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The 21st Century Guide To The Good Wife

Chris Loprete, daddysden, Dads

By Chris Loprete

A 1955 edition of Housekeeper’s Monthly released a Good Wife’s Guide. Please look it up and read it. It’s priceless. Here are some examples on how to be a good wife when your husband comes home.

  • Prepare yourself. Put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking
  • Remember he is the master of the house. Don’t question him
  • Try to encourage the children to be quiet
  • Don’t greet him with complaints and problems
  • Listen to him. His topics of conversation are more important than yours
  • Try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his real need to be at home and relax
  • A good wife always knows her place

And that barely scratches the surface. Now I know what you’re thinking. “Why oh why wasn’t I a husband in the 50’s?” No? Oh. That’s just me then. But even a Neanderthal like me sees how these “rules” simply don’t apply today. First of all, who says the “wife” is the one at home? I know several “House Husbands” and none of them put a ribbon in their hair before their wife comes home from work. They usually wait until the weekend. Also “his real need to be at home and relax” somehow indicates that the stay at home parent has been relaxing all day. A very reliable source has assured me that that is not the case. So with all of this in mind, I have composed a counter guide. I call it:

The Guide to the One Who Works Outside the Home

  • Prepare yourself. You may be home from work, but you’re not done working yet
  • Master of the House? You haven’t been home for 8 hours with whiny kids while trying to run a home based business. You’re not the master of anything
  • Try to encourage the kids to be quiet (okay this is sound advice even in the 50’s. I think we can all agree on that)
  • You’ve both got complaints and problems. Vent to each other and don’t play the “My day is tougher than your day” game. You’re both right. And wrong. Either way nobody wins
  • Listen to each other. I’m sure you both have good topics of conversation. You may want to include the kids too. Check that. If you’re trying to talk to your spouse, the kids will include themselves…very…very loudly
  • You both have a world of strain and pressure and a real need to relax. The sooner you help each other, the sooner you can both do just that
  • A good wife does always know her place. So does a good husband. It happens to be the same place. Home. Be a team.
Inclusion Delusion

Inclusion Delusion

daddysden, Dads, Family


By Nathan Bright

The first egg goes in beautifully. No trace of shell in the mixture at all. With my speed being matched only by artistry, I blister through the kitchen confident of a timely meal that will lead into clean-up, followed by coats, then a punctual appearance to a friend’s house.

“I help,” says my two year old.

Her words resonate like a movie moment demonstrating fear and confusion. “Of course you will sweetie,” I say. the Dad in me knows to include her in anything I can. It builds skill, confidence, and a bond between parent and child. However, the Me in me obsesses on the clock. She’ll slow me down. Dinner will be late. We’ll rush out the door and be tardy, again, to our function. Again.

I let her help. Eggs explode, raw meat almost in mouth, hair stuck to counter, falls off stool, cries, help stir, help wipe floor, help stir more, wipe floor more and dear-heaven-has-the-oven-been-preheating-for-an-hour-how-much-is-the-gas-bill-going-to-be?

This scenario plays out quite often. Patience in letting them help is par for the course. By letting them help we know it’ll be more work for us, but they need the experience anyway. But how does this translate into other areas?

I’m a stay-at-home-dad (by choice). Our numbers are growing. Just like any non-traditional movement there’s a stigma over which we’d like to hop. The “Mr. Mom” syndrome, if you will, such as the bumbling man guy who fashions duct tape into cereal bowls. As amazing as duct tape cereal bowls would be (and completely doable!) us stay-at-home-dads don’t want to be pigeon-holed into being thought of as bumbling.

I know I’m great at cooking, cleaning, kid activities, multitasking, etc., but what do others think of me? My fear is I’m viewed as the two-year old and my wife is the adult. It’s thought that she lets me help only to secretly clean up my mess afterward. These situations demonstrate what would come out of a child’s mouth and what folks would presume comes out of the stay-at-home-dad’s mouth:

Situation: Sweeping the Floor
Adult Figure and/or Wife Asks: “want to help?”
Two Year Old says: “let me walk through this pile of dirt first.”
Bumbling Dad says: “I’ll get the leaf blower.”

