The Only Book Dads Need: Babyproofing Your Marriage

Every once in a while I step back from my laptop and actually read something. Sometimes this reading consists of the liner notes to AC DC's Back in Black or the box score in the Sports page. But sometimes this so-called reading actually involves a book. This time it was a book that I never thought I would actually read. The cover screamed "boring self-help chick book" but despite all the warning signs, I actually sat down and read it. And I have to be honest guys, this will be the best book you will ever read. Reading this book, Babyproofing Your Marriage by Stacie Cockrell, Cathy O'Neill, and Julia Stone will feel like the authors abducted you in the middle of the night and downloaded your brain like some alien abduction. I sat on my couch nodding my head in agreement page after page: it was that creepy how well they have us guys figured out.

The authors are 3 married women who are some cool ladies. And even better, they clearly aren't the type of authors that pass judgment on dudes. They took the time to answer 10 questions from yours truly in which we discussed ponytails, blowjobs, spanking your wife, and being a better husband:

Noodad: You have some real honest quotes from dads in this book. I sat there reading and nodding my head in agreement not ever realizing they were my exact feelings in the first place! I know you guaranteed anonymity but how in the world did you find guys who could articulate their feelings so perfectly?

It’s amazing what you can get a guy to say when you ply him with enough beer and chicken wings, which is exactly what we did.  In writing Babyproofing Your Marriage, we spoke to hundreds of men around the country, and boy, did they give us an earful.  Like you, most men who’ve read it tell us that it portrays very accurately how they feel about their post-baby lives. They’ve told us they’ve handed the book to their wives and said, “Hey, read this quote. This guy sounds exactly like me.” 

The men in the book are regular guys – the kind you’d want to hang out with.  We, too, were a little surprised when these lovely, humorous, articulate thoughts came pouring out.  We think they speak so well simply because they care so much about their wives and families and want to do the best they can by them.  Just like women, they want to understand how parenthood has changed their relationships and what they can do to keep the family ship on its intended course. 

{mosnooad}Noodad: On your list of the Top Ten Convenience Cards That Husbands Use (when it comes to watching the kids) you list as #8: Do we really have to fix her hair? Can't it just be messy this one day? I am in the camp that the pain inflicted when putting hair in tight ponytails and pigtails is child abuse. Can I get any support from you guys? 

Absolutely, though for the record, we are not proponents of letting your kids run around looking like ratty-haired street urchins all the time.  The main source of conflict here is that dads just want things done, but moms want things done right.  We women have this Mommy Chip that starts humming 24/7 after we have kids, and it can make us, uh, a tad compulsive.  Doing the best for our children can get carried out to the smallest detail.  We want the hair in a cute ponytail because it shows the world that we are good mothers who can properly care for our children.

Our advice to women on this issue is:  sometimes good enough is good enough.  If your husband doesn’t parent or housekeep the way you do, sometimes you’ve got to say who the hell cares?  Shortcuts can be a good thing!  In the grand scheme of things, it’s not going to matter if the kids go to church dressed in football jerseys or spend an entire Saturday in their pajamas.  We need to learn to occasionally dial down the perfect-o-meter.

But, guys, hairbrushing is one thing, essential parenting functions are another, and they don’t qualify for the shortcut treatment.  When you are in charge for the evening and you make that same old “we can skip the baths and teeth brushing just this one night” rationalization, you are thinking too short term.  It’s not just surviving for a few hours, it’s investing for the long run.  Making less work for yourself is all well and good, but they’re your kids, too, so see it through.  As one woman told us, “It’s like my husband wants to coach the team to victory, but he’s not willing to attend practice in the rain.”   

The trick is to narrow the gap between how you see a chore and how she sees a chore.  In this case, skip the pigtails, but at least brush your daughter’s hair.

Noodad: All three of you are happily married and have claimed to have served as crash test dummies for everything you have recommended. Were there any ideas that failed miserably when you tried them out on your husbands? 

While the Training Weekend (i.e. leaving our husbands alone with the kids for 48 hours so they get the full-on childcare experience), was a great experiment for two of us, Cathy’s husband’s didn’t quite go as planned. He broke the rules and called in his mother. His was more of a Training Day than a Weekend.  We wouldn’t say any of them went wrong exactly. It’s more like being willing to live with the consequences of a solution — like what your house (and children) can look and smell like after Dad’s been in charge all weekend. 

Noodad: Some of the scenarios that you describe in your "In-Laws and Outlaws" chapter let's just say…resonate with me. But in my case both sets of grandparents live out of state and are seen infrequently. Is it even worth it to try and fix things or do we just ride out the week long yearly visit and start stockpiling our confidence for next year's visit? 

Well, we talk in the book about Zen and the Art of Family Maintenance.  Our extended families are among the tiny handful of people who love our kids as much as we do.  There is room for them in your family nest, no matter how insane they can make you.  Unless they are dangerous and/or downright nasty, it’s important to find a way to include them, even if it means holding your nose sometimes. 

