Storytelling

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How I Accidentally Retired as a Stay-at-Home Dad 3 Months Ago and Went Back to Work Full-Time… Finally, I’m Ready to Talk about It

It was exactly 6 months since I had accidentally become a stay-at-home dad. That’s when I got the unexpected (and overdue?!) phone call.

A recruiting firm in Jacksonville, Florida had discovered my resume on Career Builder and assured me that I was more than perfectly qualified for a Forbes Fortune 500 employer that was just down the street from where I had worked for nearly 12 years.

The irony is that I had applied to work for this company just 3 weeks after I became unemployed. But apparently, the timing wasn’t right when I was most ready to go back to work.

Instead, the timing was right after I had made “stay-at-home dad who works side-jobs online” part of my identity for 6 months.

By mid-April, I had already assumed I wouldn’t be returning to work in an office until perhaps my 2 year-old daughter started Kindergarten. That was because it only took a month after losing my job to realize that most of my income had been basically just cancelling our day care costs for both of our kids and covering most of the gas money it took for both my wife and I to commute to work in separate cars to different parts of Nashville. (My wife, who has her master’s degree, has been bringing in significantly more income than me for most of our 10 year marriage.)

In other words, being a stay-at-home dad actually made more sense anyway.

But in the likeness of the classic sitcom trope where the TV character has no interest in making a deal until they hear how much money that opportunity is surprisingly worth, I quickly changed my mind from “Thanks, but…” to “How much money did you just say?!”

It turns out, my 11 years working at the same company serving in roles of recruiting, HR, and retention made me quite marketable for the right company who was looking for someone with that kind of background.

The new job offer came with a 50% raise, compared to what I had been making where I had worked for the 11 years prior. Not to mention, the hours are much more flexible, so that I can get to home more than an hour sooner each day.

With all that being said, the pay increase of my new job matches the increase of the challenge level.

I have never used my brain at such a high-functioning level on such a consistent basis as I have since starting my new job in May. But I love the challenge of what I do!

So in the same way I found myself suddenly without a job after working at the same place for over a decade and had to reinvent my identity… just 6 months later, I was thrown back into the corporate world, but this time, in a much more advanced version.

It’s almost exactly like the beginning of Rambo: First Blood Part II. I feel like an action star of the 1980s who was called out of retirement for the sequel.

I am basically Rambo right now.

Photo by Mohamad Alaw.

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Dear Holly: You Said I Look Like Lionel Richie, and Surprisingly, Maybe You’re Sort of Right…

2 years, 3 months.

Dear Holly,

Our family faithfully watched the latest season of American Idol. A few episodes into it, you started pointing out something to Mommy, your brother, and me.

Any time it showed Lionel Richie, you would point to the screen and say, “That’s Daddy.”

It’s something we just sort of laughed about at the time.

But looking back on it, and comparing side by side pictures of Lionel and me, I have to admit…

I think I see it. I think I see what you were seeing in each episode of American Idol.

And by the way, that picture of me was taken before I was even thinking about this again this week. I didn’t take the picture of myself to match one of Lionel. It was simply the most recent picture I had taken of myself and found on my computer.

But even the casual smile I had looks the same as Lionel. It’s as if Lionel and I have the same default smile.

So today, I published a video on one of my YouTube channels telling the story of how you saw the resemblance. Most people who saw the video admitted they they definitely saw the facial similarities.

What’s interesting is that I’ve never been compared to Lionel Richie in my entire life. The only specific thing I have in common with him is that he and I both share the same home state of Alabama.

But leave it to the perspective of a 2 year-old little girl, and suddenly, it’s a different view.

What if this is a sign that you are an artistic genius? What if you are gifted in facial recognition?

What if your career as an adult ends up proving that this story was more that just a trivial coincidence?

I say it is possible.

Even when I force myself to assume it was just something random you kept saying each week during American Idol, I still can’t deny there is a similarity.

Maybe you’re a genius little girl!

Love,

Daddy

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Is Age 37 Too Young for a Midlife Crisis? 1st World Problems and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

I’m pretty sure that at age 37, I’m currently working my way through my midlife crisis. While at first mention, it might seem I’m getting mine out of the way a little early, consider that the average American man in Tennessee lives to be about 74 years old. So actually, I’m actually right on cue:

If I live that long, then my life is already halfway complete at this point.

