I found out this afternoon while doing a mid-week grocery store run for my wife, that it’s not as easy as one might think, to push the grocery cart with a kid, while drinking coffee.
As I entered the Super Kroger in Spring Hill, Tennessee, I thought to myself, “Okay, this is my first time as an official stay-at-home dad buying groceries. Enjoy this errand and make it part of your identity. This is part of your job now. So… what would my wife do in this situation to make it more fun?”
And there it was, Starbucks. She would definitely buy a $5 coffee to begin her journey. So I ordered an Eggnog Latte with coconut milk, as my daughter played inside the two-seater Kozy Coupe-looking car attached to the front of the shopping cart.
I tried to order the manliest drink I could think of, but unfortunately, they don’t make the Spicy Mocha that High Brew in Franklin makes: cayenne, cinnamon, and mocha.
Once the nice young man handed me my unregulated caffeinated beverage, I made my way towards to organic section. But immediately, I found out it’s quite difficult to make a right turn when your right-handed and are pushing a shopping cart with a giant car attached to the front of it, still while holding a $5 drink in your other hand.
How was I going to make it all the way through a ten acre grocery store without spilling my coffee?
The answer: I wasn’t.
Historically, I have stayed home with the kids while my wife buys the groceries early on Saturday morning. I have yet to memorize where everything is in that grocery store so big it needs its own zip code.
Some of the items on the “scavenger hunt” were in the baby section, some were in the organic section, and some were just mixed in with the regular stuff.
In case my Instagram photo doesn’t show the details, then just believe me:
Each time I suddenly had to jerk the cart to make a turn in time, or simply bumped into the corner of the aisle I was trying to enter, an eager ounce of the Starbucks magnificently shot out of the adult sippy lid of my coffee cup and landed in the cart.
Needless to say, my daughter’s clothes still smell of Eggnog Latte, as she had eventually exited the faux Kozy Coupe and asked me to place her in the normal kids’ seat; right where the majority of the two dollars’ worth of Starbucks had made a miniature puddle.
I know there will be a learning curve to this stay-at-home dad thing, but today I learned that I shouldn’t be drinking Starbucks and driving the grocery cart.
Yesterday morning at 9:30 AM as I was driving my daughter to her 18 month-old check up, I happened to look over and see a bulldozer clearing the brush around the iconic rock silo tower on Columbia in Spring Hill, Tennessee.
Less than an hour later, as I drove back to my house which is just about a mile away from the silo, my speculations were accurate:
They had completely flattened it. Only rubble remained.
It was somewhat of an emotional response that I was seeing in the comments of his photos. I feel like it was just an unspoken agreement for anyone who lives in Spring Hill, that we perceived that old rock silo tower as one of the town’s official landmarks; though we never really talked about it.
By the way, a very special thank you goes out to Rick Sweeney for allowing me to use his photos to illustrate this story. Here is a link to more of his work, beyond the silo: Rick Sweeney Photography.
My family moved to Spring Hill three years ago. I always knew it was a matter of time before whoever has holding on to the property finally decided to sell their family’s land and instantly become millionaires.
So exactly three years ago I took my son out to the silo and took some pictures with him there. I wanted to provide a special way to remind him of that place years after it was torn down.
I also filmed an episode of one of my YouTube shows, Uncle Nick’s Enchanted Forest, on location at the silo.
After that, I made my peace with it; knowing it would probably be a few months later before the tower was destroyed.
Fortunately, I was wrong. It took a couple of years. Yesterday was the day: December 4th, 2017.
This event is the modern day Spring Hill version of, “They paved paradise and put a parking lot.”
We all knew this day would come.
I will miss you, old abandoned rock silo tower that no one really talked about until know.
Imagine the irony. The very same week I was driving around in a $50,000 car, the 2017 Lexus IS 350 to promote here on my blog, I became unemployed. That fancy car then began serving as my vehicle to begin a new job search.
Yeah, that was a crazy week.
And really, it’s been an interesting month and a half since then. Let me catch you up on what I was hiding from social media this whole time…
It was simply my fate. I was already a vegan daddy blogger and a YouTuber. The demographics were there. So it only made sense that a guy like me would end up as a stay-at-home dad.
On October 18th, after having worked for over a decade at the same company in the Human Resources field (recruiting, onboarding, and retention), the new president of the company basically shut down the whole branch where I worked in Tennessee.
Imagine the psychology: Spending over 10 years of your life at the same company, seeing the same people day after day, appreciating the solitude of the same hour long commute to and from work; simply having a predictable routine which made me feel like I was financially providing for my family.
And then suddenly, it all ends. The plug is pulled. Not just for me, but for an office full of people who suddenly have a new full-time job: to find a new full-time job.
I admit, I was privately struggling with it. Even though it wasn’t my fault, nor the fault of the dozens of other people who were laid off that day as well, it still felt like a death, of sorts.
That job was part of my identity. I was always grateful for it. It was my first real job out of college; and really, my only full-time job.
During the next 30 days, I applied for over 60 jobs online; plus, I signed up with 4 different staffing agencies. It all resulted in one legitimate job interview, but they ended up hiring someone else for the position.
