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Get comfy kids, this will be a long one . . .

A couple of days ago, a video was posted on an at-home dad Facebook group page, of yet another incident where Seattle’s Mars Hill Church pastor Mark Driscoll makes statements that malign stay-at-home dads.

This one wasn’t the ridiculous “stay-at-home dads are worse than unbelievers” thing from a few years ago, but rather a sermon segment from last year about one “cowardly” kind of man he called “Little Boy Larry,” who stood as a representative of men who are really just boys that never grew up. Nice guys, but guys who don’t really want a wife, they want a new mommy to take care of them. The important part comes when he included in his description of this man-boy the line: “He’ll come up with dumb ideas, like ‘I’ll be the stay-at-home dad.’”

Naturally, this led to a handful of comments from at-home dads in the Facebook group, myself included, talking about how silly such a statement is, and lamenting that Driscoll’s wrongheaded, machismo-filled ideal of manhood and fatherhood is influencing so many. One of the comments included the statement that, in their opinion, the work of an at-home parent in “raising the next generation” is the “most difficult and manly job imaginable.”  Somewhat hyperbolic, sure, but I don’t think the importance of involved fatherhood can ever really be overstated.

Anyhow, the video itself aside, fast forward a couple of days, and a new comment appeared that, well, I just couldn’t let go.

This past year my wife and I joined a local gym that has two amazing things going for it over other gyms who have taken my membership money but are little used:

1. They offer FREE child care while you exercise! The hours this is offered are slightly limited, but this is a massive incentive for me to get to the gym a couple of times every week.
2. Unlike many gyms, each of the showers are private, rather than a wall and a dozen shower heads. Call me crazy, but a couple of extra walls and curtain make me feel a lot more comfortable.

It’s so nice to be able to drop the boys off for an hour or so while I simultaneously get a break, get some exercise, and am able to get a hot shower uninterrupted by a crying baby or invading toddler.

What I have noticed recently though is a startling correlation between the days I don’t get to the gym and the days I never am able to find time for the luxury of a shower. The only exception seems to be days when my lovely wife is home to run defense for me AND I have somewhere I need to go that requires some consideration of personal hygiene.

This past weekend a friend and I embarked on a father-son overnight tent camping excursion; he with his almost-four-year old and I with my recently-three-year old.

It’s something we’ve talked about doing for a while, and really wanted to do it now, the idea being we could get it in before it got too cold and we’d have to wait for spring or summer. We knew it would be chilly, but I did plenty of winter camping when I was an active Boy Scout. No problem.

Little did we know, Saturday night would see the lowest temperatures around here since last March, dipping down to 22°F during the night.

The phrase “we barely survived,” in retrospect, seems like hyperbole, but it was definitely how we felt at times.

This is what I learned:

As most of my readers know, in addition to this blog I also am a cartoonist, and though it is on hiatus right now I have a semi-autobiographical comic strip called Life of Ronnie.

Well, I’m incredibly proud to announce that I’ve just published my collection, Life of Ronnie – Volume 1: Making It Up As I Go Along!

This book is 148 pages and contains about 270 strips. It’s a great read, if I do say so myself!

If you like Life of Ronnie, I’d love your support for making more, which you might say would be greatly influenced by how many of these I can sell. If only there was a terrific gift-giving occasion coming up…

ANYHOW.

Buy the book by December 14th and use the coupon code BUYMYBOOK305 and save 25% off of your purchase! Wow!