by Marc Zev

Created on: May 12, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

When my first son was born, the timing was perfect. I had been working for number of years and was ready for a break, and my wife had been in school and was ready to work so I stayed home. I loved every minute of it.

I have changed thousands of diapers with no complaint. Although, I must admit that the one I changed in a small airline terminal in New York before getting on a puddle jumper to Washington D.C. was one I could have done without.

It was a cold November day, and we were taking an incredibly short flight so I packed all of my son's clothes and checked the bags. I had diapers, food and toys; however, they were not sufficient supplies when my son deposited overflowing amounts of the previous night's dinner into his diaper. I deeply, deeply regretting having checked all of the babies clothes. On the other hand, I never made that mistake again.

My far, my biggest challenge as a dad was when my younger son spent his sixth birthday in the hospital. Actually, his birthday fell in the middle of an eleven day stay in the hospital. For 11 days my son received IV antibiotics to treat orbital cellulites, which is an infection of the eye socket. Sever cases can lead to brain abscesses and surgery. My wife and I alternated spending the night in my son's hospital room and I spent all eleven days there as well. My wife was with me in the hospital for the first four or five days, then when it was clear that he was responding to the antibiotics she would go to her office for a few hours in the middle of the day. In addition to supervising my younger son's treatment, my older son was still in school and had after school obligations that we worked at interfering with. Of course, he also wanted to see his brother in the hospital everyday as well. We had friends and family who offered to help manage my older son's life but I just couldn't bring myself to accepting much help. I told myself that I needed to keep his life as normal as possible. In reality, I think I needed to ground myself in my routine to keep from going insane.

I knew before my kids were born that the world we live in is sexist and has a double standard with regard to raising kid. Mothers are the primary caregivers and fathers do as they are told. Men can't cook, they can't organize or coordinate events or clean. That's how society sees it anyway. When men stay at home society doesn't know how to respond. I can't count how many times, when out with my son, I heard, "So, you are stuck babysitting today?" My

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