Dad’s House

My sixteen-year-old daughter recently got her driver license, and I added her to my auto insurance policy. Despite her being a girl, getting good grades, driving only occasionally - her rate is through the roof, as it would be for any first-time driver.

At least I can split the cost with her mom. Right?

Wrong!

Insurance companies in California insure a driver for a specific car. They rated my daughter for my vehicle, but they won’t insure her if she drives her mom’s car. On the surface, that seems reasonable. We’re a two-home family and my daughter spends equal time with me and her mom. Two homes, two cars, two insurance policies.

Since she only lives with me half time, I should pay half as much to insure her. Right?

Wrong!

The insurance company explained it this way: your daughter has 24/7 access to your vehicle, so we need to insure her on it 24/7.

What a load of crap. My daughter only lives with me half time, and I only have one car. She has access less than half the time. Compared to other teens, that’s less than half as much chance for her to get into an accident in my car.

In a traditional (non-divorced) home with multiple cars, the teen gets rated for primarily driving one of the vehicles. However - if that car isn’t available, the teen is allowed to drive a secondary vehicle in the household, and they will be insured.

So, my ex-wife’s car be considered a secondary vehicle. Right?

Wrong!

The insurance company wants nothing to do with my ex-wife’s car. Unless… if my ex-wife moves her auto policy so we’re both insured by the same company, then they will create a policy that covers my daughter on both cars, without charging us double.

Sounds to me like single parents are being discriminated against by the insurance industry. Unless we’re willing to shill and sell an auto policy to our ex.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• You-Know-What-us Interruptus
• How to Talk to Your Daughter About Sex
• MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo IM - How Do Parents Eavesdrop Anymore?
  

© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.

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My kids left on vacation Friday with their mom, and I’ll be a lone wolf for three weeks. Full-time parents might cheer that break. But if you’re a single parent sharing custody, like me, chances are you’d rather have the kids around. Time spent with children is precious; they grow up quick.

Their mom and I alternate summers for taking them on big vacations. Here’s how I’ve dealt with summer alone-time before.

• Newly divorced – the first time they took off with their mom, I dated like CRAZY. I had just discovered internet dating and thought it was manna from heaven. Interestingly enough, the two relationships I entered that summer were from someone I met at a wedding, and someone I was set up with by friends. (So much for online dating, eh?)

• Two years after divorce – I had just broken up with a girlfriend, and friends were still conflicted about my divorce: they hadn’t taken sides between me and my ex, and they ended up leaving us both a bit out to pasture to fend for ourselves. With my kids gone, I was LONELY (and depressed). Like any good single, I fled to Club Med for a week of drinking and hooking up (in my case, with a gorgeous and sexy Cuban woman, who made fun of my salsa dancing skills, but otherwise liked me).

But debauchery only carries you so far. At some point, I hit rock bottom. No friends to hang out with, no kids to take care of, no girlfriend to smooch. Like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love, I was wondering what’s the point of this thing called life. Let’s just say, since then I changed a lot. That summer was cathartic, and I’ve gone on to write two novels about the spiritual, emotional, psychological, and social shifts that arise from divorce and single parenting.

• Four years after divorce – by this point I had a completely different set of friends, ones who were more accepting and supportive of me being a single dad and single man. We enjoy yachting, and we sailed the British Virgin Islands together for a week, sleeping on the boat, listening to reggae, and drinking way too many Bushwackers. I also hung out with good friends in Manhattan, running in Central Park, dining in fabulous restaurants, and sighting celebrities. (Celebs I’ve seen up-close in NYC over the years: Marisa Tomei, James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins, Toby Maguire filming Spiderman 3, Dustin Hoffman, Scarlett Johansson (I wish))

• Six years after divorce – I finally accepted the fact that I can’t force the outcome of my future. I went with the flow and dated four women at once. Rock concerts, wine tasting, weekend road trips, a lot of cycling. Fun times, for sure.