Through all this, it was important to me that no one else knew I had lost my job and that I was in search of a new one. I didn’t want the free world asking me everyday if I was okay, or asking if I got a new job yet.
To put myself in that situation would make me feel like I was some sort of victim- which I am not. I always choose to be victorious; never a victim.
The way I’m wired, I didn’t want anyone to know about any of this, until I had a success story to tell.
Just as I was about to cross the line of “not okay anymore”, right before Thanksgiving my wife presented me with some amazing news which I was quite thankful for.
As she is the one who handles our budget, she joyfully explained to me that since losing my job, we have been continually putting more money into our savings account each week; not less.
When I asked her how, her immediate response was, “I know it has to be a God thing.”
She went on to break down all the ways we were saving money:
We are no longer paying for two kids to be in daycare full-time.
Our daughter, who was growing up in day care, stopped getting sick, so our doctors’ bills ceased.
I am no longer filling up my car with gas each week; only monthly now.
While that may not sound significant, my wife told me that considering the cost of two kids in day care, my job was ultimately only making our household $200 per week. I was being paid appropriately for my position where I worked, but my wife has a Master’s Degree and therefore has been making a bit more money than me for a while now.
So actually, those little things added up to more than cover the $200 per week difference.
Me? A stay-at-home dad?
It would have been too crazy of a plan; for me to leave my steady job of over a decade. But that steady job came to an end; with over 10 years of Human Resources experience as a souvenir.
We wouldn’t have chosen this. It wouldn’t have seemed like a smart position. But it’s working for our family right now.
And obviously, I truly enjoy getting to actually spend time with my awesome kids. Even my wife and I have more quality time as well, including the fact she is able to call me everyday on the drive home from work. We have more time together as a family now.
Granted, I’ll remain on the look-out for a great job in Human Resources, as I never stopped applied for jobs. And while my daughter is taking her nap each day, I work diligently on further building my YouTube channels, which I predict will eventually exceed the $200 weekly difference.
But as for now, I have officially made it part of my identity. Last night, I changed the “work” section on my Facebook profile:
If you’re a guy who’s starting to see possible signs of a receding hairline and you’re trying to figure out if you will indeed go bald, then you’ve come to the right place. I am a YouTuber with nearly 2500 subscribers and over 1500 videos devoted to the this topic. Hi, my name is Nick Shell.
While I’m not a professional or an expert on the topic, I have accidentally stumbled upon some findings, which I have turned into my own original theories. Based on my constant interactions with my subscribers, it appears my theories on predicting hair loss are accurate at least 80% of the time.
Some of the things you are about to read have not been published in print, until now. I call this The Nick Shell System. I am the owner, discoverer, and creator of these ideas. According to my theories, here are 5 ways to predict if you will go bald.
Check for signs of balding or thinning. (Norwood 3 or beyond, or diffuse thinning.)
If you look at your hairline and it’s either straight across with some minor receding on your temples, which is classified as Norwood 1, or your hairline makes a “V” shape but there are 90 degree angles at the corners, which is classified as Norwood 2, then there is no need to fear yet. This is normal. As you progress into adulthood, it is expected for your hairline to naturally mature a little bit like this.
As long as you see no thinning spots, especially at the back of your head, then you are safe. Otherwise, this is considered “diffuse” thinning, and therefore overwrites the Norwood system; indicating you are indeed balding.
However, if your hairline makes an “M” shape, and the corners of your hairline are rounded off (which is classified as Norwood 3), then you officially have a receding hairline and have begun the first stage of the process of balding. It is common for some thinning to also accommodate the Norwood 3 stage.
2. Use a photo of yourself at age 1 to see a prediction of what your hairline will look like at age 35.
I discovered that a boy’s hairline when he is exactly a year old serves as a projection of his hairline and hair density when he becomes 35 years old. I figured this out, completely on my own, when I remembered that if you double a child’s height when they are 2 years old, it serves as a prediction of their height as a fully grown adult. My mother did this with both my sister and me; the results were 100% accurate. I did this with my own son, and it is predicted he will be one inch shorter than me.
Using this logic, I imagined there was likely a certain age of a boy where his hairline would be the same as when he becomes a mature adult. I knew this could not be based off of a newborn boy’s hair, because I know the first coat of hair falls out within the first couple weeks or so.
I found that age 1 was the more accurate stable predictor. From there, I settled on age 35 as the predicted future hairline because that happens to be the age in which men typically show more obvious signs of hair loss, or not.
By recording a video of myself at age 35 (which for me was last year) alongside a photo of myself at age 1, I demonstrate how my theory holds up.
3. Determine whether or not you could grow a full beard by the time you were age 18.
Another one of my findings from being a “Hair Loss YouTuber” is that typically, men who lose their hair sooner in adulthood were the same boys in high school who were hairy enough to grow a full connected beard before they graduated high school; like around age 16.
I define “full beard” by the fact if you didn’t shave for a day, then the next morning you had visible stubble all the way across your jaw line, chin, and above your upper lip.
