blogger profile

Gervase Teresa Caycedo

Backpackin' Blogger

I needed to perfect Spanish, fast, so I enrolled in a four-month teaching program sponsored by the U.N. English Opens Doors Program right after graduation, and bought a plane ticket to Chile. I decided to head to South America a month early and backpack while the U.N. was deciding where and what gra...

READ MORE

Why Can't Dads Stay at Home...?

I was tearing up bite-size pieces of pb&j for Hugh -- the 1-year-old I babysit – last week in the park, when a dad walked up to me and began chatting. We were sitting on the grass by the water at Alhambra Hall (which I had just that day discovered….you need to go there), and it was all blue skies and chirping birds. This dad was friendly and was following his 6-year-old girl daughter around, so he only stopped for a minute. He commented on the lovely day, I on the gorgeous water and then he on the yumminess of a pb&j paired with string cheese. So…we were pals. Before leaving he mentioned that he was a stay-at-home dad and so he was very familiar with the park. I found this odd ONLY because just 30 minutes before in the playground across the street I had heard him chatting up another mom, dropping the term “stay-at-home dad” oh, maybe 5 times. So, after he left mine and Hugh’s little patch of grass I just figured he had some insecurities about his title and felt the need to explain his presence among monkey bars and sand lots to any and every mom or sitter that would listen. Really, I didn’t see what the big deal was.

            About five minutes after he had walked away from us towards to water, he was walking back up the hill towards us and heading out of the park. He stopped to chat again. I said hello to his little girl, he commented this time on my yogurt and I offered half my sandwich to his daughter. I was getting confused. In my dramatic little imagination I started thinking maybe they were poor and really needed food or even worse, had no place to live. And I could help them! Why else would he be so interested in our sandwiches? He politely declined and immediately went straight into another shpiel about being a stay-at-home dad. This time he was somehow finding a kind way to tell me about the two families seated under the large oak at the base of the hill by the water.

“Well I was trying to talk to those folks down there, they’ve got some kids my daughter’s age and she just wanted to play, but they completely ignored me.”

“What? They just ignored you?”

“Yup, happens all the time down here. You see I’m a stay-at-home dad and I got nobody to talk to and so I just try to make some friends, so my daughter can play with their kids, but they just act like they don’t hear me.”

I felt terrible for my pre-judgments of this guy and then I was angry. How rude! Only minutes earlier I had been gazing down the hill at the two perfect little families: both the dad’s had met their families for a picnic lunch in the park and the kids were cute, and I was thinking “Ooooh! That would be nice someday….a really long far away time from now…”

 But, apparently the sight a hippie-like father (with a slight limp) approaching their perfect little picnic with his eager daughter, was not fitting of their perfect little conversation. No wonder this poor guy had so many issues. Nobody wanted to play with him.

Trust me, I’ve babysat for so many different types of families and I know what goes on at these playgrounds….it’s bad news. (Just kidding), but seriously, a stay-at-home dad alone at the park on a week-day is not socially acceptable down here and so I was thinking…we should fix that! I plan to work – a lot. I might even try to be the breadwinner (dat’s right!) and if that happens…my socially aware and liberal husband will gladly take our kids to the sand box. This is 2008 after all, come on ladies. Traditional stereotypical roles are truly outdated and overrated.