Which brings me to now. I have no plan. Even though I’m faced with three weeks alone, I’m not too concerned. I won’t throw myself into online dating, or rush off on a singles holiday. I’ll just take each day as it comes and see what enters my life. No expectations, but open to possibilities.

Sometimes a lone wolf just needs to howl.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• Single Parent, Empty House, Full Life
• What Does a Divorced Single Parent Know About Successful Relationships?
• San Francisco Fireworks of Another Kind (Dad’s House post on Silicon Valley Moms Blog)
  

© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.

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Imagine you’re a single parent. You have your first free night in a week without the kids. You enjoy a nice evening date with someone you’re attracted to and have been around the block with more than once. You’re on the couch together, ignoring whatever’s on TV, engaged in some serious lip-lock, hands well beyond the fumbling with zippers and buttons stage, all systems go to take things from PG-13 to XXX.

When all of a sudden, there’s a knock on the front door.

WTF?! It’s dark out. The porch light is off to discourage salesmen, missionaries, and other visitors. Who could it possibly be? Screw it. You don’t have to open the door everytime someone knocks. If you ignore them they’ll go away. Besides, your pants are at your ankles.

Ring-ring-ring goes the doorbell. Pound-pound on the door. Ring-ring-ring.

“Daaaaaaad!” your son’s voice calls out.

You have no choice. He might have his key. You dress in a flash, smooth your hair, hope nothing’s hanging out that shouldn’t be, and head to the front hall. Your date grabs her garments and dives behind the couch.

You open the door, and there’s your son and his friend. You’d heard they were having a sleepover at their mom’s house, and can’t imagine why they’re here now. “Hey, what’s up?” you ask.

They try to bound inside, but whoa-whoa-whoa! you stop them. The last thing you need is them meeting your not-quite-girlfriend (more like friend-with-benefits), especially since she might still be half-dressed.

“Can’t we come in?” your son asks.
“No,” you say.
“Why not?”
“I have a friend over.”
“Who?” your not-shy son asks.

The ex is supposed to call whenever she or the kids need to come over and pick something up. Exactly to avoid awkward moments like this. But the car idling in the driveway isn’t your ex’s. It’s her boyfriend’s.

“No one you know,” you say. “What do you need?”
“My new toy,” your son says.
“Stay here and I’ll get it.”

Remember when you were married, and the kids always needed something right when you were trying to sneak in some much needed nookie? This is a little different. It’s your ex’s custody night. You’re supposed to have your own house to yourself, until morning. You’re not exactly dating four women at once, so evening’s like this are rare. And what exactly is your son doing riding around with his mom’s boyfriend this late?

You get the toy and send your son and his friend on their way. Then you call your ex and ask if she forgot the call-before-coming rule.

Ah, but she knows the rule. In fact, she’s confused as to what’s going on. Your son was supposed to end up at her house from wherever her boyfriend took him. She has no idea how he ended up at your door.

Two words: friggin’ boyfriend. (Or, friggin’ ex for giving her boyfriend so much freedom.) Sure, you could blame it on your son. He wanted the toy, and he certainly knows about the call-first rule. But he probably doesn’t really know why it’s in place. Besides, who’s supposed to be more responsible, a pre-teen kid or an adult?

Back in the TV room, your date is dressed and ready to roll. For her as a woman who doesn’t have kids, the you-know-what-us interruptus made for mood-us disappear-us real quick.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• Kid-Friendly Companionship With Benefits
• Single Parents are Missing Out on Intimacy
• There’s an Order to a Single Parent’s Relationship Universe

© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.

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As a single dad going it solo (half-time custody) for eight years now, I’ve learned to lead a fulfilling, satisfying life without a partner. But… if you’re a single parent like me and a lot of the bloggers I read, you’re probably missing out on intimacy, sex, adult love.

