Name, rank and number?
I remember nothing. I am just another stay-at-home parent. My career tossed aside like a used Kleenex. In the great race to secure employment, The Missus won and so I soldier forward under the under appreciated and invisible yoke that is being a parent.
Who am I? I don’t know. One of the invisible people? Just someone with a job to do, a job that no-one sees, a routine that is core to the future of the next generation of this country? Or just another guy with a wet-wipe ready to scrape the faeces from the crease of his son’s bottom? Is this who I am?
It’s not so bad. I get to watch kid’s TV all day. I get to play with crayons and building blocks and deal with shit and piss and puke. What’s not to love about the job?
But when I told people this was the future path many still balk at the idea of a man staying at home to raise his children. I didn’t have to cut off my cock and balls to do this. I am still a man. I still can assemble a flatpack bedroom wardrobe with an allen key in less than an hour. I can still bodge home repairs with nothing more than a kitchen knife and a blob of blu-tack.
The payment comes like this: after managing to set up the TV and getting my daughter’s favourite kid’s TV show on the screen she turns to me, a tremble in her voice and says: “Daddy, I love you….”
That’s my reward.