When baseball, basketball, and football no longer hold their allure for this American dad, it’s safe to say a major transformation has taken place. My post today is over at Silicon Valley Moms Blog. Come see why I’m Way Beyond Soccer Dad.
(I promise I don’t wear makeup on the moms blog. Come on over and comment!)
© 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.
© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.
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Break out the cigars, I’m a mother! No, I didn’t have a new kid, and I’m not some transgender pregnant guy. I’m not even a woman or pretending to be one. I’ve simply become a contributor for the Silicon Valley Mom’s Blog.
SV Moms is a collection of over 40 moms writing about Valley life, where houses are expensive, kids love sushi and have web businesses, and moms are too busy chauffeuring kids to raise a sword in the mommywars. (That from the About SVMoms page.)
A dad blogging with moms?
Yep. And I’m not the only one – there’s also Enoch, a Family Medicine physician practicing urgent care. And Jim (nicknamed Gunfighter! I kid you not), over on sister site DC Metro. (Hey, where’s my cool nickname? Looking for suggestions. And NOT Mr. Mom. If you call me that, then I’ve failed in my mission to show the world that men are perfectly capable of running a household and raising kids. I don’t call any women Ms. Dad, do I?)
Don’t worry, Dad’s House will still be my primary focus. I’ll still try to make you snort coffee out your nose when I say Good Morning America, then I’ll try to get you all weepy eyed before you yell at me for texting a booty call partner for chicken soup. SV Moms is something I’ll do once every few weeks, to reach a wider audience. For them, they’ll get a male perspective.
How did this come about? I found SV Moms on the Alltop moms list. They found me on Alltop dads. And we snuck off for a secret liaison on Alltop getaway flings…
My first post is already up - San Francisco Fireworks of Another Kind. I mixed a Bay Area tradition (KFOG Kaboom) with something quintessentially me (a texting ex-girlfriend – no, not the one who wouldn’t bring me chicken soup. A different texting ex-girlfriend. Yikes.) Come on over and say hi. Let ‘em know you’re out there!
For the record, I was a Mother before. Back in the 90’s I played in a garage band called the Mothers of Inventor. (We worked on a product called Inventor, and our marketing manager was a Zappa fan.)
I’d leave you with a video clip of our band playing the Shoreline Amphitheatre, but I have no friggin’ clue how to rip a clip off a DVD and into Youtube. Call me a dinosaur! If anyone knows how to do this, and can explain in layman’s terms, do tell. Or if you’re in the Bay Area and can do the task for me, I’m happy to bring the DVD and some beer.
And so I leave you with those other Mothers, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention…
© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.
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Dad’s House was recently selected to be part of Alltop – a website that collects stories from “all the top sites” on the internet. It’s the brainchild of Will Mayall, Kathryn Henkens, and Guy Kawasaki, the noted Apple evangelist from back in the day. (I was at Xerox around that same time.) My blogging friends Ms. Single Mama and Single Mom Seeking are listed near the top of Alltop’s Moms page. And I’m on the Dads page, right there at the very…bottom. That’s okay. In fact, it’s probably best.
I took some time to explore the hundred or so blogs on dads.alltop.com. It looks like a great collection. There are dads of all types – a New York City Metro Dad; a flowchart-making Dorky Dad; some stay-at-home dads like Laid Off Dad, House Dad Chronicles, and I’m Not a Slacker Dad; a Tech-Gadget Dad (actually, that’s a lot of them, but this Dad blogged the merits of three different traffic analysis software packages, so he get’s my vote); a Newspaper Family Reporter Dad; a Modern Day Dad who reads People magazine; and a Dad Whose Three Kids Pee on One Toilet, Simultaneously (I gotta say, if they were 18, he could probably do some sort of PayPerView thing with this… and on that note, welcome to my sense of humor.)
Like I said, a great group of guys. Proud papas all. (I’m a proud papa, too!)
Maybe I didn’t look hard enough, but I didn’t notice any other Single Dads (like me), or even dads who have teens. I don’t mind. I’ve been going it solo so long, I just assume my situation is different than most. But I wonder if any of these dads (and moms on the moms.alltop site) realize what sort of blogging neighbor now lurks in their midst.
Do they have any idea what goes on in Dad’s House? There’s…
• the fast teenage daughter and the son with gossiping friends.
• the ex-girlfriend texting for booty.
• the salsa dance classes with four men to each woman.
• the dinner date women who just want one-night-stands.
• the coffee dates that turn into gourmet feasts (and who exactly pays?).
• the rants against online dating (it doesn’t work!)
• and of course, cocktails! cocktails! cocktails!
While Alltop-blogging dads around me write deftly, fondly, and lovingly on the trials and tribulations of parenthood, complete with first big words, soccer-playing toddlers, loving partners, and building snowmen, I’m blogging about single parenting, two-household families, and relationships formed in an age of online dating, text messaging, friends with benefits, hooking up, and booty calls. There are lighter moments, with musings on things like trumpets, vacations, and golden retrievers. But overall, Dad’s House seems a different, danker, darker world, indeed.
