Father's World | Dads Home

Introduction

Trading Places

Cheerios Everywhere!

I Can't Believe I Have Dishpan Hands!

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“Dad’s Home”

by Joseph Oberle

Welcome to my home ...

Life as a stay-at-home parent with kids is a lot like life at work: In both cases, you’ve got to get out of bed and spend all day answering to the demands of those more powerful than yourself. If you survive until the end of the day,well, your reward is another day of the same. There are joys and frustrations at both, and always plenty of room for growth. Nobody should be without either.

I have lived the best of both worlds. I spent two years as a stay-at-homedad, raising my toddler son, Seth, and his infant sister, Tessa. It was a gloriously wonderful, eye-opening and perspective-widening experience, and I wrote a book about it called “Diary of Mad Househusband.” A couple of chapters from that book are here on Father's World, and I hope you enjoy them.

Now, a couple of years later, my wife, Lora, and I have three children (the youngest, Paige, is two and a half), and we’ve traded places again. She’s now the stay-at-home person, and I am safely back at work, in professional sports of all things, my favorite pastime and occasional obsession. As the publications editor for the Minnesota Timberwolves, I interview highly paid professional athletes, finding the tantrums to be sometimes vaguely familiar.

But being a dad is still the most important thing in my life, and I endure the slings and arrows of co-workers who don’t understand why I chose to spend the evening of my daughter’s birthday playing with My Little Ponys rather than watching yet another basketball game. Most nights, it’s no contest.

I’ve always considered parenting worth writing about. That’s why I am continuing to do so here. In this column I plan to let you in on my world as a father. I hope to entertain you and maybe enlighten you a bit with my stories of being a dad day-to-day – because as every father knows, that’s the only way to take them: one day at a time. I’m no expert, but I am in the game, so I hope my thoughts and stories bring you a smile and a thought of your own.There are two basic rules of relating one’s parenting experiences: misery loves company and being a dad is a lot of fun. So, please have fun, yourself. If you would like to drop me a note with your comments, thoughts or just so say hi my email address is househusb@fathersworld.com . To find out how to order the book Diary Of A Mad Househusband click here.

Introduction to Diary of Mad Househusband

Chapter 1. Trading Places

Cheerios Everywhere!

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