That said, though, if you and your spouse are playing on the same team, you can do a lot to ameliorate the stress.  To help, we created the BPYM Family Management Plan, the cornerstone of which is to Recognize the Pecking Order.  The org chart is pretty simple – spouse and kids first, everyone else second.  This doesn’t mean we should all cut off contact with our families – it just means that putting our ‘old’ family ahead of our ‘new’ family can be really destructive.  It is effectively saying to your spouse, “They are more important to me than you are,” which isn’t exactly good for a marriage.

Two more thoughts:  Good Fences Make Good In-Laws and Run Interference.   The two of you should talk about, and agree upon, your boundaries and how you will communicate them to your respective families. How often will your wife’s mom (or yours) visit?  Should she call first or just drop by?  What constitutes a violation?  Furthermore, you have to get each other’s backs.  Should an unfortunate interventionist incident occur, you have to run interference with your own family.  It is your mess to clean up.  Don’t send your spouse into your battleground. 

And for the record, most grandparents told us they really do just want to help and wouldn’t dream of trying to interfere.  We have a section for them to read as well, so they can understand how you feel about it.  They should always respect your parental authority, and they should never try to come between you and your spouse.

Noodad: Ok. You knew I had to ask it. How in the world could any man not like any book that recommends to moms to give their husbands blowjobs once a week? I know you call it a band-aid but I wouldn't sell that gesture too short. I assume every man you ask would be in favor of this method. How has the reaction from women readers been? 

We can assure you we’ve paid a high price for this one, so we hope you all appreciate it!  Many of our girlfriends have threatened to disown us, and we’ve even had our very femininity questioned because what woman in her right mind would ever suggest such a thing… We suggested it because we think it’s a possible strategy to address the supply/demand issue that occurs in the bedroom after baby.  The thing is, in an ideal world a couple with young children would always both want sex at the same time (with each other, obviously), and it would be preceded by lots of cuddling and afterwards they’d snuggle all night underneath a starry sky.  But in the real world of diapers and sleep deprivation and Mom not feeling too thrilled about her naked self a lot of the time, sex is not always so straightforward.  Dad’s often in the mood but Mom’s sex drive has gone MIA.  So what do you do?  A friend of ours suggested this imbalance can occasionally be redressed with the Five Minute Fix, because hey, it only takes five minutes and he’ll be thrilled. We had a good laugh about the whole thing and thought – what the hell – let’s put it in the book.

We’ve heard one man after another say, “God, that would transform my marriage!” so we know none of you would sell the idea short, but it is a bit of a band-aid in the sense that there are many complex reasons behind the post-baby sexual disconnect that take more than five minutes to address.  Those issues require some heavy lifting on both your parts to overcome.  We call this disconnect the Hound Dog-Ice Queen Vortex because it can be a whirlwind of hurt feelings and resentment that just suck the two of you into a really vicious cycle.  While we have plenty of advice for women, if any of your male readers find themselves floundering in the Vortex and are wondering how to extract themselves, here are some suggestions:  

First, understand there are a lot of really good reasons why your wife may have lost interest in sex – fear of another pregnancy, exhaustion, body image issues, the Ick Factor (too many vile bodily fluids already in her day), Mommy Brain (thinking 24/7 about the kids), and resentment at feeling merely convenient when your efforts at romance are reduced to a Ten O’Clock Shoulder Tap at the end of a long day.  These are not minor issues.  It’s not as much about rejecting you as you may feel.  Let her talk to you about some of this stuff (and of course respond to it with a great deal of empathy and acknowledgement).

Second, Stop the Tap!  It’s never going to get a tired mom in the mood.  Try to find some words to tell her how you feel, don’t just give her a paw on the shoulder as she’s collapsing into bed.  We girls need to feel loved and appreciated, not just convenient. 

Third, you should Redefine Foreplay.  We girls need some time to slough off the mantle of motherhood in order to make the transition to mistress.  You can pick up the evening chores so your wife has a chance to take a hot bath and relax.  Believe us when we tell you that doing the dishes, putting away the toys and picking up underpants in the hallway won’t rev any gal up for a night in the sack. 

And finally, Remember the R Word.  For many of you guys, romance can fall off your radar once you’ve bagged yourselves a deer.  But the thought still counts, and always will, for most women.  Plan date nights yourself (you do not need a special code to talk to a babysitter), or actively put some kind of effort into your relationship.  Try a note, a gesture, a heartfelt conversation, or a night out where you try to get her drunk and make her laugh the way you used to – just because she’s not going anywhere doesn’t mean she doesn’t still want to be wooed from time to time.   

Noodad: I thought I was the only one that sometimes drives home from work under the speed limit to avoid an extra 5 minutes of kid mayhem when I get home. reading about that made me feel like I wasn't a crazy kid-resenting husband and father. Were tidbits of information like this things wives always assumed, or did it open your eyes a little bit? 

