Awkward Pauses

I recently had dinner with two male business colleagues who marveled at the fact that I was a stat-spewing football fan and loved The Star Wars trilogy (the original, mind you, not the ones featuring Jar Jar Binks). You would have thought I told them that I was the secret love child of Sid and Nancy by the way they went on and on about it. They told me my husband is the luckiest man in the world.

“What does your husband do?” asked one of them. “He stays at home with the kids,” I replied. The awkward pause seemed to go on for hours in which time one of them decided to hit the chips and salsa and the other one tentatively asked, “How’s that going (read: how did you get him to remove his testicles)?” “Great, I said, he’s really enjoying the opportunity to be there for them.”

Encounters like this occur pretty frequently when I tell men that my husband is a stay-at-home dad. Men act like they’ve just found out that Paul is a Minotaur, followed by an awkward pause and then the inevitable change of subject. For some, it’s like the idea itself is too strange to even contemplate even though the numbers of stay-at-home dads is increasing exponentially.

As Paul’s tenure as primary care giver reaches its third anniversary, it leaves me wondering how our arrangement will be viewed in ten years or even twenty. Will he be part of a growing fraternity of men that will see the lasting impact of the dual benefits of hands-on parenting? Will the pendulum swing resulting in more women wanting to stay home? Who knows? As long as I can continue to come home to safe and happy kids, I will continue to endure these awkward pauses happily.