Once upon a time there was a breed of men which we might term Real Men™.  These Real Men™ went to great lengths to ensure that they participated only in the socially sanctioned activities of men, wore male appropriate metaphorical pants, and were possessed of a certain cold, reserved manner.  These men knew their place in the world, the value of a dollar, and would never have used words like marginalized, Frappuccino, paradigm, or clichéd stereotype.   They went to work, drank really awful beer, drove big gas guzzling cars – often with really awful cans of beer wedged between their legs - and had some kind of table in the garage upon which they might theoretically work wood or metal.  Someone along the way had taught them how to be Real Men™, and they understood those textbook definitions.

Then, roughly thirty years ago, society began telling men to relax, donÂ't get so wrapped up in machismo, and to join the family instead of lording over it quite so much.  They stopped handing out the Real Men™ textbook in eighth grade gym along with jock straps and buzz cuts.  This was a conscious cultural movement that convinced men they didnÂ't necessarily have to learn how to replace their own oil filter, didnÂ't need to know how to perform complex plumbing, and werenÂ't required to communicate with their male children in only the code of baseball statistics.  We were told to have fun, relax, eat less red meat, spend less time at work and more time with the kids.  It was even suggested that maybe cleaning up around the house once in a while wouldnÂ't kill us, and, occasionally perhaps, that we new sensitive men, might be the one to stay at home while the wife worked.

Much to everyoneÂ's resounding surprise, some men eventually took society up on the proposition, and walked away from the office to raise the kids.  Society, its bluff called, reacted in a startled, uncomfortable fashion, totally unequipped to deal with this new breed of man: unemployed, socially conscious, a caregiving social mutant.  This is how the new sensitive man was born often taking the form of the stay-at-home dad.

I am such a creature, father of a nine-month old son with whom I spend my days while his remarkable mother brings home the bacon and other assorted pork parts.  To this arrangement, there remains some suspicion, an underlying sense that the stay-at-home dad is only a half step away from the lazy-sycophant dad.  For me there is great support from those closest to us, but a general sense of novel confusion on the further orbits of our social system.  Nothing so explicit or vulgar as open hostility, but itÂ's sort of clear that our situation is as alien to some as if it were a social structure devised by creatures from the Oort Cloud.

My problem is that for a variety of reason IÂ've never quite reconciled the situation myself.  Why it matters to me what other people might think is a separate issue entirely, and considering I donÂ't pay readers an hourly rate for psychoanalysis, it is one IÂ'll avoid for now.  Let it suffice to say that for whatever reason the issue exists.  So, in an exhausting effort to justify the lifestyle, when people ask me what I do, I donÂ't just say IÂ'm a stay at home father; I say IÂ'm a freelance writer.

For those who donÂ't know, when someone says they are a freelance writer it means theyÂ're unemployed.  It means thereÂ's a stack of half-finished manuscripts about sentient robots with amnesia in a desk drawer, and a folder full of Analog rejection slips in a folder labeled Â"˜Why I Suck!Â'  It means at some point that person was published – though that publication may have been printed at Kinkos and was bound with staples – or worse, that they created their own outlet where they might publish themselves.  In rare instances freelance writer means IÂ'm so fantastic that I can go this on my own, no problem.  Not for me.  For me, itÂ's a cover.

So, when asked, I tell folks that I am a freelance writer, which is about the point where - and hereÂ's where the mutation metastasizes – people ask me what I write about.  I respond with no hint of deception that I write about technology, and that, my friends, is a complete lie.  Truth is I write about video games.  IÂ'm a stay-at-home dad who writes about video games, and I think if I told some people that their heads would explode right on the spot.

ItÂ's a problematic arrangement, and perhaps one can see why I hesitate to draw it out in quite such primary colors.  When there is already the question that, as a non-traditional father, perhaps I am as lazy as the ocean is deep, that assumption is not exactly dispelled when I point out that I play video games for my pretend living.  Never mind that video games define an entertainment industry as strong and prosperous as any other, nor that writing about them is no less valid than penning articles on movies, music, or golf.  There is a social stigma that we gamers are all keenly aware of, which says that video games are for people who canÂ't figure out how to be adults.  It is, of course, utter nonsense.

Still, I canÂ't shake the nagging need to stack myself against the indefatigable men of a generation or two before.  IÂ'd feel better if I knew that there was a subset of this group that took care of home and hearth while scribing clever articles about Parcheesi or Gin Rummy.  I want to discover a heretofore unknown male predilection for creating a fictional alter ego persona to validate all the lost hours spent playing Everquest.  Unfortunately, all I can come up with to compare myself with are lodges like Kiwanis, the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, or Shriners.  While, I think IÂ've scored some points on the whole not wearing a fez thing, I fail the contrast in pretty much every other category.  So, thereÂ's no comparison between my game-playing fatherly ways, and the dawn to dusk tenacity from previous generations of stalwart no nonsense men.

Does that mean IÂ've fallen short?  Does that make them automatically better, more productive, more Â"… manly?  The answer is both yes and no.  Yes in the terms of manliness as read from the Big Book of Stereotypical Male Responses.  But also no in that I am pursuing an art – and despite any federal courtÂ's ruling, both writing and video games are art – about which I am passionate while taking a historically unprecedented opportunity to raise my kid.  No, in the sense that I donÂ't think thereÂ's a manlier endeavor than being a good father, self-serving though that may be.  While other families have to make hard decisions about where and with whom their children spend the day, I never have to wonder in what condition my son is being raised.  In short, IÂ'm elevating my own experience by doing what I enjoy, but not at the expense of a fulfilling life, and not at the expense of hard work, and never at the expense of my familyÂ's welfare.  And, of course, that makes all the difference.

Video games are a legitimate business, a multi-billion dollar enterprise, and words need to be written about any endeavor of that magnitude.  My son is a frothing ball of potential and drool, and what does it matter how my delicate insecurities flare if he is getting a kind of parental attention that will, hopefully, serve him well as an a boy, a teenager, and a man?  I am a social mutant, perhaps, but mutation is the source of evolution.

IÂ'm just looking forward to the day that being a gamer, like being a stay-at-home father, isnÂ't a misunderstood stigma. 

- Elysium