Articles Archive Index

For the first year of my son's life, my income was the sole means of support for our family. Unfortunately, I hated my job. After I resigned, I sent out a few desultory resumes, but it didn't take long for me to realize that what I really wanted to do was spend more time with my son. My wife went back to work, but the income from her job wasn't enough to support the three of us. I would freelance and consult, but there were no guarantees. In the middle of anxiously sleepless nights, I envisioned us homeless, forced to live with relatives.

Despite our fears, we made the leap into being a "reverse-traditional family." Like many stay-at-home dads, I didn't want to stay in the house all day. The minute my wife left for work, I'd take Liko out the door and onto the streets. Together we'd walk, moving from shop to restaurant to playground to bench to friends' living rooms and back to the playground, stepping into the flow of the city.

"Unfortunately, nature is very much a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't affair," writes Annie Dillard in her essay "Seeing." This is equally true of cities. It is also true of parenting. All three are worlds unto themselves, containers of consciousness, definers of perception; but we are never quite able to hold them in our senses. During these months of uncertainty, San Francisco seemed to shift constantly in and out of focus, and so did my son. The babble from Liko's mouth sharpened into words, the syllables flashing like sunlight on windows. We'd cross the street and on the other side, he'd seem suddenly older.

During these months of transition, I found myself doing a funny thing — "found myself," meaning that thought followed action. I gave away money to anyone who asked for it: $5 to a beggar, $150 to a canvasser for California Peace Action, a dollar to the barista who made my $1.40 espresso. Once I found a $10 bill on the sidewalk; without thinking, I turned and gave it to the man behind me. ("Uh, thanks," he said, and hustled away, maybe worried that I'd change my mind.)

Why did I do that? It seems crazy, given the uncertainty we were facing. Though it might seem as if I am bragging about my own generosity and martyrdom, in fact, this is the first time I've admitted it to anyone but Liko (who merely gurgled mysteriously whenever I gave away cash). My wife did hear about the donation to Peace Action; at the time, she gave me a pained, disappointed look. I mumbled something about wanting to stop the Iraq war, which sounded pathetic even to me. In context, my actions seemed foolish and even self-destructive. I hid them the way an alcoholic hides a bottle.

The comparison with alcoholism might be warranted. I was addicted to giving away money, with each donation like a hit of some drug that alleviated my burdens. In the instant I handed over the money, my anxiety over money vanished. I felt as if I was floating, free, above it all. Of course, in a minute, I'd fall back to earth, but that just made me want another hit.

Obviously, I was not motivated by spiritual love for humankind, though certainly such moments have snuck up on me from behind, scaring me half out of my wits with their imperious demands that I change my life. I told myself at times that I was just looking for good karma; on a semi-conscious level, I believed that helping others would somehow make people more inclined to help my family and me. I felt that the world was accumulating some kind of debt to me, quite without its consent, and that when I needed to, I could go to the world and ask to be repaid.

There's a phrase for this: magical thinking. Maybe the magic worked. I got plenty of work as a freelancer and consultant, more than I could handle given my responsibilities as a dad. When I found out about an opening for the position of managing editor at Greater Good magazine, at first I didn't even consider applying. I was happy having so much time with Liko. Why mess with success?

Though it fell upon me almost by accident, being a stay-at-home dad irrevocably changed my interests and direction — it might not be an exaggeration to say that it changed the very core of my being, whatever that is. But I picked up a copy of Greater Good and thought about its mission — to "highlight ground breaking scientific research into the roots of compassion and altruism" — in relation to my life and my writing, in which I had increasingly turned my attention to parenting and kids.

At the same time, I heard about another job at Stanford; this time the attraction was a heap of money. I applied for both, and both were offered to me. In the end, I don't think that I had any choice. The importance of the mission of Greater Good vastly outweighed the salary at Stanford. Once again, I gave away money, hopefully to someone who needed it more than we do. Once again, disappointments and fears dissolved, and I felt some degree of freedom.

So here I am. I go to work in the morning and come home in the evening. Shelly stays home and takes care of Liko. We're a traditional family again, though we don't think of ourselves that way. A year ago, it seemed as if life had kicked me in the stomach; in fact, it had given me a gift. For that, I'm grateful.

Jeremy Adam Smith blogs about parenting at www.daddy-dialectic.blogspot.com.

Top of Page