MsSingleMama recently asked the question, Who Needs a Husband, Anyway? She feels strongly that single moms rock on their own (they do), and that their kids will be fine without a father figure present in the home (they might). But what she ignores is the intimacy needs of the single parent.

Lest we forget the importance of intimacy, the dictionary reminds us its meaning - belonging to or characterizing one’s deepest nature. Sounds important.

Intimacy comes in many forms. Touch, communication, shared experiences. From a sex point of view, a hookup can certainly feel intimate. (Lord knows I’ve blogged about hookups enough, mainly sharing my frustration with them as a source of adult closeness for me as a single dad living in the suburbs where there are hardly any singles my age.)

But are booty calls enough?

Hookups provide the rush of a temporary feeling of closeness. It seems to me if you had that feeling of closeness all the time, it would lead to a different, deeper sense of fulfillment. (And if not, why do people seek out sex or hook up at all?)

I’ve been in some great relationships post-divorce, and while I haven’t remarried, I know my kids are fine. They are happy, healthy, loving, strong, evolving people. But I also know I’m not modeling an adult romantic relationship for them, and that’s a sad thing.

In Seat of the Soul, Gary Zukav writes about spiritual partnership – partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth. Like MsSingleMama, Mr. Zukav suggests we no longer need marital partners for survival. Women and men both are separately capable of working, raising kids, and running a household solo. But he suggests you need that equal partner to learn how to care for another person more than yourself. That is the root of compassion.

As the Dalai Lama says, the purpose of life is to be happy, and the way to happiness is through compassion. As parents, we certainly experience this by putting the needs of our children first. As adults, we can experience this on some level with everyone we meet.

But infusing unconditional love into an intimate relationship – for me, that’s the missing link.

I think it’s great and important for single parents to feel fine about their lives. Accepting your own situation is the first step to internal peace and happiness. Being a single parent doesn’t mean we’re flawed. We don’t have to spend all our time seeking a partner.

But there’s also nothing wrong with allowing an adult in your life. For me as a single dad, the lack of feminine energy and adult intimacy feels incomplete.

In short, I’m tired of sleeping alone.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• Feminine Energy is a Very Good Thing
• Pass The Kleenex, I’m Tearing Up
• Single Parent, Empty House, Full Life
• Kid-Friendly Companionship With Benefits

© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.

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I woke up this morning tired, headachy, lacking any spark. Like having a bad hangover, except I didn’t drink. How did this weekend kick my ass so completely? I just sat around (in shorts, mind you, not Dockers). My kids did all the work.

Friday night was a talent show at my son’s elementary school. Cloggers, violinists, singers, a jazz band – there were some talented kids! (Also some not-so-talented. Parents – please have the courage, courtesy, and common sense to tell your child when their “dance” act might best be done in pajamas with friends at a sleepover behind closed doors.) The show went late, but no matter, there was plenty of pizza and cupcakes.

Saturday was a lacrosse game in 95 degree heat. Talk about hot! The boys were dieing, running around in pads and helmets. I watched from a beach chair. (The sideline highlight of the game was a gravelly-voiced parent from the other team who constantly shouted, let’s go red! - through a megaphone! I cracked up every time. I want a megaphone, too!) Thank goodness for the Good Humor man in his ice cream truck. Bomb pops are to die for.

We raced from lacrosse to my daughter’s track meet an hour away. No time for food. I grabbed a coffee (in 95 degree heat!) and a snack bag of munchies. Doritos, sun chips, cheetos, pretzels – all in one bag. Talk about genius! I was in snack heaven. The track meet ended late, and I might have cooked pasta and peas, but I was tired. So I got take-out Chinese.

I snuck in a bike ride Sunday before my son’s team party at a local pizza/burger joint. Okay, so I had a beer, a 22 oz. Stella Artois. I deserved that after a kid-focused weekend like this. Especially when you factor in that I didn’t have custody. My kids were with their mom. I was just showing up to events, lending my support.

And I have the hungover-feeling to prove it.

© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.

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When SingleMomSeeking and MsSingleMama began remodeling their sites, it struck me how blogging is kind of like single parenting. Your site is your own, you make your own choices about the what/when/how/where/why, you live with the outcome, good or bad, and you’re happy and grateful for the chance to go it alone.

Imagine two bloggers merging their existing sites, trying to blend content while keeping their individual voices, all while not stepping on each other’s toes. (Honey and Lance don’t count, they started from scratch.)

It’s like two single parents trying to date each other.

Single parents have strong opinions on whether to date in the breed or not. Kat Wilder is a single mom who thinks it’s great to date single dads. She likes how they already “get” parenting. Chatanika, on the other hand, doesn’t date single dads. She’s seen separately evolved parenting styles clash, and worries about favortism for one set of children over another.

Enter Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and his blended family. Jorge, a single dad with half-time custody of a 10-year-old, and his girlfriend, a single mom with a 4-year-old, moved in together last September. So far, the blended approach is working, though he admits it’s an altogether different experience.

In an email, Jorge wrote that single parents going it solo develop rituals and routines with their kids. “You learn to focus on your own child and develop a unique bond.” When you add a partner and another child, “the routine becomes disrupted and changes. It requires both partners to make an adjustment for themselves and their child.”

He said the trickiest part is maintaining a partnership with your own child. It takes conscious effort for him and his girlfriend to “build in some time with each of our children, while focusing most of our time to interacting as a family.”

Jorge feels the alternative approach, where each parent spends significant time with their own child while limiting family activities, is a mistake. “For me, the time management has to lean toward the family unit, although time with your own child remains important and even vital.”

Before creating his blended family Jorge dated quite a few single women who didn’t have kids. He often felt they didn’t “get” the priorities and lifestyle of a parent. At some point he focused on surrounding himself with single parents, both as friends and partners

He says a blended family is a delicate balancing act. But dating for any single parent involves unavoidable emotional risks, both for yourself and your child. He’s definitely happy he went the blended family route.

“I believe my son is better off now because we both took those risks, and found a woman — and another child — who fits us. Could we have gotten here with a non-parent as well? Possibly. But why limit the field?”

Follow Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and his views on single parenting and blended families at Parents Place at LoHud.com.

(Editor’s Note: My clever lead-in for today’s post was supposed to be about my date with a sexy flirty Hottie Single Mom this past weekend and my fast-forward fantasies for a blended family of my own. But when her sudden (cue the air quotes) root canal (roll the eyes) prompted her to cancel on me, I had to improvise a new lead-in. Hope it worked.)

Coda: Chatanika admits her grandparents were single parents who created a blended family. “They are the most amazing, in love, phenomenal people I know,” she said. So why not go the same route? “Maybe I’m just afraid I’ll never rock it like that!”

© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.

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This past weekend I attended a kid-focused event with my children and 1,400 other families. Talk about feminine energy. There were moms everywhere. (Dads, too. I’ll get to that.)

The last time I was surrounded by so many women was last fall at Book Group Expo in San Jose. The expo allowed book lovers to discuss books, drink wine, eat chocolate, and rub shoulders in a salon setting with authors like Po Bronson and Elizabeth Gilbert. Of the 1,500 conference attendees, there were maybe 20 men, 19 of whom were seniors. I exaggerate, but it’s safe to say I was a hot commodity wherever I went.

I hadn’t gone to the expo to meet women, I was merely a writer who loves books, and as it turned out most of the women were married. But I couldn’t ignore the magical feeling of being in the company of so many women. I even texted a female friend of mine who couldn’t make it, and told her, I’m in heaven!

As a single parent I of course miss having a built-in partner, companion, lover, and friend. The expo reminded me of another thing – simply, that women are different than men. Women add different energy, thoughts, emotions, cares, concerns to my male perspective. I left the expo inspired to find a girlfriend, someone I could bring around my kids and allow fully into my life. (Being in Silicon Valley where the ratio of single men to women is about a zillion to one, this is no easy feat.)

