Fishing

Well here I am. A stay at home Dad in the land of manly men. Men who work hard all day as welders and truckers and other tougher, harder jobs. They come home to their homes and their wives and have supper and watch NASCAR or Football or a fishing show. They have video tapes of deer, turkey or other types of hunting. If they were jedi’s they would, on occasion, use their force powers to get a beer from the fridge. It’s a hard way to make a living.

When they’re not working hard they’re hunting, fishing, or talking about it. They’re cleaning up from this deer season or getting ready for the next one. They discuss deer leases and Elk tags and why the turkeys are scarce or plentiful. They gossip about big cats or black bears or other dangers of being in the trees.

It’s a little tough to ‘culturalize’ the gospel to these fellows if you’re me. Stay at home dad, four kids, two mini-vans. The last and only time I went deer hunting I fell asleep out in the woods just before the sun came up with a loaded 30-06 laying across my knees. Don’t try this at home folks. I have fishing poles and I occasionally use them to great effect.

The problem is this. About ten years ago I decided it would be better to fish for men. You see when you hunt or fish for anything else, it’s for your own belly or your own glory. When you are a ‘fisher of men’ it is for God’s glory and someone else’s benefit. I think hunting and fishing is an important part of our American culture, but I also think that Christians have an obligation to do what they are called to do. Go, make disciples, baptize them…you know, the great commission. Fishing was something Peter went back to after he screwed up being a disciple. If he ever went back to it, honestly, it would just be a rationalization on his part.

House Work

When you’re a stay at home Dad the term ‘house work’ takes on a whole new depth. What I mean is that all the things you would expect the parent who stays home to do fall into the house work column plus all the things you’d expect a Dad to do as well. So today I’ve vacuumed, cleaned up the kitchen, and re-plumbed a toilet and patched some drywall. I’ve done some more mouse-assassination too, which is firmly in the ‘man’ column.

Let’s not even talk about the barfy car seats, OK?

Anyway, we’re a little behind in Mark, but that’s why. Life happens.

Ahem

Well I’ve been falling down on the job with regard to writing lately. Face it…its summer and I am just covered up. Its always this way.

Plus, being a stay at home dad means that all the kids are home all the time and if I’m not fixing a boo boo or refereeing a fight I’m up to my eyeballs in some other chore. Men, Mama made it look easy but it ain’t and don’t you forget it.

Right now the stitch in my side is breakfast. Its a free for all around here and I’m wondering if you all have any suggestions. I think America quit the sit down breakfast as a regular event about two generations ago but if anyone’s got any ideas I’d love to hear them.

Things Grown Ups (With Kids)(Ought To) Know How To Do

So you’re a grown up with kids. You can vote, drive, you make your own decisions…you’ve even decided to have kids. Now what?

What do you mean NOW WHAT?

Trust me, I know what you mean. It’s not easy to harness those little bundles of raw energy and get them to do anything. But there are some things they like to do that you’re good at. Heres a short list. Feel free to add to it in the meta (you know, the comments) or whatever.

Draw:
Come on, if you can write a business proposal or a blog or even a grocery list for that matter you can do these things

Using your kids crayons, sit down with them and color. Write their name at the top of the page every time so you’ll know who did it and they’ll know what it looks like written out (instead of getting yelled across the house). Draw a picture of your own or let them direct you. Its not too late to dredge up those kindergarten memories. Show them their shapes, colors and letters. Show them how to hold a writing instrument correctly. Left hand, right hand–whatever hand they use is the hand you show them how to do things with. They’re kids you know…let them be kids.

Sidewalk chalk is a delight but you know what? It also works on the driveway! Transform any dull gray slab of concrete into a wonderland of color. It’s a little chaotic and a lot messy but its so much fun. My kids have learned most of their shapes, colors, letters and numbers with sidewalk chalk because its fun. If its too hard on your knees, get a garden kneeler and go to town. (In fact, back when I was trying to learn greek, I used to practice my letters out in the driveway. The kids thought it was great.)

Finger paints are a whole ‘nuther realm, but its pretty easy to break out some of your old T-shirts and let the kids loose. If you’re a serious neat freak cover the whole table top with butcher paper to ease cleanup. A big plus to finger paints is that they don’t require a whole lot of instruction. Kids pretty much already know how to use them.

Blow:
This one’s easy. Bubbles and dandelions are a wonder to any child under about age 8 or older if they have little siblings.

Push:
A swing, a stroller, a ball, a merry go round, a tricycle, a bicycle a little baby scooter. Come on, you can do it.

Walk, jump, run:
Down to the mail box.
Through the woods.
Around the block.