Situation: Laundry
Adult Figure and/or Wife Asks: “want to help?”
Two Year Old says: “I can fit 4 bras on my head.”
Bumbling Dad says: “I can fit 6 bras on my head.”

Situation: Grocery Shopping
Adult Figure and/or Wife asks: “want to help?”
Two Year Old says: “take me to the toys or I’ll cry.”
Bumbling Dad says: “take me to the beer or I’ll cry. Did you know I can fit 6 bras on my head?”

Point being – I’m not bumbling. I’m not merely included…I’m autonomous, much the way my two-year-old soon will be. I run an excellent home for the benefit of my family. My wife trust me to be productive and make good decisions. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to look into that duct tape thing. And maybe fold bras.

Nathan Bright is a 30-something stay-at-home dad who resides near St. Louis, MO. He is a husband to an amazing woman and father to a doubly amazing 2 year old little girl. His blessed home is scheduled to be even more blessed in March, as Nathan and his wife will welcome a second daughter to their family. When Nathan is not blogging for OurMilkMoney.com’s The Daddy’s Den, he writes and illustrates his own children’s books. Available for purchase immediately is Maddi Patti and her Stay-at-Home-Daddy.

Increase Your Productivity As a Self-Employed Parent

Uncategorized

Written by Ally Loprete

Working at home: it seemed like such a good idea at the time. You believed that it would give you more time with your children, the freedom to work in your pajamas, a limitless income possibility, and the ability to create your own schedule, own rules, own pace. For many, this is a dream that turns into reality.

It is said that once you work for yourself, you will never be able to go back to working for someone else. For many, working at home is freedom, but still for some, it is easy to let the work consume you every moment you are awake, and probably while you sleep as well.

It is important to remember that you are still in control, and that you need to enjoy all of the perks that come with being self-employed, as long as you remember to grant yourself those perks, just as you promised yourself you would when you “accepted the job” to work for you. If you are not given the perks that were originially promised, it’s only natural that you will lackluster your productivity, and eventually grow weary and lose inspiration.

Here are some tips to help you increase your work-at-home productivity:

1. Create atypical work hours. As parents who are self-employed, we have 2 jobs, and getting up from the computer to pour your 2 year old more milk will always be more important than responding to an email, or posting a blog. You may have grown more patient as a parent, but interruptions like these can be daunting. Save your most crucial, concentrated work for the evening when your spouse is home from work, and has agreed to let you lock yourself into a quiet room without interruptions. For me, this time is from 7:30pm-10pm during the week. You’d be surprised how much you can get done in 2 ½ hours.

2. Create an end time to each day, and “clock out.” It may be difficult to cease working when the house is exceptionally quiet for once, and you are finally feeling productive, but don’t get lost in the moment. Find a good stopping point, pat yourself on the back for a job well done and step away from the computer. My clock out time is 10:00pm

3. Schedule in some rest and relaxation time each night before going to sleep. For me, I give myself an hour to do anything I want, but work. You may choose to watch TV, read a book, or do a crossword puzzle.

4. Invest in some kind of technology. Depending on the way you look at it, this could be the greatest thing toward making you more productive, or it could cause you to become confused between work time and family time. It may be an iphone, blackberry or another PDA, but in a world where productive mothers love to multi-task, the technology that has presented itself in the last decade has made it possible for us to do it all- within reason. If your iphone allows you to quickly answer an email while attending your son’s little league game, it’s worth it. But if it keeps you out of the moment and you’ve missed your son hitting the ball on more than one occasion, it’s time to go back to the drawing board, create a more productive schedule, and turn off the PDA during family time.

5. Trade your services. I don’t mean your business services. Create a co-op babysitting group with another parent. Self-employed parents are no longer a rarity, and chances are there are atleast 4 or 5 on your street who would be willing to watch your kid for a few hours one day in exchange for you watching theirs.