(Unfortunately, one of my new favorite blogs featuring a single-guy’s witty insights into the minds of men, What Men Think, isn’t on the dads.alltop list. But that’s only because he isn’t a dad. Perhaps a new Alltop category can be created to give him an aggregate home.)
I’m proud and happy to join the Alltop community. We’re the same in that we’re all parents. I’ll get to know you, you’ll get to know me, we’ll all learn something and be amused in the process.
As for bringing up the bottom of Alltop – I’m content. For now, it feels just right.
© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.
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A few years ago, a group of neighborhood soccer moms asked me to train with them for the Napa Valley Marathon. I’d just turned forty and was an avid cyclist who’d left hill workouts, interval training, and twenty-mile runs well behind me.
“I can give you some tips,” I said. “But my serious running days are over.”
“We need you out there with us,” they said. “You’re the marathon expert.”
I did know a thing or two about marathons. I’d run seven of them in my 30s, and had a collection of finisher’s medals that my kids and I took turns wearing in a showy display that rivaled Mark Spitz. But in my late 30s, twelve mile jogs brought sharp knee pain, and runs over two hours shut down my immune system, landing me in bed with a terrible cold. My body could no longer take the tremendous toll of training for the 26.2 mile event, and I hung up my Asics Gel Kayanos.
Cycling was a better activity for me. I could enjoy a three-hour ride, then saddle up the next day and do it again. I covered far more ground on a bike than I ever could running. I’d pedal out to Crystal Springs reservoir, up Old La Honda Road into the Santa Cruz mountains, lunch at Alice’s restaurant with the Ducati crowd, enjoy a winding speedy descent, hammer my way home. All on the same ride. Cycling had firmly become my new sport.
While the moms awaited my response, I realized here was a chance to connect with them. As a single dad working from home, you’d think I could have been part of the stay-at-home social scene – morning coffee circles, book clubs, power walks – but the moms did all these things without me, claiming I’d be bored with the motherly, feminine focus of their gatherings. I wasn’t so sure; at neighborhood barbecues, I usually chatted with moms about books rather than dads about golf. But when I’d invited some moms over for coffee, I didn’t have much luck. I simply wasn’t part of their scene.
Training with them for Napa would change everything.
“I could join you for a run or two each week,” I said.
“No, we want you to run the marathon with us,” they said.
No way. Forget the the painful workouts, the torture inflicted by the grueling race. I already had plans. “I can’t,” I said. “I’m riding the Solvang Century, and it’s the same weekend.”
The moms were clearly deflated. “We can’t do it without you,” they said.
I have to admit, it felt good to be needed and included again. Besides, this was a chance to get to know the moms better as friends, and show them that, whether single or married, as parents we had a lot in common. The Solvang Century could wait a year.
“Okay,” I said.
Nothing went as planned. Weekday scheduling proved a major problem, and each mom ran on her own. Weekend runs they did together, but I was busy with my kids and doing activities with friends, like skiing and wine tasting, that had been planned in advance.
As the weeks progressed, one by one the moms dropped out of the race. They were overbooked – weekend soccer matches, morning ceramic classes, the occasional kid home sick. A few moms quit due to injury. Overtraining, undertraining. Soon there were only three of us left.
“This isn’t going so well,” I said. “Maybe I should just cycle Solvang.”
“No, don’t quit,” the two moms said. “You have to run the race with us. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Of all the marathons I’ve run – Silicon Valley Marathon, Marine Corps Marathon, San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon, San Francisco Marathon, and Napa three times – Napa was by far the most scenic, friendly, and enjoyable. And I’d run especially well there, nearly qualifying for the Boston Marathon. Running it would be fun. Besides, the deadline for Solvang had passed, and the century ride was full.
A week before Napa, one more mom dropped out, leaving just one woman and me to run the race.
“I don’t think I can run,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked. “You’ve trained.”
“I’m worried what people will think. A married women and a single dad spending a weekend in Napa together.”
I was dumbstruck. What was she worried about? I wasn’t whisking her off to wine country for a romantic affair. We were running a marathon, and she’d invited me. We’d already booked separate rooms in separate hotels. We could even take separate cars for the ninety minute drive. Once in Napa, we’d stay busy and focused on carbo loading at the pasta feed, downing water and Gatorade, getting extra sleep, running the race.
“We both happen to be running the same race,” I said. “No one cares.”
“I don’t want my husband to worry,” she said. “He has to stay home with the kids.”
Worry? About what, gossip? We were friends, but she was married. My sights were set on eligible singles. “Have him bring the kids,” I said. “You can’t bail on me, now.”
But bail she did. Here I was, roped into a race I didn’t want to run, suddenly left to do it alone. Depressed at the thought of another weekend of solo travel – I’d endured plenty – I dropped out and stayed home.
While my weekdays do not include coffee circles, book clubs, or power walks, my cappuccino machine is always on, ready for a friendly visitor. Just don’t invite me to run a marathon or help you train.
© 2008 DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.
David Mott is a writer, blogger, and divorced single dad offering stories, tips, and expert advice on single parenting, two-home families, and relationships formed in an age of online dating, text messaging, friends with benefits, hookups, and booty calls. Voyeurs welcome.
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