Housebroken charts the evolution of one man from unregenerate cad to stay-at-home dad. And along the way David Eddie provides lots of useful tips for other men who have ended up treading the domestic path: basic but puzzling things like how to cook, how to stay faithful to your wife and how to bend your gender without losing your machismo. Above all, Housebroken is a story of the great adventures it is possible to have within a three-block radius of your house, from one of the frankest, freshest and wittiest voices to come along in years.
David Eddie's journalism has appeared in numerous publications including The National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Saturday Night and The New York Times. He is the author of the comic novel Chump Change and is currently at work on a second novel, Born to Rent. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two young sons. 1. A SQUARE PEG
"You're doing a good job," the guy behind the counter at the butcher's shop says.
That's funny; it sure doesn't feel like it. Nicholas is six months old. Pam's been back to work for a month. I'm pretty new at this and very shaky. I've lost his pacifier (again); he's fussing and squirming-on the verge of a major tantrum, I can tell, complete with tomato-red face and hot tears streaming down his cheeks-and the stroller's blocking traffic in the long, narrow store. Though it's four in the afternoon, he's still in his sleep-suit, same one he wore yesterday, the front festooned with crusty food. Earlier a woman stopped me in the street and said something over and over again in Chinese, fingering the sleeves of his outfit.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand you. I don't understand what you're saying," I kept telling her. But I was lying. I knew perfectly well what she was saying. In the universal language of interfering busybodies and tsk-tsking babushkas everywhere, she was saying, "Your baby cold. Needs another layer. You bad dad. You very, very bad dad."
I feel, in fact, like I have BAD DAD tattooed on my forehead as I jam a carton of homo milk between his lips, trying to get him to drink from the spout, teenager-style. It works, sort of: he drinks greedily, hungrily, like a neglected orphan-boy, the milk coursing down his cheeks and soaking the front of his PJs.
"Thanks," I tell the butcher. "Could I have a boneless pork roast, please?"
You've probably seen us around: huge, hulking brutes, some of us, stubbled, troubled, humbled, baffled and hassled, pushing strollers down the street, shopping carts down the aisle or swings in the park. Every day there are more of us. We're househusbands; hear us roar!
I never meant to become one, of course. I don't think many young men wake up in the middle of the night thinking, "Now I know what I want to be in life! A househusband and stay-at-home dad!" But who knows? Maybe someday that will change. Obviously we're in the middle of a revolution in the workplace. A recent study by the Families and Work Institute in New York suggests that women now earn more than half the income in 45 percent of the households in the United States. If you factor in single, divorced and widowed women, you could say that women earn more than half the money in more than half the households in America. Maybe someday there will be a corollary revolution.