So this past weekend when I found myself once again surrounded by estrogen, I was reminded of the lack of feminine energy in my life. This time, though, with husbands and kids around, I felt a melancholy twinge of sadness. These were people who’ve been married a decade or two. No one was bickering or fighting. Everyone was enjoying a beautiful day, celebrating their kids. I used to have all that. While I have a great life with my children, I admired the love, respect, admiration, and support the moms and dads gave each other.

I wish I could say I left the event inspired to find a girlfriend. But after eight years of divorce, and as I move through my forties, I find it tougher to meet single women I’m attracted to who are okay with my having children and would welcome an instant family. For me to continue accepting my situation, and to thrive as a single dad, means not getting my hopes up.

Still, as empowering as it is to be a single parent, I’d totally welcome a woman in my life. Feminine energy is a very good thing.

© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.

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After a few weeks of lurking at the bottom of Alltop, the blog collection that brings you All the Top Stories, All the Time, Dad’s House was bumped to the top of the dads list, featured in the first few rows. This is great for single dads and single parents!

A goal of my blog is to let the world know that single fathers are perfectly capable of caring for children and running a household solo. I have half-time custody and teens in the house, so my issues are different than, say, a solo mother with full-time custody of a toddler. But there’s tons of common ground between me and other single parents - dating, relationships, parenting concerns. In eight years of divorce, I have a lot of experience with modern dating. Believe me, it’s different. (This isn’t your father’s Olds Mobile that we’re hooking up in… um, what’s your name again?)

Single parents are parents, and our voice needs to be heard. And it’s being heard, with Lori Gottlieb’s recent single-parent-themed book and movie deals, Tina Fey’s new movie Baby Mama, the upstart iheartsingleparents.com, writers and bloggers like Single Mom Seeking and Ms Single Mama (high up on the Alltop moms list).

Then again, after my rant against Alltop’s number one blog, Dad Gone Mad, maybe they moved me up to keep a better eye on me…

© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.

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My son’s orthodontist office called to see if we’d gotten his X-rays taken for next Monday’s consultation.

X-rays? Consultation? I knew nothing.

My ex-wife had taken my son to his last ortho appointment, a routine checkup. She and I have joint custody of the kids, and take turns taking them to appointments. Apparently this time the orthodontist saw something he didn’t like and is advising more work.

The least someone could have done is tell me. After all, I’m equally concerned about my children’s health.

Sharing information between my kids’ mom and me has been a real problem over the years. Despite an amicable separation and living in homes just three blocks apart, communication flows decidedly one way – from Dad’s house to Mom’s house – hardly ever the other direction.

To combat this, I’ve tried to get schools, doctor offices, coaches and team parents to communicate information to both me and my ex-wife. Every time, it’s an uphill battle. When a Marin single mother blogged about the frustration of filling out forms that ask for a child’s “main” address when there are two households involved, I related completely.

I asked the orthodontist’s office if the doctor would mind sharing his opinion with me. “That’s what Monday’s consultation is all about,” the receptionist said. A consultation I would have known nothing about if the office had been able to reach my son’s mom and gotten the X-ray status. (I would have known nothing, that is, until the bill came.)

Sadly, it’s typical in our society for a father to be less involved in childrearing. When I suggested on a married man’s blog that fathers in general should be more present and involved with their kids, my comments maddened him and his readers. But I have joint physical and legal custody, and a willingness and interest to know what’s going on with my children, whether it’s school, health, sports, friends. I need to be informed.

The question is – if in eight years of divorce I’ve failed to get my ex-wife to communicate information to me, is it fair for me to demand that schools and doctors and youth sports teams do it, instead? I feel bad dragging them into it. After all, the fact I’m divorced isn’t their problem.

Still, I wonder when society will truly start accepting two-home families.

© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.

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