Buy one of those ball things with a handle and show them how to use it. Go on a bounce through the yard. It’s a great workout and you don’t have to buy yoga pants to do it.

I remember walking my little ones through the house and teaching them the words for all the things we walked by. No, they don’t know what a ‘furnace closet’ is but up to about age two they are your single biggest fan and they love the sound of your voice.

Throw: A ball, a Frisbee, a football…name it. Playing catch is universal and kids love it. This one even works if you’re a man and you don’t have kids. If there are kids on your block take that glove outside and just start throwing the ball into the air. How long do you think it will be before you have some kids with ball gloves wanting to play catch?

I don’t know about that last one in this day and age because of the way parents are about ‘other people’ but its worth a shot. Maybe you can deliver some gospel while you’re at it.

Fold
Who doesn’t know how to fold a paper air plane? OK, you need some baseball…

Spray your kids with a hose, a sprinkler, a super soaker. You can get a whole set of these nifty pneumatic water guns for something like $9.95 these days. They beat those cheap plastic knock-off all to pieces. Plus, on a hot day there’s a.)nothing better, b.)a good chance they’ll dry completely before you take them inside.

Dig. Here’s an experiment. Take any group of toddlers (or older) kids to a bare patch of dirt and provide buckets, shovels, or even just some sticks and they will start to dig. Eventually. If you’re doing it they will begin almost immediately.

Read
A book, the bible, a story.
Make up a story or read bible stories to your kids. Teach them the basics of the faith along the way. If you get into the habit of reading ‘The Grouchy Ladybug’ or ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ and take the time to answer the questions they have through the story, pretty soon they’ll listen to the Gospel of Luke and have questions there too. Thats important. Thats what its all about. Thats being a light in the darkness and heres a reminder:

They are in the dark. They’re little sinners in need of the Savior. Don’t forget it.

Make something happen this summer. Make a mess. Make a craft. Make an impression on your kids other than ‘Daddy’s busy right now’ or ‘later’ or ‘Where is your mother?’ Because the day is coming when they are going to need to hear about Jesus, will you have prepared them? Will your preparations be found lacking on that day? I hope not.

You want to not be bored with your kids? Truly make them your kids by investing yourself in their lives. Trust me, they’ll be out of your hair soon enough…

Ahem: Boredom

My Dad came down for a visit once and we were talking about something like this article I posted about yesterday. “Yeah,” he says, “but one regret you don’t want to have is not spending enough time with your kids.”

I think I’ve got that one covered.

My first thought when I read the article about being bored with your kids was “How horribly selfish,” then I thought about all the times I’ve had to read ‘The Very Busy Spider’ by Eric Carle and I got an inkling. I don’t agree that it’s a good attitude but I can sure understand it. Nine tenths of running a household is repetition. Bowls need washing and tables need wiping and they’re always going to be the same bowls and tables you wiped yesterday.

Having worked many other jobs plus one lengthy ‘career’ running a household isn’t much different and, frankly, you COULDN’T pay me enough to do some of the things I have to do on a daily basis. There isn’t that much money…

There IS more than enough love. That’s enough and that’s what it takes to fight through the frustration and the ‘boredom’ and the sheer insanity of spending half your day saying NO and the other half cleaning up because they didn’t listen so that you can actually get something accomplished.

Go ahead and try to reconcile it with your biblical interpretations of what a man should do. Go on…and after you bang your head against that wall for three or four years you can just get down to the business of taking care of your family and doing what you need to do as a Christian which is serve.

Ahem: Servitude

“41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. 42 And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”—Mark 10:41-45 (ESV)

At Home Monday (Ahem) is a new feature where I clear my throat and write—or rant as the case may be—about being a stay at home Dad. As I wrote on Monday its not an easy spot to find yourself as a man, even in today’s world where some of the dark deep lines dividing up gender roles have been crossed so many times that they are being blurred or erased altogether. Trust me, I am quite aware of the dynamic involved. It’s a brain bender, to be sure, for a man to do what I do. It’s even worse for the good churchmen I run into. So much so that they are on occasion inspired to mock or even revile me for what I do. I don’t blame them. I am so far out of their paradigm—can I use that word outside of the nineties? Paradigm?—that they can’t even really conceive of an actual stay at home Dad who isn’t just sitting around waiting for the wife to bring home the check and fix his supper.

As I wrote on Monday its not easy to be that kind of servant. That kind of daily laying down of your life that John had to have experienced in his long martyrdom (as we talked about last week) or even that of Christ going to the cross is hard to fathom. “For even the Son of Man” Jesus says in Mark 10:45, “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” He came to serve. He came to take care of the Fathers business. He came to serve.

