So you want to be a Stay at Home Dad? Part II

Toddlers can't be bargained with

With so many changes to the traditional work environment and with the economy tanking, we are seeing a lot of families make the choice to bring daddy home. So, if you are a dad out there considering becoming a SAHD, I am here to scare you straight. It is tough being a full-time parent. I, personally, think it is more challenging staying home with kids then it is to work. This series is intended to show potential stay at home dads the reality behind the choice to become a full-time parent.

Last Week’s Topic: You cannot be afraid to get your hands dirty Today’s Topic: Toddlers and Babies are like Terminators

Being a full-time parent means you are a home with toddlers and babies. Toddlers and babies have no sense of time, logic, right or wrong. Toddlers and babies are a lot like Terminators. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, remorse or fear. Ok, maybe they do feel fear, but usually irrationally and not of you—the diaper changer. Understanding that toddlers and babies are a lot like terminators will help you as start down the path of being a stay-at-home dad. 

 

 

Like Terminators, toddlers and babies are programmable/teachable meaning there really isn’t a whole lot going on upstairs. Toddlers and babies have marginal coordination and limited intelligence. You don’t see a lot of baby CEOs or toddler pro athletes just for that reason. Babies literally know nothing. They investigate the world around them by putting everything they come in contact with in their mouths—not very bright. Babies roll around because they can’t walk and they constantly pooping in their pants. Babies, perhaps more so then toddlers, are the ultimate terminators because they never ever stop—pooping. There is no remorse either. It stinks, they made it, and you clean it— period. 

 

Toddlers, on the other hand, don’t stop getting into everything. Like babies and their poop, toddlers relentlessly test the limits of their caregiver’s patience. Toddlers know just enough to get into trouble. They put their feet in their milk, food in DVD player, and anything small enough into their noses. Have you ever seen a toddler eat an Oreo cookie? The end product is a toddler that looks like they have been cleaning out chimneys all day. Never, ever leave them alone with writing utensils—not even for a minute.

 

Toddlers, because they can walk, are always bumping into things, falling down and crying. They are climbing, running, falling, crying machines. They slip. They run directly into walls. They fall for no reason whatsoever. The trifecta, if you ever see it, is where two or more toddlers run into each other, fall down and start crying.  They are machines.

 

Life with toddlers is intense. Like a Terminator toddlers have a set mission, which changes usually every three minutes, and if that mission isn’t satisfied to their liking within a reasonable timeframe (see immediately) you will hear about it. For instance, a toddler under your care wants a yogurt; you open the fridge and see you are out of yogurts. The toddler does not understand that the magic food machine or ‘fridge’ could somehow run out of yogurts—ever, and, like a Terminator, the toddler flips out. 

 

Babies are intense too and most certainly cannot be reasoned with. I tried, it’s impossible. Babies will sometimes start crying and no matter what you do to persuade them to stop (sitting, standing, walking, rocking, singing, being quiet) the baby will keep on crying. After like thirty-minutes the baby will fart or let out a huge rogue burp (a burp long after a feeding session that is not part of the normal burp cycle) or perhaps nothing will happen and the crying will end. The baby will fall asleep almost immediately after they stop crying and you are left scratching your head.

 

Do you think babies feel remorse? I don’t. I have been pooped on, peed on, barfed on, spit-up on, and not once has a baby ever said, “I’m sorry.” They don’t care if you are dirty, stinking or slimy. Babies flip out all the time. I get hungry and I do sometimes get radical and angry if provoked in an ultra hungry condition. Babies…babies go nuts. Babies are set off and cry for any number of reasons, not just hunger.  The main reason for an angry baby are the following; being hungry, tired, wet, poopy, gassy, sick, or sick of wearing a onesie all the time.  You need to be the ultimate first responder in these situations.  Whatever you do, do it fast.  Babies don't care who helps them, they just want to be tended to and they want it now.  In this way babies are worse then Terminators.  In the first Terminator, Arnold Scwartzenegger only wanted to get Sarah Connor, babies are after the universe and all those that inhabit it. You put a crying baby on alien planet and I bet that kid gets changed and fed in like five minutes.