So, what do you do?

When men are getting to know each other, the conversation starts here. "I'm a finish carpenter," "I'm a surgeon at the VA," "I wait tables at the Roadhouse. And you?"

Well, I say, my full-time job is stay-at-home dad. You notice the extra room I leave myself there, as if to say: stay-at-home dad is just my full-time job, but that doesn't include my impressive array of part-time jobs.

And in fact, I usually do have several things happening. A few even pay a little. I teach workshops at the Neutral Zone (Ann Arbor's teen center) and at 826michigan (the writing center disguised as a robot store); I do some freelance writing and consulting; I write poems and occasionally publish and perform them.

Still, my answer to “what do you do” feels a little sheepish. I suspect there are more stay-at-home dads per capita in Ann Arbor than, say, in Knoxville. And yet, when I tell men that I am a stay-at-home dad, I see their eyes widen a little in surprise, their head tilt, as if to say, “That's funny; I took you for the sort of chap who works for a living.”

Not that I blame them. Far be it from me to tell men who have to get up at 6am, dress in particular clothes, and answer all day to the dictates of bosses and customers that my job is tough or serious. When I'm feeling self-deprecating, I'll describe my occupation as “freeloading off my wife.” I'll say, “It's nice work if you can get it.”

And it is. Every day, I hang out with my two daughters. If I want to go to the museum or a ball game, I can drag the girls along and call it an “educational outing.” One regret many men have with their careers is that they miss so much of their children's lives. I am lucky to spend each day taking in the small things my daughters say, try, and learn. Following their initial surprise, men often tell me they wish they could do what I do.

They also tell me they know that it's a lot of work, caring for kids full time. I'm sure they believe this, the same way we believe any platitude - as a reasonable-sounding idea we haven't given much thought. When the stay-at-home dad idea first came up with my wife, it struck me as the perfect gig for a writer. How much time I'd have to write, freed from the office! But it doesn't work that way. I'm hard-pressed to list what tasks fall under my job description. I'm as befuddled as anyone when the day goes by and I've got nothing done, and can't remember why.

With any job, there's a discrepancy between the brilliance you hope for and the performance you achieve. As I begin this blog about my experiences as a father in Ann Arbor, I have no program in mind. But if there is a recurring theme, I expect it will be this: the gaps between what I've done, what I wish I had done, and what I hope to do.