It’s tough to be a servant and there aren’t many good examples of it out there these days. That is the thing I am most grateful for with regard to being at home with the kids and taking care of the house: I now have a PhD in servitude. And four little selfish taskmasters to boot.

Children require patient gentle service and instruction and this takes a big piece of your life. Remember that when you think about having them. As old as I am—and no I’m not telling you how old—I still call my Dad up from time to time and ask him questions. I still call him up and say, “Dad, I just don’t get it.” It’s a lifelong commitment to service—servitude if you will. I think this is one of the reasons so many men father children but fail to become Dads. They want all that leads up to a family with regard to a wife and what that implies but they are unwilling to go beyond fulfilling their own needs. They are in it for themselves, not others. And then they are shocked and bewildered and blame everyone in sight when the whole thing comes crashing down. Or, having begun a family, they are unwilling to stay the course and simply run away. It’s a frightening proposition in this day and age especially when there are not that many solid examples of what a Man is supposed to do in a family.

Remember “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Even God’s own Son, the Christ, the Son of the Living God came to serve. To SERVE. Not to rule with a fist of iron. I mean, that was the Jewish presupposition He labored against. That’s why when they wanted to make him King, he left them. That’s why he waited until ‘just the right time.’ He came to serve.

And that takes some doing. You have to work at it.

Are you serving as you should? Do you have a place of service in your local church? That’s a good thing, but what about your family? Are you serving them? Do you serve them on a daily basis? Do you wipe noses and tie shoes and change diapers? Do you look after them and listen to them? Or are you too busy with your computer or your whatever to spend time with them? Are you absent while sitting right in front of them?

The thing about kids is that a lot of them figure this out early and just quit trying to get your attention. It’s really easy to sit and let all those young years go by and let them play while you do whatever. Don’t. Don’t do it. Be involved with your kids. Serve them. Serve your family and your church. Serve the brothers and sisters at your home church. Find something to do in the world that allows you some service.

Ahem

Now before someone brings up the ‘E’ word. (You know…egalitarian) Go ahead right now and stow it. I’m on my second load of laundry, the kitchen is a wreck from the weekend and as soon as I get this posted up I’m going to take out the trash and run screaming out the door to get kids to school and run a few errands. ‘Stay at home’ is a joke. In other words, I’m not really all that sympathetic to people who stand in judgment of my family because we don’t conform to societal norms. Yes, societal norms—note I didn’t say biblical. Our society has shaped the way we perceive who does what in a family a great deal more than the Word of God has.

So yeah, I stay home with the kids and take care of the house and the family in general. This usually freaks people out. Here is an example: I have spent a great deal of time taking care of babies. A GREAT deal of time. Four kids worth as the primary caregiver—Moms will understand what I’m talking about. Other Dads? Eh. They don’t get it. My general impression—now this is merely my perception of their reaction which is a tricky thing at best…well, most men are pretty transparent about it so its not that tricky. Anyway. My impression of what men think about men who ‘stay at home’ is this: That’s women’s work. That’s not what real men do. You must be a sissy. These are the same people who see all of us out at the same time and act like we brought our Wolf Hounds into the restaurant to feed on human flesh. They are just KIDS! I mean there’s probably more than average…there’s society thing again. “Man” they say “You’ve got yer hands full!”

Whoa! I thought Einstein was dead!

Ahem…excuse me.

I have to say, after much experience, that the first misimpression others have about our family set-up is probably true. I wouldn’t call what I do ‘women’s work’ because I’m the one doing it—and let me tell you it ain’t easy. I’d rather go work construction or be a plumber or a welder or something like that. (Oh, and guys when she’s got fourteen kinds of lotion all over the house its because of the water and the detergent. It’s because diaper wipes and laundry soap and floor cleaner all eat your skin. So lay off if she’s got lavender lotion in one room and apple in another. If you had to do what she does in a day she would come home and find you lying in the floor with the kids rubbing oatmeal on the walls and a little lotion is a small price to pay.) At least I wouldn’t have dishpan hands all the time. There is nothing worse than changing out the fuel lines on a lawn mower with dishpan hands. Ouch!

It seems that she is wired up in a way that would let her handle some of the things I have to deal with in a better way. It seems like she was ‘made’ to do some of the things I have to do on a daily basis. Most of that has to do with nurture and looking after the kids. I mean, I’ve had to work at it. But it has to be done. That’s what men do. You do what you must and what you should and then, if you have time, you do what you can.

And you don’t worry about the jealous goobs who don’t step out and do what’s right even if it doesn’t look that way from the cheap seats.