is a Verb. This piece is special to me because it's about infertility and, to date, I have yet to read any good works on this topic from the perspective of the husband. Most of the men I've met in support groups don't have a clue what's going on with their wives. They wonder what happened to the woman they married and how their lives got to this point.

Here is an excerpt from the piece:

About a year into the treatments, my wife and I were invited to a marriage retreat. We would be sharing the intensive counseling experience with two other couples. Our first assignment was to each create a Life Map of our experiences leading up to the present. Then, the next morning, we had to present the Life Maps to the group. When my wife’s turn came, she shared her story growing up and how she and I had first met and fell in love. When we got to the part about our current relationship, she shared about our struggles with infertility and, as usual, began sobbing. The leader asked if I had been there for her in her grief. As I sat back and waited for her to proclaim my sensitivity to the group, I heard her say no.

“When have I not been there for you?” I asked.

“Lots of times.”

“Like when?”

“Do you remember a month ago when I couldn’t sleep? I had been crying for several hours and you just laid there and pretended to sleep. Then when I tried to wake you up so you would talk to me, you huffed and said, ‘This again?’ Then you kicked the sheets off the bed and stormed out.”

I sat back stunned. “I did that?”

I tried to remember the incident. If she said it happened it must have. I was certainly concerned that I was capable of treating my wife with such brutal impatience. But what concerned me more than anything was that I had absolutely no recollection of this incident. I racked my brain trying to remember when I had been insensitive toward her grief. I recalled evenings I had been watching TV or working on the computer when she wandered in and asked, “Whatcha doing?”

“Busy.”

“Do you want to do something together?”

This question had always irked me. It implied I never spent any time with her. Also it irked me that I felt trapped by the possible responses. If I said yes, I’d just be spending time with her out of pity. I’d be distracted by what I really wanted to be doing, I’d resent her for taking me away from it, and I’d do a terrible job of hiding it. If I said no, I’d feel selfish for not wanting to spend time with her. One night I finally got tired of it and said, “You’ve really got to get a hobby.” Now I realize the message I had sent. Your pain, your misery, and your identity crisis are a nuisance. You’ve got to get over this and move on for my sake and get a life. Was this the husband I had become?

The piece doesn't end here (I don't want you to think I'm a complete tool). But you'll have to buy the book to see how I became the calm, sensitive, understanding husband I am now. And for my immediate family reading this, the publisher didn't send me any free copies, so you're on your own.

Dream Job

"Things move from order to chaos."
-The Second Law of Thermodynamics

The transition from working a traditional job to a stay-at-home mom is tough on anyone. But for my wife who worked as a nanny before having kids, she had a particularly difficult time. For over twelve years, she mothered other people’s children. She changed diapers and cleaned up toys full time. These may have been long days but at least she had a paycheck and the end of the day to look forward to.

Her first job after college was working full-time for a wealthy family of lawyers. This was before we had met and she’s mentioned this experience to me several times. “The husband was horrible. He turned me into a housekeeper. Every day I had to run the dishwasher even if there were only a couple of things to clean and then empty it before they came home from work. I had to fold all the clothes and towels a specific way and position them in the closet facing the same direction on wood hangers. In the winter, I had to vacuum the ashes out of the fireplace every day. He would yell at me if I didn’t do things exactly the way he wanted. It was the worst job I ever had.” Despite being offered a raise to stay, she quit after working for this family for a year.

My wife has a family of her own now – a toddler son, an infant daughter, a fifty-pound Australian Shepherd, and a little Pomeranian/Chihuahua puppy. She’s been trying to cope with the fact that cleaning the house is a losing battle. I came home from work the other day and all the children ran to greet me, including the furry ones. My wife was sprawled out on the couch and was the least enthused to see me. “Sorry about the house,” she groaned. I surveyed what was left of the living room. It looked like the cave of a pack of wild animals. The floor was littered with toys, granola bar wrappers, and clumps of black dog hair. The coffee table was strewn with the day’s mail, multiple board books, and overturned sippie cups. Sitting next to my wife on the couch was an unopened package of diapers. I put my keys on the kitchen table and noticed several used diapers next to the laptop.

I headed to the bedroom to take my shoes off and get comfortable, I saw a layer of toys on the floor and another layer in our bed, along with some folded laundry and a few snack wrappers. I made enough room on the bed to sit down and took off my socks and, as I threw them in the hamper, I saw the dirty clothes piled up to my waist.

My wife walked into the bedroom. “Honey, I know the house looks bad and I don’t want to hear it,” she said.

“I didn’t say anything.” But I couldn’t help but think back to the obsessive lawyer and his dishwasher and wonder what he did right that maybe I was doing wrong. I decided to say, “I’m sure you’ve had a rough day,” which I thought would be a neutral statement. However, she received a different message – You are not doing your job – and felt the need to defend herself.