Perhaps the biggest struggle I am sorting out is that, as of this year, I have officially found myself at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Self-Actualization.

The way I like to explain how Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs works is this:

If and when you are able to overcome needs in each stage of your life, they are simply replaced by new ones that you didn’t have the privilege of addressing before.

Things started progressing quickly on my journey up the pyramid, in my mid-30s, when I discovered that it was always my decision whether I allowed other people to emotionally affect me. During that same time in my life, my wife and I had become completely debt-free, other than our mortgage.

Now in our late 30s, we have found ourselves in a new income level bracket; having both progressed our ways up the corporate ladder, in addition to the aforementioned pyramid.

I think the identity crisis I am going through right now is that we both work full-time jobs in offices, in addition to side jobs online. The money simply goes to paying off our mortgage, our kids’ college funds, and our retirement.

It’s just sort of demotivating to consider how much of our time is spent working- and how little time is spent together as a family.

Plus, I really want a Jeep Wrangler. I’ve been dreaming about owning one for years. But having gone years without a car payment, and knowing that buying my dream car would only take away from our savings and our ability to pay extra each month on our mortgage, I just wouldn’t be able to enjoy it anyway.

Clearly, I have first world problems. Yet according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they are still legitimate challenges that I am sorting out in my life.

This is my midlife crisis at age 37.

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Dear Jack: Maybe You’ve Grown Up a Bit More When I Wasn’t Looking

7 years, 8 months.

Dear Jack,

Whereas I don’t feel like your sister has grown up all of the sudden, like the way people feel who haven’t seen her in a while, I can’t say the same about you.

Raising your sister at age her requires so much of my attention, that I am aware that it sort of feels like I can’t focus as much on you as I did before your sister was born.

While I could feel guilty about that, I have to remind myself that when you were 2 years old, I probably spent even more time pouring my attention and care into you.

In the process, your role and identity has had to shift from the only child to the older brother.

Fortunately though, you’ve done a remarkable job with that transition. The 5 and a half year difference between you and sister definitely makes things easier, I believe.

I feel that we’re nearing a point where I’ll feel that my time will be a bit more balanced, as your sister is now gaining much independence. I look forward to us spending more time together.

At the same time though, somewhere between the fact you’ve been forced to be more independent of my attention because of your sister, and because you’re naturally becoming more dependent in your age anyway now that you are almost in 2nd grade, it’s like things are naturally gravitating towards a more balanced divide of my attention.

But I do feel like you’ve grown up more quickly here without my noticing it.

So hopefully, time will feel like it’s slowing down with you about more in the near future; whereas with your sister, it’s almost as if time has progressed slower than normal, because of how much time I’ve spent with her.

I look forward to things balancing out.

Love,

Daddy

Photo by Mohamad Alaw.

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Dear Jack: You Subliminally Taught Your Sister to Ask for Chips at Starbucks

7 years, 8 months.

Dear Jack,

There has been an unspoken rule in our family for years now:

When we go out as a family to run errands in the car, Mommy is always going to ask me, “Coffee?”

That’s her way of saying she wants to go to Starbucks. I always say yes; knowing that I might as well enjoy a cold brew.

And if Mommy and I are getting coffee, you know that you can ask for a snack:

“Can I get a croissant?”

And the answer is always yes:

“Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf of bread, will give him a stone? -Matthew 7:9

So after quietly watching that scenario play out weekend after weekend, your sister decided it was her time to join in on the action.

As our family made our way to the Nashville Sounds baseball game a couple of weeks ago, as we pulled up to the drive-through at Starbucks, you said the magic words:

“Can I get a croissant?”

Without missing a beat, your sister immediately jumped in:

“Chips?…”

It was equally amazing and hilarious how she already had a prepared request. She knew the place, she knew the cue, and she even knew the specific yet seemingly random food she wanted while the gettin’ was good.

However, you suggested to her that she get a croissant instead. In your experience and wisdom, you knew she might want some of yours once she saw it.

That was a good call. Both of you ended up with your own personal croissant.

I couldn’t help but notice though, she completely downloaded hers by the time you had taken the third bite of yours.

Well, I guess now it will be no surprise what will happen the time next our family ends up at Starbucks:

There will be two simultaneous requests:

“Croissant?…”

Love,

Daddy