"Formula for Failure"

Whenever I explain to someone what it is that I "do" to occupy my day, I'm usually met with the same stock reply. It goes something like this: "Oh, cool. That must be so great getting to stay home with your son. I'm sooo jealous!"

Whether these folks actually mean what they are saying in their unequivocal approval is another matter entirely. The point is that most everyone always commends me for staying home with Connor. (It reminds me of how it was when I was in high school when people would tell me how great is was that I was staying away from drugs and alcohol even though the people telling me how great it was were usually the ones that were imbibing on the weekends themselves. Go figure.)

Every now and then, though, I get an entirely different reaction to my explanation for being a stay-at-home dad. Take, for example, a telephone conversation I had with a long distance friend a while back. We were catching up on what was happening in each other's life when she got very curious about me staying home with Connor. If ever I had a tape recorder handy, this would have been the perfect time to whip it out. No transcription from memory could ever do this conversation justice, but I'll do my best.

ME: Yeah, I'm having a ton of fun. I'd never really thought about doing this before, but it's been a blast so far.
HER: I'll bet. It sounds great. You know a lot of guys would feel like failures because they weren't providing for their families and had to stay at home.
ME: Uhhh, well...
HER: No, I mean it says a lot about your character that you're able to handle it so well. A lot of guys would be too proud to stay home.
ME: It's not really an issue of pride, it's...
HER: Oh, I know...but still, to not be able to support your family has to be hard, and it's nice to see you handling it so well, that's all. That's not rude is it?

There's no way more certain to feel like a failure than to have someone tell you that you shouldn't.