At Home Daddy Blues

Dear Suz,
I haven't seen any questions on your site that pertain to this so I am going to bite the bullet and submit a question. I am a work at home dad. My wife and I have a wonderful relationship and I get to spend all day every day with my 3 small children. I am a freelance writer and make quite a good living from my living room. My problem is that when my wife and I go out to dinner with her business associates I invariably get either the sneer and a comment about being Mr. Mom, or ignored as if I couldn't possibly have anything to contribute to the conversation since I am a house husband. I am not insecure about this but I wonder if stay at home mothers experience this same thing or is the derision reserved for stay at home dads?
Signed: The daddy who is home with his kids.

Dear Daddy,
First off congratulations on both having an arrangement that works for your family, and for having a successful work from home career. Your children are very blessed to have their daddy there every day. As for your problem when in social situations with your wife's colleagues, I believe that many of those people would love to be able to stay at home with their children and are unable to. They also don't realize just how hard a stay at home or work at home parent really works. Being a writer I am sure you have knowledge on many subjects and should feel free to interject your opinions into conversation with these people. Many of them may not know anything about you other than that you are a stay at home dad, getting to know them better will probably help with the scorn or derision that you feel.

Many stay at home parents of both genders experience this problem, when a woman who works from home gets together with other women many times she feels left out of conversation and other women tend to ignore her opinions or point of view because after all she spends her day with small children, what could she possibly know about office politics? However I am thinking that because it is much more rare for a dad to be a work from home parent that the men are probably more misunderstood and underestimated by others.

Baby Daddy Drama

Dear Suz, I am writing to you because I have read your blog and I think maybe you will have some insight that I am missing. I am a single mother of a wonderful little boy who is 4, his "birth father" hasn't been in the picture ever since he found out I was pregnant. I am now engaged to be married to a great guy who wants to raise my son as his own, he wants to adopt him. I am all for that idea because he has been with us since my son was 6 months old and has really changed our lives for the better. We contacted the birth father to discuss it with him, we laid it out and told him that either he starts being a part of my sons life, and pays child support or he should sign away his rights so my fiancee can adopt him. We figured when it was put to him that way he would agree. Suddenly he is knocking on my door every evening and wanting to spend time with his son. But I think that he is just trying to cause problems because he doesn't want to take him anywhere, he always shows up when my fiancee isn't here and stays for hours. I try to just ignore him and leave him in the living room with my son to play but I wonder really why he is here? He hasn't paid any child support or bought anything for my son, he just shows up every evening through the week for a few hours. What should I do? I just want him to go away.
Signed: Don't want the Daddy!

Dear Don't want:
My mind is racing with answers, sadly it is too late to implement any of them really. Your first step should have been obtaining a custody and child support order. Then if he didn't do what he was supposed to do you would have leverage to serve him with papers giving him the option that you and your fiancee presented to him. Since he still hasn't paid any child support or done anything for the child, you can still go ahead with that part, see a lawyer immediately.
As for his visits you can arrange a few hours once or twice a week at your convenience for him to spend time with his son as long as he wants to do that. I dare say that when it comes down to not causing distress for you, or having to come out of his pocket to support your son that he will be a lot less willing to play Daddy. Simply put when you went to him you gave him leverage against you, something he could do to bother you and keep you from moving on with your life the way you planned.
You don't have to let him mess up your plans for your life, if he hasn't bothered to be a Daddy for this long he isn't going to stick with it, the novelty will fade and eventually he will sign the papers. At least that is the hope I will tell you to hold on to, however if he does straighten up and actually be a father to his son, you will have to learn to adapt, and it won't take anything away from your soon to be husband. Your son will still know who is there for him day in and day out, and he will have more people that love and care about him, which can't be a bad thing.

Porn Problem

Dear Suz,
My boyfriend watches internet porn all the time. I am not jealous of those pneumatic boobs or plastic bodies but I wonder what he is missing in our sex life that makes him want to watch that stuff. How can I get him to stop?-Not Kinky

Dear Not Kinky,
I can't tell you what your boyfriend is missing in your sex life because I am not part of your sex life. But remember that men are visual creatures and maybe he could use a little visual from you to spice things up. Then again maybe he's like most men and simply enjoys porn. Unless it is an addiction, or your sex life is suffering because of it you may want to just live with it. Or even join him once in a while, you don't have to be kinky to enjoy porn, and maybe it will liven things up for both of you and he will watch it less. To be honest I find critiquing the performances in porn clips to be very amusing, and have noticed that when I get particularly catty my significant other will turn it off rather than have me ruin the experience for him.