April 26, 2002
I'm Doomed!
By Nathan Porter
BSNN.net
I’m doomed. Despite my best efforts to do everything necessary to live a long and healthy life I am destined to die a horrific death at a tragically young age. Why? I’m told it’s because of my risky lifestyle. I'm a quasi-vegetarian who drinks moderately, gardens for exercise, is still married to my one and only bride, has children, left a stress-filled career for a stress-free one, and worst of all, I work from home in order to take care of my kids, which makes me—gasp—a househusband. I’ll be lucky if I make it to Memorial Day.
Life may not be fair, but if the geniuses that come up with constantly changing health data are correct, death is even less fair. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. When Paul Harvey told me to add grape juice to my diet, I did. When my doctor told me I needed to stop eating meat, I stopped eating meat and looked for a new doctor. I started back again when my new doctor told me I was anemic and needed to eat more meat. When my new doctor told me my liver bore a striking resemblance to Rosie O’Donnell, I stopped drinking and looked for another doctor. When a study touting the health benefits of beer was released, I started drinking beer again. Last year I gave up gardening because some scientist said it would give me Parkinson's disease. I decided to take it up again after Paul Harvey (I take a lot of my medical advice from Dr. Paul Harvey) told me that drinking lots of coffee appeared to reduce one's risk of Parkinson's. Of course I had to buy a new coffee pot because I quit drinking coffee years ago due to high blood pressure. I stopped watching TV after a study suggested that spending a lot of time in front of the tube leads to Alzheimer’s. But when another study found that drinking two to three glasses of alcoholic beverages per day significantly reduces the chance of getting Alzheimer’s, I cranked up the TV, but now I make sure I have a stiff drink while watching. When someone decided that chocolate has health benefits my motto became “A Hershey’s a Day.” And then someone discovered that chocolate causes a similar reaction in the brain as marijuana. I always wondered why I often felt the urge to smoke a Snickers then eat a bag of grass.
A team of American epidemiologists who tracked nearly 3,700 people for 10 years found househusbands had an 82% higher death rate than male breadwinners working outside the home. They also discovered that men in “prestigious” occupations, such as medicine and law, were significantly less likely to develop heart disease or die early than other men. But when I was a practicing attorney, I was told that the stress of the job would kill me, that the disrespect society as a whole had for my profession would push me into depression and anxiety, cause me to abuse drugs and alcohol, wreck my marriage, and likely result in my committing suicide by the age of 40. At the time, that scenario seemed plausible to me, so I quit. One day, while standing in court “leading” my divorce client through his tedious description of pouring gasoline around his house while his wife and children hid inside, I decided enough was enough. I had tried my last case, accepted my last client. For the sake of my health and for the health of my marriage and family I would quit, stay at home, raise the kids, and allow my talented wife to be the primary breadwinner in a profession that is not only lucrative but socially responsible as well. And now they tell me it was a mistake that could cost me my life? I’m gonna’ sue.
Robert Glossop, executive director of programs at the Vanier Institute of the Family, suggested househusbands might encounter added stress because people do not understand or respect our unconventional choice. I can attest the accuracy of this assumption. Whenever I’m at a social event (which usually is related to my highly successful wife’s career) the question invariably is asked: “So, what do you do?” I used to answer by trying to explain my entire life story. “Well, I used to be an attorney, but now I, uh, am ahh, embarking on a new career, and I’m a stay-at-home dad,” I mutter, my voice trailing off at the end. And the responses are almost always the same, uttered in a uniform tone of derision. “Well that must be fun.”
Yes, being a stay-at-home dad can be stressful (isn’t life itself stressful?) but it hardly compares to the stress of being a personal misery lawyer*. If this newest study is true, that househusbands have a higher risk of heart disease, it is not because of the added stress of leaving a stress-filled career behind, it is because we are stuck at home with a pantry full of potato chips, cheese crackers, Cool Ranch Doritos, Mrs. Field's Cookies, and Gummy Bears. It is because the company water cooler and the power lunch of broiled fish and salad have been replaced by Kool-Aid and peanut butter on white bread. It is because the exercise routine that once consisted of early morning tennis games now is reduced to a spirited round of hide-and-seek. This, and only this, is why house husbandry is hazardous to one’s health. And it’s not just heart disease we have to worry about. Stay-at-home dads must certainly be at greater risk of getting cancer. After all, we are home all day surrounded by foods full of acrylamide, which just last week was identified as a probable human carcinogen found to exist at high levels in fried, oven-baked and deep-fried potato and cereal products. Even when doing “real” work in the home office while the munchkins sleep, the frozen fries and deep fryer are only a few feet away. And what honest househusband can deny the joy of a 2:30 p.m. bowl of Cap’n Crunch?
As for the stress of being a stay-at-home dad, I’ve found a way to cope with that. I’ve changed my patented response to the dreaded “So, what do you do?” question. Now when someone asks what I do for a living, I look him or her straight in the eye and say, “I clean the shit out of my kid's ass with a handy wipe.”
“And,” I add proudly, “I’m very good at what I do.”
*Personal Misery Lawyer: When I was practicing law, the most common question asked was, "What kind of law do you practice?" Since I was a sole practitioner who handled a variety of cases including personal injury, criminal defense, divorce, and bankruptcy, I bestowed on myself the specialty of "Personal Misery Lawyer."
© Copyright 2002 BSNN.net/Nathan Porter