Before I chose to undergo voluntary house arrest and become an at-home parent, I was CEO of the largest telecom in North America.
Pardon me, I misspoke. I was a Green Beret. Actually, I was an astronaut.
Sorry, that’s not quite accurate. I was President of the United States. That’s right. I was the president, and I love my children so much that I was willing to sacrifice serving you, the American people, and your welfare. That’s how much more important my kids are than you and your kids.
I made all that up, to be honest. Being an at-home dad isn’t very prestigious. Childcare isn’t universally appreciated or considered worthy of admiration in our culture — even when women do it. As for a man doing it, well. Some would consider that to be ridiculous, shameful, an outrage against nature. They’ve told me so. (Actually, they told my wife). So I embellished my resume a bit, or a lot, or completely. I wanted to impress you.
In truth, I was teaching college writing when my wife found out she was pregnant with our eldest. Even though we both worked in academia, she was an administrator and therefore she made three times more bank than I did.
So, despite my complete lack of relevant experience, my profound ignorance of even the most basic elements of childcare, and my temperamental incompatibility for this, the most important job in the world, we immediately agreed I should stop teaching and take care of the kid. Because money is way more important to us than our children’s well-being. Judge us if you want, but it’s not like the little shits are gonna throw in on the mortgage, amirite?
I sense my ethos swirling down the toilet, so time for a cute kid pic!
The red-headed sprout is Ryan, a.k.a., The Woog, Woogie, Boogie Woogie, Woogie Boogie, and Darnit Park (his nom-de-plume). He’s 8. He loves vehicles, animals, eating, hip-hop, scootering, not being hungry, running from place to place, breaking things, dropping spherical objects under low-clearance furniture and demanding that other people retrieve them, food, repeating the same joke until his parents tell him to knock it off, and hurling himself into the couch. He loves to draw, and he’s written and illustrated two absurdist children’s books. Seriously, the kid’s a genius. That’s not bragging, since he didn’t get it from me.
The baby is Jack, a.k.a., The Munch, Munchie, Munchiepants, Munchmeister, the Minister of Munch, His Imperial Munchiness, and They Call Me Mr. Munch. He was born in Sept. 2017, so I’ll let you do the math. Jack was born with a congenital heart defect — two, actually: aortic atresia and ventricular septal defect. It certainly hasn’t made him less opinionated.