“I have had a rough day. The baby’s been crying since she woke up this morning at 6am. She cried anytime I wasn’t holding her. When I picked her up she either thrashed around or hit me. The dogs got into the trash again. All your son ever says is, ‘Can I watch a show?’” She paused for a moment. I thought she might have been done but she was only considering how to go on.

“I know I should straighten up when they take their nap but I’m so tired I just need a break. You get to leave your job and come home. I never get a break. Even when you’re here, they’re still constantly all over me. They start before the sun comes up and don’t stop until bedtime.” She took a breath and put her arm over her forehead and lay on the bed quietly.

I waited a few moments to make sure she was done. When I thought it was safe, I said, “I’m sorry you’ve had a hard day. What can I do to help?”

“I don’t know. Just keep everyone out of the kitchen so I can make dinner.”

She got up and headed to the kitchen. I sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments. I thought about what she said and tried to sympathize. I’d worked a long, hard day but I had something to show for it. I felt bad for her because the house was in such bad shape that I couldn’t even notice what she had done.

I realized the difference between the lawyer’s home and our home was that she was being paid for her work. Keeping their home clean was her job. Mothering my children was not just her job, it was her whole life. It’s futile to think that I could pay her an adequate salary for the tireless work that she does or the endless hours she puts in.

I remember a story my wife told me about another family she had nannied for. She had been taking care of the boy, Jarrett, who at the time was probably three. The two of them had had a perfect day together. They played games and read books all day. He hadn’t had any tantrums and she hadn’t lost her temper at him once. At the end of the day, they were watching a show together when his mom came home from work. My wife and his mom debriefed the day while Jarrett went into the next room. After a minute or so, Jarrett’s mom and my wife looked over and saw that Jarrett was naked from the waste down and lion-taming the family dog with his step stool. My wife said, “So we just looked at each and laughed. Then I grabbed my keys and said, ‘See you later.’”

I would think incidents like this as well as things like diapers and the countless hours without adult engagement as a nanny would have worn her out before she even became a mother. But it hasn’t. She’s so glad to have kids that she rarely complains about that stuff. It’s the clutter that stresses her out. And it’s not because she doesn’t notice or care. That’s what I love about her. She does notice the pile of laundry and the dishes. But she’s just one person who is drastically outnumbered. I may be home only a few hours everyday, but even I see the children pull toys out of their toy bins just to pull them out. They don’t even play with the toys, they just move on to emptying the next bin. I think about the lion-taming incident and consider how my wife took for granted her job as a nanny where at least she could look forward to going home at the end of the day.

Coming March 24th

So I'm going to be published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul anthology due to be available at bookstores on March 24th! I've been having a lot of fun talking about my "book deal." It's pretty crazy. I wrote a story, called Dream Job, about Laurie being a stay-at-home mom and submitted it back several months ago. And now it's going to be in print. I have two more stories coming out in two more anthologies this year. Until then, here's the description from the website:

Wendy Walker, author of Four Wives and The Queen of Suburbia, has become the go-to media expert on women leaving the workforce to raise their families and run their homes. This book contains 101 great stories from mothers who have made the choice to stay home, or work from home, while raising their families and becoming active members of their communities. Stories from grateful husbands and children are also a fun read. These multi-tasking, high-performing women have become today’s Power Moms. Every stay-at-home and work-from-home mom will view this book as having been written just for her. Perfect for book groups, it will also contain a reader guide.

Cheap Entertainment

While attending college, I lived with three guys. Each of us had our quirks and mine, I think, was my practicality and down-to-earth attitude. However, this may be an optimistic way of saying that I stood out as the least intellectual. Sitting at our second-hand kitchen table eating dinner, I’d have no idea what they were talking about. I consistently accused them of turning every conversation into a philosophical or theological discussion. I might have a lousy day at school or a fight with my girlfriend and tell them about it only to have one of them respond, “So what did you learn from that?”

It wasn’t just the difficult stuff either. An interaction with the cashier at the grocery store, the decision to buy brown shoes rather than black, when you set your mind to it, anything can be made a teachable moment.

I remember watching some forgettable schlock movie and later making the mistake of telling one of them about it. “So what did you learn from watching this movie?” he asked.

“I didn’t really learn anything from it.”

“Then why did you watch it?”

It was a legitimate question and I found myself at a loss for words. I thought, it didn’t teach me anything. It was nothing more than mind candy and it served a film’s primary purpose – to give me ninety minutes or so of peace from worrying about my checkbook balance. But this didn’t seem an adequate answer.

My interest in movies has grown exponentially over the years. I haven’t had even basic cable since I lived with my parents and built up my hobby with videos and DVDs. With roommates, it was no problem to escape into my room or the garage for a few hours, but when I got married, my hobby became more complicated.