We are so on to you, you have no idea.  We also know when you are hiding out in the bathroom, and we don’t give you one ounce of credit for raising your posterior ever-so-slightly off the couch with an “I’ll get that, Honey,” when you don’t really mean it.  Our own husbands and plenty of other guys (ie: The Great Escapees), all took up an extremely time-intensive new hobby (marathoning, cycling, fishing, campaign work) coincidentally with the birth of our second children. You think we don’t notice these things??

But we can’t blame you, because parenting is hard work, and we all look for ways to take the edge off sometimes, like stalling five minutes on the way home.  Every couple gets into some pretty nasty scraps about the division of labor – who is working harder and who has it tougher – because there is so much to do and there are so few breaks from the assembly line.  But endless tit-for-tat Scorekeeping can wreak havoc on your relationship, so it’s important to sign a peace treaty.

How do you do it?  One, make a List of Everything that has to get done, from daily grind chores like cooking and cleaning, to big picture musts like earning a paycheck and finding the right preschool.  When you both see the mountain that lies before you, you’ll realize the only way to climb it is to scale it together.  Then, Divide and Conquer — divvy it up and get it done if it’s on your plate.  Don’t start looking for the nearest escape hatch.  Be generous with your appreciation and validation.  “You’re a great Mom or Dad, and I appreciate how much you’re doing for me and the kids,” is all anyone is looking to hear.  Also, be generous with the Get Out of Jail Free Cards.  Give each other some time off the leash to pursue the things that genuinely recharge and renew you.

Noodad: Your hypothetical situation of the guy who comes home from a business trip and expects to get some action that night is spot on. These types of stories are helpful for women to understand how men think but it also reinforces for men that we aren't sex-crazed, just well…men. This story fit me perfectly. Do you find that other men feel this is spot-on too and does that mean us men really are all the same? 

There’s the occasional story of a wife who is more interested in sex than her husband, but for the most part, yeah, you men are all alike.  We never wanted to resort to stereotypes, but certainly there were trends and common themes.  Men and women react so differently to parenthood.  We’re glad you felt that story got it right.  It was important to us to get BOTH the male and female perspectives right, not just about sex, but about every subject that arises after a couple has kids.  We hope it will set off a few light bulbs on both sides of the Great Mom/Dad Divide.  We also hope it will help readers understand that these post-parenthood issues are universal, not personal.  We’re all going through the same thing.  This realization can change the conversation in an instant from “Why are you doing this to me?” to “What are we going to do about this?” and that can make all the difference in the world.

Noodad: For a lot of people, the process of being pregnant, giving birth, and starting a new dynamic with a newborn can be the instance that triggers a lot of these problems. Have you met with any adoptive parents and do you have any advice that may specifically pertain to them? 

When you bring a child through your front door, no matter where that child comes from, you are bringing another person into your marriage and family dynamic, and all this stuff is the same.  We did include many adoptive parents in our discussions and they reported the same experiences as the biological parents did.  Yes, there are issues during the pregnancy and breastfeeding stages that adoptive parents don’t necessarily have, but the division of labor, sex and in-law pressures are the same, and we think all our solutions apply equally to both types of growing families. 

Noodad: One of our bestselling T-shirts (in the Noodad Store)has the line, "Spank Your Wife, Not Your Kids" . This has been met with some controversy by women who feel it is degrading to women. As women, (and moms), would you feel embarrassed if your husbands wore it? 

Mortified!  But we get it. 

Noodad: These days, people like to talk about how the new type of dad is a more engaged, more involved type of father. We witness that with our reader base, but do you see this as being a true trend in the world today, or just a story overhyped by the media? 

Not sure we can comment fairly about it as an international phenomenon, but certainly, we think it’s true for all the men we spoke to in writing this book (our own dedicated, hard-working and henpecked husbands included.)  Like we said earlier, most guys, at least the ones we know, really are doing their damnedest to get it right.  They work hard to support their families and they choose to be heavily involved in their role as parent.  It goes way beyond just coaching the kids’ soccer team.  It’s curiosity about their children’s intellectual and emotional development, it’s working to create a happy home and happy memories, it’s about being there for all of it, the good the bad and the ugly, as their kids grow up.  These conversations brought tears to our eyes on many occasions, and we’re not particularly weepy women.

There’s still a lot of disagreement out there between men and women about what “hands on” really entails and what “co-parenting” nirvana really looks like.  The male and female versions of the picture can look quite different, and that’s where the conflicts arise.  Most couples we know are muddling their way forward with the best of intentions but no clear roadmap.  We hope this book will help them appreciate those good intentions in their partner, and give them some tools for practical problem-solving, so they can narrow the gap and reconnect with each other and enjoy the experience of parenting more fully.

Guys, if you can only read one book after your kid is born, this should be it. You will walk away learning 2 things: That there are other guys out there that feel and do the same things you do, and that there is a way to get some more action from your wife.

Buy this book and check out the book's website and blog .

Good luck noodads.