If this was the case for you, it is more likely you will be at least Norwood 3 with some thinning by your 35th birthday; meaning you will likely lose most of your hair throughout the rest of your life. However, if you struggled to grow a full beard in high school, and envied the guys like me who could, chances are that you’ll keep your hair.
I discovered this concept after spending my first summer in Thailand back in 2003, when I couldn’t help but notice most middle-aged men still had all their hair, but struggled to grow even a mustache or goatee.
It’s in your DNA to either be balding and bearded, or to keep your hair but have minimal body hair.
And in case you’re interested in trying out some shampoo that contains argan oil for hair loss, here’s a link to Amazon.
4. Consider how close to age 35 you currently are.
As I’ve already mentioned, the exact age of 35 for a man is an important in predicting hair loss. Another finding I have realized is that most men who are Norwood 3 with thinning by the time they turn 35 years old are the ones who go on to continue losing their hair for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile, a man who still has the straight across hairline (Norwood 1) or the “V” shape (Norwood 2) and has no thinning, is most likely to keep most of his hair for most of his life.
This is another way to determine whether a man has either the “balding and bearded” genes, or the “full head of hair but struggled in his youth to grow a beard.”
5. Accept that your race and ethnicity increases or decreases your chance of balding.
Going back to how I noticed the concept of how the Thai men kept their hair but couldn’t grow beards, there is truth in that certain races are more prone to hair loss but less likely to grow thick body hair in their youth.
Based on hundreds of interactions with my YouTube subscribers, this seems to be how it works:
Balding and bearded: European, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Indian
In-between both categories: African
Full head of hair but struggle to grow body hair in their youth: Asian
My theory on this is the less Asian you are, the more likely you are to be in the “balding and bearded category.” So for example, a Mexican man is less likely to lose his hair by age 35 as compared to a Norwegian man, because Mexicans’ DNA consists of Aztec and/or Mayans, who were descendants of Asians.
This would be similar to a Filipino man, whose DNA is likely a mix of Asian and some European.
And if you’re interested in taking a DNA test like I did, here’s the link toMyHeritage.
Now that I’ve shared with you my 5 ways to predict hair loss, I want to close with 5 ways to deal with it if you fall into the “balding and bearded” category:
Take a prescription drug to maintain the hair you still have.
Get a hair transplant.
Have tattoo-pigment done, in which the appearance of hair is tattooed on your scalp; given that you keep your hair extremely short.
Try the “natural” approach by experimenting with applying essential oils like Rosemary and Argan Oil, become a vegan, exercise regularly, avoid stress, and stop smoking if you do; all of which may help slow down the balding process.
Accept your fate and new identity as a confident and stylish “balding and bearded” man, by choosing to completely own the “shaved head” look, or at least a buzz cut- I recommend no longer than a #2 guard all over.Personally, I identify as a “balding advocate”, meaning that once I move beyond my current “Norwood 3 and thinning” stage around my 40th birthday in 3 and a half years, I plan to start shaving my head. I always expected to go bald; I just thought it would have already happened by now.
I definitely fall into all 5 of the categories of “balded and bearded”:
It was 6 and a half years ago on my 30th birthday that I first noticed my signs of balding, including thinning in the front and back of my head, in addition to the Norwood 3 hairline. My 1 year-old photo perfectly matched my hairline and density at age 35. I could grow a full beard 20 years ago, at age 16. I am already past age 35. And I while I do have 23% Mayan/Aztec DNA (according to my DNA test with MyHeritage), the majority of my DNA is German, Dutch, Sephardic Jewish, and Middle Eastern.
I am not ashamed to transition to my identity as “balding and bearded” in a few years. I think it will actually be pretty cool.
That’s it.
If you have found this article helpful, or at least intriguing, I invite you to check on my YouTube Channel on hair loss, simply titled, Nick Shell.
You can join a growing community of men who are learning to focus on what they can control and not on what they can’t; especially when it comes to hair loss.
In the midst of the four days we spent at Nonna and Papa’s house in Alabama for Thanksgiving, one afternoon you decided to just lay low with Papa on the couch.
You had discovered the giant D.A.R.E. teddy bear wearing a Domino’s Pizza uniform. (Your Aunt Dana won it back in the early 1990s when she was the winner of a coloring contest.)
The bear hugs started with Papa pretending the bear was attacking you, but it didn’t take long before the look on your face gave it away: You were almost tired enough to take a nap.
So after one of the many times the bear jumped on top of you, smashing you in between Papa and the bear, you decided just to take advantage of the situation by cuddling up to both of them.
I actually started wondering if at some point you would just fall asleep, resting your little head on the giant bear’s shoulder. For anyone walking by you in the living room, there was an unspoken level of respect:
Just let Holly hang out with Papa and the bear.
Had this all happened a little earlier in the day, it could have been a 20 minute wrestling match with the bear; making its way all the way to the floor.
But no.
Your vibes attract your tribe. Therefore, you defeated the giant bear though cuddles alone.
Sometimes the best way to win a fight is with a big hug.
The bear was no match for your sweetness.
And not only did you win the fight against the bear, but you also won the fight against giving me a reason to take you upstairs for your afternoon nap.
Enough chill time was had with Papa and the bear, so I just let serve as your 2nd nap that day.
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