The first year of marriage, my wife and I got by with just a DVD player. These were the nights we spent going out with friends or enjoying quiet nights talking. Then my father-in-law installed an antenna and gave us the gift of network television. Overnight, frustrated yelling replaced calm conversation. “Move it more to the right. The OTHER right! That’s too much. This isn’t working. Let me go stand in the kitchen and hold my arms up. That worked yesterday.”

To this day, my wife and I don’t share the same taste in TV and film. She gravitates to the traditional chick-flick while I will watch just about anything that doesn’t have Meg Ryan in it. Thus, when we agree on a show or movie, we embrace it with the zeal of a Trekkie.

To this day, whether I’m watching a sitcom or an epic period film, Yoshi’s question haunts me.

The Manhunt
In a day when television has to be very careful to use words like “alleged” when referring to a murderer or pedophile, John Walsh and America’s Most Wanted appealed to my wife’s conservative sensibilities. This is a world where “innocent until proven guilty” means nothing.

“Good evening. I’m John Walsh and tonight we need your help in catching some perverts. Our first story tonight is about a real dirt bag.” Where else but Fox will you find a grown man revert to name-calling? Everyone’s a creep, slime ball, or a cold-blooded sicko.

We started watching AMW a few years ago, back when the show announced their 700th capture. Their tally now runs over a thousand, many of whom never knew their profile had been shown on network television. They’d been on the run for months or even years until the broadcast and then a coworker who regularly watches the show turns them in. The update usually aired a few weeks later.

“Good work this week, guys,” John tells us. “Your tips led to the capture of this scum bag and lets hope this time some incompetent judge doesn’t let him out on bail again.”

What I’ve learned: If I’m ever on the run from the police, casually find out if my employers or landlords watch the show. Also, set aside time every Saturday at 8pm and find a private place to watch. That way, if I’m profiled, I can get some kind of head start.

Bad Boys
In Dallas, COPS airs right before AMW. At first, my wife or I would turn on the television ten minutes early and catch the last segment. Then we’d tune in earlier and eventually planned our whole day around skipping afternoon naps so the kids would go to bed at seven in time for COPS.

We’ve been watching COPS for almost a year now and I still haven’t figured out why. Maybe it’s the show’s predictability and simplicity that initially drew us in. Without the need for a script, narrator, plot, or any real production costs, all the producers have to do is send a camera crew to just about any city with legalized gambling and they’re sure to find primetime gold. The busts usually start with a routine traffic violation but quickly escalate when someone throws something out the window. As sure as death and taxes, the cops take the driver into custody and find a trunk full unlabeled pill bottles. “Those aren’t mine,” the driver says. “Those belong to this guy, Paul, I know.” The cop then finds out the car had been reported stolen and that the driver has a warrant out for felony drug trafficking.

What I learned: The next time I’m driving down the Las Vegas strip with enough crystal methamphetamine to supply the West Coast, I will first check my taillights, as well as the registration and inspection stickers.

My Tube
When there’s nothing on TV, my wife and I sometimes settle into bed with the laptop and randomly search the web. Occasionally we’ll get lucky and find a full episode of something we both want to watch. Other times, we wind up typing funny things into the search engine.

Our love of dogs eventually drove us to the Sonoma-Marin Fair, otherwise known as The Ugliest Dog in the World Competition. Together my wife and I scrolled through the archive of past winners and saw a history of protruding tongues, bald spots, blackheads, broken teeth, warts, and cataracts.

This led to our discovery of youtube. Here we found a link to an emcee reading the judges’ ratings system for the competition:
· Overall appearance
· Teeth – noticeable overbite or buck-toothed
· Special/unusual attribute
· Legs – crooked or missing
· Eyes – Sad sack, bug-eyed, or missing
· Tail – crooked or missing

My wife watched these videos while I was at work and updated me on her research when I got home. “This is Tater. His tongue looks like that because he’s got permanent nerve damage.” She insisted we watch these and then wondered why she had nightmares for days.

The tricky thing about youtube was the sidebar of “Related Videos.” This lured us into a world of highly educational videos like “Anaconda vs. small white boy” and “Hamster eats own young.”

What I learned: Videotape everything. Eventually, it will pay off, especially the next time I’m vacationing in the Amazon and see a pack of alligators attack a hippo.

The Other Greatest Story Ever Told
This past Christmas, I turned on the TV horrified to see that my regularly scheduled program had been postponed for the annual broadcast of It’s a Wonderful Life. I don’t mind the film without commercials which clocks in at just over two hours. But the network television version begins at seven o’clock and concludes just before sunrise. At eight, George is just now beginning his battles with Potter. At nine, George is slapping around his drunken uncle. At ten, he’s in a bar praying and gets punched in the face. By eleven, he’s finally on the bridge and I’m so despondent that I find myself wishing Clarence would mind his own business and let George do his thing so I can go to bed.