Surviving the Recession (Yes, It’s Possible)

Surviving the Recession (Yes, It’s Possible)

Uncategorized

Written by Ally Loprete

I have a plan that I’d like to share with you — because it involves YOU. Actually, it involves everybody. If everybody does their part, we not only have a chance of surviving the recession together, we have a chance of rebuilding our society into something spectacular.
First, let me ask you a question: When was the last time you were given amazing customer service? I don’t mean service that simply gave you what you paid for and did it with a smile and a bonus “have a nice day.” I mean the kind of service that throws out the rules of business and treats you like someone of value and an individual with needs different than the last customer’s needs. Not a one-size-fit all approach that we’ve come to know as the norm.
Is good old fashion customer service so far a thing of the past that the majority of this generation never really knew what it was to begin with? Have we gotten so used to the automated systems and virtual relationships that nothing is genuine anymore?
I DON’T THINK SO.
I am not complaining. I am proud of where we are… although I wasn’t at first. I was more skeptical and angrier than most. I don’t mean to harp on the big businesses — after all they are run by people who have needs just as you and I do. But very often in big business we are unable to speak to real people who are able to meet our needs as their customers. Big business has become a large robot not programmed to care about our feelings, sensitivities, and real human experience. We grew up being told that everyone is special, but big business has taught us that everyone is exactly the same and that extraordinary needs are not tolerated — or, at least, the robot is not programmed to understand them.
However, the good news is that recently I’ve seen a shift in that energy. People are needing to connect on a more human level. True we are communicating through text messages, emails, and blogs (ahem), but we are still connecting. And in some ways there is more of a connection because we all have access to one another on a level much greater than ever before: The Internet.
The Wonderful World of Web is a really good thing! So good that, if we read between the lines, we will see our unlimited potential and how capable we are of getting back to that sense of good old fashion customer service mentality.
Since we are able to shop and do business online, we can now choose from literally millions of companies to work with. If we don’t like their service, we can go elsewhere, just as easily. It’s not like we have to drive over to the next town because we didn’t like the clerk at the grocery store. We can buy from just about anyone we want.

Do you realize how much power this gives us?
It means the big businesses are losing us and, actually, the loss that big corporations have already suffered is a primary contribution to the recession we are in right now.
But that’s OK. It’s all part of how society rebuilds itself. Sometimes you have to take a step back before you can go forward.
So, if we see the recession as a not-so-bad thing, we can use it to our advantage. Are you with me?
What this means is that smaller businesses, for the first time in decades, have a fighting chance. And in case you haven’t noticed, small business is exploding.
They have something big businesses don’t have: a personal touch.
For those of you who don’t remember what it was like to have this so-called “good customer service,” don’t feel bad. I don’t know that I do either, but I’ve seen a lot of movies and I’ve listened to a lot of old people talk about what it was like in “their day.” I imagine it to be something like this:
People GAVE because they were in a position TO GIVE. I imagine there were some people who didn’t hold up their end of the bargain, but hey, it probably all evened out in the end. Some people call it Karma — and Karma is a concept that has been around since the beginning of time.
So, there is your answer! Karma is the way that we are going to survive this recession.
You have something? Give. You need something? Take.
This recession is a way for the universe to clean the world up a bit, and rebuild the social order of our culture. You can’t have a rainbow without first having a storm.
This new (or should I say old fashioned) way of business is creeping into the general public more and more. And I am mighty impressed, I have to say.
Here is the best part: You can choose who to do business with, and if you choose to support the small business men and women in our society, I can pretty much guarantee that they will support you, and give you that personal touch which has been missing for the last 30 years.
P.S. You can find those men and women at http://www.ourmilkmoney.com/.

Ally Loprete is the Co-Founder of OurMilkMoney.com, an online directory of self-employed parents across the country. Ally’s focus is to help expose parents working to create a better life for their families and her mission is to educate consumers on the value of purchasing from the small business owner. Ally is passionate about inspiring parents to connect with one another, and will often write about the brilliant ideas that seem to come to her only in the shower or while blowing her hair dry.