notes of a sexist stay-at-home father

BY CALEB POWELL

I'm a sexist. I am certain women are superior. And so I say better to be a man, as men may court the superior sex (assuming heterosexuality), while women are stuck dating and mating with men. My philosophy, unfortunately, does not seem to score as many points as I'd like with my wife.

I am a stay-at-home father. Five years ago I kept busy in construction, but we kept having children, and I have taken on the role of caregiver. My wife earns much more than I, day care is expensive, so this arrangement makes sense. Better to have a full-time parent. Strange, although in retrospect inevitable, that she would be the wage earner.

Before we married, my wife said her dream was to be a stay-at-home mother, though she earned the corporate salary and I wandered from job to job. Yet she married me anyway. When it was just the two of us, we had few clashes over keeping our condo clean. After marriage, we bought a house and started having girls -- our first two separated by 16 months. Now, if you asked, she'd say she not only works but also does more than her share of the household chores. There are two sides here, but women (they are more intelligent) usually take her side.

I hate to clean, am not very tidy (what I consider an orderly mess is her mayhem), and thus fall short of her vision of CHAOS -- or Cleanliness Health Appearance Order and Safety. Other acronyms I've implemented since marriage are Y-SAK -- You Should Already Know; MOOM -- Mountains Out Of Molehills; and MMMMMOOM -- Mom Making Major Motherf-ing Mountains Out Of Molehills (with heavy stress on the Mmmmm). Repetition of these isn't earning points with my wife, either.

Nevertheless, I have settled into the domestic role. I consider myself an expert in a quick diaper change, cleaning up vomit, waking up in the middle of the night to bottle-feed or just hold a crying baby, making oatmeal and "eggies," taking my daughters to the zoo or playground, and attacking messes with frequency. Unlike my wife, I separate parenting and chores, and give myself an "A" as a father but a "D" as a maid. For some reason, though, my wife thinks the two are related; I won't mention how she'd grade me.

Weekly, I pick my wife up at SeaTac airport, after she has spent a day or two in San Francisco, Denver, Phoenix, or Los Angeles, and she asks me if the house is clean. I say, "Y-SAK." When we arrive home, though, it's MMMMOOM. Even though I swept, vacuumed, threw most of the toys and clothes in a controlled pile in one corner, wiped down the kitchen counters, mowed the lawn, and often have dinner prepared -- I have learned to cook, though this another debate. My wife is versed in the culinary arts, go figure -- there still may be a plastic green fork or a Dora sippy cup on the counter, pulled-up covers and sheets constituting a made bed, a newspaper on the dining room table, and maybe a couple of sofa pillows out of line. The house, in my wife's eyes, is a pigsty. What did I do all day? Yet we get things under control and eventually have dinner and family time.

My wife and I, well aware of the complications, tried for a third child. On my end, I hoped for a son. My wife, though, wanted a third girl. She is as sexist as I, and believes women are smarter, kinder, and better behaved. We have nephews and they are, across the board, more unruly than the nieces -- not to mention a greater headache to potty train. But seeing as we already had two girls, I wanted to mix it up. I like guy things, sports mainly, and play pick-up basketball whenever I can. My wife has little interest in sports, and my 4-year old runs away from a ball whenever I toss one in her direction. With girls, I worry about what could happen to them, and I dread the teenage meltdowns. We are also aware of the horrible: early pregnancy, abductions, and worse. This worries us to no end. My wife reads women's magazines, Oprah's O, for example, and tells me pre-teen girls are consenting to anal sex to stay popular and avoid pregnancy. To this I say: TRI-AM (This Really Is A Mountain). She asks, "What would you do if one of our daughters wondered if oral sex was more intimate than sex?" I say, "Tell her we're moving to Alaska."

But a household of women is my destiny. In March of 2009 we had our third daughter. Healthy and beautiful, just like her sisters. My wife's friends and family brought flowers, wine, cards, and baby clothes, while my friends brought beer. Well, not all of them, but to those who did bring beer -- thanks! We are finished, but on the slim chance we had one more, my wife would want a girl. I am not eager for a vasectomy, but the thought of a fourth child compels me toward the knife, thus I will be the only man of the house. And so my wife and I look forward to years of chaos, content in our roles as the breadwinner super mom and the stay-at-home father.

Caleb Powell lives in Seattle with his beloved wife and daughters. He has lived and worked in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Guam, The United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Brazil, and Argentina, and is the author of The World is a Class, a guidebook. In 2007 he shortlisted a novel in the Faulkner Competition. Recent work is published or forthcoming in descant, Drunken Boat, elimae, The Pedestal Magazine, Yankee Pot Roast, and others. He can be reached at: calebpowell2008@gmail.com. For more, visit Caleb's blog: Notes Of A Sexist Stay-At-Home Father.