At some point, I asked myself, does this film really represent Christmas? The film is about a man’s downward spiral and subsequent realization that his life really is significant. The message is good enough despite the fact that the decline takes up over ninety minutes of the film. It’s not the negativity that bothers me. I just don’t see what it has to do with Christmas. It has nothing to do with the birth of a savior. Rather, the climax of the film happens to occur on December 24th.

Finally, I got fed up with the film and clicked around until I found an edited-for-television version of Die Hard. This is the version where McClane jumps off the Nakatomi building after overdubbing to himself, “John, how the ‘heck’ did you get into this ‘crap?’”

In light of the holiday season, I reconsidered the plot. A foreigner saves a bunch of upper-middle class Americans from the forces of evil. This, I thought, is the true meaning of Christmas.

What I learned: Die Hard is a better Christmas movie than It’s a Wonderful Life. Yippee-kay-yah!

Sad Gorilla

The other night, I lay in bed trying to go to sleep. It was August and the bedroom in our apartment was the typical ten degrees hotter than the rest of the apartment. While I tossed and turned in the bed, my wife sat in bed next to me reading the newspaper and making it harder for me to sleep. It wasn’t the lamp or her rustling of the pages that kept me awake as much as her reading me a headline every four minutes.

“Honey, did you read about what the health departments have been finding when they test the sanitation levels of public pools?”

“No,” I whispered, pretending to sound too tired to talk. She didn’t elaborate but I was already wide awake and thinking about the countless public pools we’d taken the kids to in the last few months. Then, for some reason, my mind wandered to a food handler class I’d taken a few years ago. I didn’t recall any facts but I did recall some of the anecdotes the facilitator shared with us.

“How many of you eat sushi?” he asked. Several people raised their hands. “I love it. But you have to make sure to eat it at a reputable restaurant. My sister got some bad sushi once and a few days later complained that her throat had a weird tickle. When she went to the doctor, he reached down her throat with a pair of tweezers to pull out five worms, about two-inches long each.”

As I lay baking in bed, rubbing my throat, and thinking about the moral of the food class – that anything can make you sick – my wife said, “Oh my gosh, Honey, did you see this article about the mother gorilla that won’t give up her dead baby?”

“Excuse me?” I said. “What was that?”

“This mother gorilla gave birth to a stillborn baby. She’s been carrying the dead baby on her back for days. The zoo is trying to remove it but she won’t let them.”

“What do you mean she won’t ‘let them?’”

“She won’t allow her handlers to get anywhere near her or the baby. She lashes out at them when they approach.” She read on as if searching for a certain piece of information. “What they need to do is give her a cat?”

“What?”

“That’s what they do with mother gorillas when they lose a baby. They give her a cat. It’s so she’ll transfer her grief by caring for the cat. Seriously, I think I’m going to cry.”

“You don’t know why she won’t let them take the corpse. When did you become an authority on grieving monkeys?”

She wiped her eyes and shot me a dirty look. “A monkey is different from a gorilla. This is not a monkey. It’s a gorilla and that’s how gorillas show their sadness. She’s grieving the loss of her baby. Haven’t you ever heard of Koko?”

“Who?”

“Koko, the gorilla. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you who Koko is. She worked through her grief when her handlers gave her a kitten to raise.” Evidently she was upset with me for what she considered my insensitivity on the issue. I knew it’s my job to be a good listener. But gorillas? Really? Admittedly, I had questioned the credibility of her knowledge of sad gorillas, but she was clearly overreacting. I didn’t want to be defensive, but I wasn’t about to be labeled insensitive over something like this.

“So she just carries the carcass around like a backpack?” I asked.

“Yes. She has to. That’s how she says goodbye.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“It’s not disgusting. It’s sweet. I’m going to clip this and save it.”

She got out of bed and came back with some scissors. I had my next argument ready to go. Actually, you’re going to stuff it in the pit you call your nightstand along with a bunch of unread books, stationary, and other random crap you’re never going to use or throw away. Deflecting the argument from her supposed knowledge about primates to her lack of organizational skills would have been a low blow. And besides, she knew she’d already won the fight. I was not only insensitive, but I was also wrong. Any further statements would have made me look worse.

I rolled over and tried to go to sleep but I couldn’t stop shifting. Maybe it was the stifling heat in the bedroom, the fact that it was late, or the imaginary worms crawling around in my throat. As I reread the script to the conversation in my mind, I wondered why it bothered me so much. What do I care if she’s right or not? Ultimately, I fell asleep sometime after I admitted to myself that what upset me was that I was wrong.

A few days later, I watched as my wife showed the clip to her best friend, Brandi, who took one look at the picture and immediately said, “Oh no. Don’t tell me that baby is dead. That’s so sad. It reminds me of Koko. They should get her a cat.”