The pope recently said that Facebook is fine, but face to face is better. Shockingly insightful, I know. But it got me reflecting on the isolation of being a stay at home dad. Only the pope is wrong. Facebook isn’t fine.

Before we moved to Hawaii I knew that I might be at home with Autumn quite a bit. So I started to imagine how I might spend my time. I imagined I could start a stay at home dad blog. I would talk about my experiences. It would be incredibly insightful and clever. I would review products for dads (and get some free stuff from it). It would be a place for others to congregate. Obviously that never happened.

I did spend some time on some parenting sites though. Since we were new here and didn’t know many people I thought I could get involved in an online community. I looked for stay at home dad resources and sites. There are a few blogs out there, but that’s about it. The truth is the online parenting community is really the online mom community.

When I realized that the parenting blogosphere might help me come up with activities, but not help with the feeling of isolation, I started to look for some kind of dad playgroup. Maybe I could meet some guys to hang out with while our kids played on the playground. If they exist in Hawaii, I couldn’t find them. And I only know one other guy here who takes care of his daughter as much as I do, but he takes her to work.

So this is my question. Where are all the other stay at home dads? The truth is we are still a small group even though there are a lot more than there used to be.

I imagine that stay at home dads deal with feelings of isolation even more than moms do. It isn’t that hard to find other moms. They are everywhere. There are mom programs that are easily found. Add to that the fact that a lot of guys have a lone ranger attitude even if they don’t realize it (myself included). There are both internal and external factors leading to isolation.

I suppose one of the things I’ve learned from this experience is my own need for face to face relationships with others. It’s part of being made in the image of God, I suppose, that we need friends with whom we can share our lives. It also reveals why I look so forward to the regular times spent with friends during the week and at church. Autumn is excited and entertained by other kids and we are able to connect on a level that is impossible online. While I’ve struggled with feeling isolated at times, we’ve actually found a pretty great community here.

Just this morning a friend from church came to encourage me after reading my other recent posts. She anticipated where I might go with the difficulties of parenting. She wanted to encourage me and let me know I’m not alone. Moms experience all the same things I’m talking about. It may feel isolated, but this is well tread territory by all parents – boredom, repetition, the need to find ways to stimulate our own minds, feelings of isolation. And she wanted me to know we are doing a great job, Autumn is a joy.

And it was encouraging. I wrote most of this post last Friday. While I haven’t found that amazing dad playgroup, we are part of a community where we are known well enough that when I start writing about the things I’ve been writing about a friend can hear something unspoken and come to encourage me. That is pretty special if you ask me.

Disclaimer: This is neither a complaint nor a fishing trip for sympathy.  It is just a reflection.

Before Teresa ever got pregnant with Autumn several friends and siblings had already started having kids.  The one thing they all said was, “It changes everything.”  I always assumed they meant, “I don’t get enough sleep and I don’t get to go out anymore because, you know, I’m a parent.”  It is true that it took about 2 years before Teresa and I stopped saying, “If we didn’t have Autumn we could [fill in with something we wanted to do].  But that was all expected.

What I didn’t expect about being a parent, which is enhanced by being a stay at home dad, is the intense boredom that goes along with it.  Maybe I’m not creative enough.  Maybe I should come up with more projects and trips.  But here is the reality of parenting a 2-year-old – you and they have absolutely no interests in common.  In fact, the things that they need the most are utterly mind numbing.

Even things like eating, going to the zoo, and going to the beach, which should be purely enjoyable, become exercises in boredom with a 2-year-old.  They become exercises in boredom because when you go with a 2-year-old you experience it like a 2-year-old.  You go to the same animals over and over.  You play the exact beach game over and over.  You experience it like a 2-year-old, but you are trapped as an adult.  The repetition isn’t fun; it is tiring.  And repetition is both what a 2-year-old likes and needs.

In my first post I said that I daily run into my own selfishness.  This is what I was talking about.  When I’m at home with Autumn and she wants me to read that book for the 5th time I literally start falling asleep.  The other day I did fall asleep while reading to Autumn when she was trying to use the potty.  So I end up going back and forth between trying to entertain Autumn and trying to get her to entertain herself (so I can ignore her for a while and entertain myself).

The boredom of staying home is the thing that I find the worst right now.  It is worse than her tantrums.  It is worst than “mine.”

Here is the worst part – boredom isn’t something I can blame on Autumn.  It is something inside myself.  Some of the causes are related to her stage in life, but I am the one who feels the need to always be entertained or engaged.  When that “need” is not being met I feel bored and tired.  And I can’t both meet my need and Autumn’s needs.  Hopefully God will give me the grace to choose to meet her needs first more often than my own.