Men in My World, or My Date with a Cop

My daily world, that of a suburban stay-at-home-mom, is almost free of men in my little corner of Connecticut. But recently, men have been appearing in odd places and much more frequently than before.

Take my living room for example, a few weeks ago we had a playdate with a neighbor girl and her dad, a police officer, came because her mom was at work. And it was odd, at first, to have this big, muscular, tan (and shirtless) man sprawled out on my living room floor playing Pet Shop (eat your heart out, straight moms--you know the neighbor of which I speak and you've oggled him before). But he's genial and smart and I've known his family for years (can you believe we've been here for 7 years this month?) so we soon got to talking about all manner of things, including the overlap of museum education and police work, of all things, highlighted in a recent Smithsonian magazine about a museum educator who works with cops to expand and strengthen their visual analysis skills using artworks at the Met.

And now there are dads at pick-up and drop-off at school. One dad, I know, has been unemployed since February and was, no doubt at first, anxious about appearing at school. But now there are 2-3 others, though I don't know if they are unemployed or intentional stay-at-home-dads. One of them is organizing a playdate at a park for the kids. We nod and smile, just like I do with the moms.

And then, some of these dads were at the school field trip yesterday. And it was strange to watch the gender dynamics play out. Three of the dads stood to my left talking about weather while three moms stood to my right talking about morning sickness and I stood in between, going back and forth between discussions. Of course, I'm a mom but I'm just not that interested in rehashing pregnancy troubles with virtual strangers, especially with men standing nearby, but I felt odd abandonning the moms for the dads. Each group otherwise ignored the other for the half an hour that we waited for the rest of the group to get back from the hayride. Thankfully, the kids soon showed up and we could all separate to take pictures. I wonder if anyone else thought it was odd and awkward?

Not that I want you to get the impression that I don't want men around. I'm as fine socializing with men as with women; sometimes it's even easier, depending on the man or the woman. I'm just acknowledging that the social landscape has changed here and there are just more dads at home.

Finally, there is now a man working at my workout place, which until now has been almost exclusively the domain of women PTs and staff (there are male patients, of course). He's a nice enough guy, very quiet, and I check in with him everyday. But I miss the young, athletic, friendly dyke who had done that job for the last two years.

But perhaps that's an entirely different story . . . . :)