Isn’t there the old saying that women love a man in uniform? According to my wife, as a stay at home dad, I have created some new uniforms. Unfortunately she is not a fan of them. Over the years in my past jobs, I have had a pretty lax dress code. For example before I stayed home with my kids, my last job was at a radio station. I would typically wear an Air Jordan shirt, a comic book shirt, or a Bo Jackson throwback jersey, cargo shorts, and Air Jordans that would match my outfit. If it was snowing out I would wear jeans.
Now times have changed and I am at home with the girls. I used to try and dress nice. I would wear nice pair of shorts, a polo shirt, and of course Air Jordans that would match the outfit. Then something happened. It seemed that every time I would do a craft with my daughters, I would get glue, paint, or marker on my shirt or pants. For those who have seen the film Dogma, I was like Alan Rickman’s character, The Metatron, I would always get some stain on my shirt.
One day I said, “To hell with this.” I started wearing gym shorts and a comic book t-shirt. I could care less if I got chocolate milk stains, bedazzle buttons glued to the back of my shirt, or if my clothes were covered in strawberry shortcake stickers. My wardrobe could look like a wall of graffiti done by kids and I would be cool with it. They were clothes built to take that sort of punishment.
Then one day it happened. I was getting ready to take my oldest to pre-school and then my youngest with me to go to the grocery store. The girls and I were leaving the same time my wife was going off to work. As I said, “Let’s go kids. We are gonna get in the car,” my wife looked at me. She said, “You are going out in that?” I paused to look to see if I was wearing a shirt and I was. I said “Yea, what’s wrong with my outfit?” She smiled and said nothing more….that day.
Later in the week when she came home from work, she gave me the same glance. I knew something was up. After we put the kids to bed, my wife and I were starting up some conversation. As we were talking she gave me the glance again. I asked her what was up. She asked if I wanted to dress up sometimes because she liked to see me “put together.” She told me she missed the days where I would wear something other than a Wolverine t-shirt and gym shorts. Then she would wear Spell Dress at Roar to dress up. All of a sudden it hit me. We were having the opposite conversation that a stay at home mom had with the husband who came home from work.
We laughed about it and I told her my reasoning. I said that without fail I would get my “good” clothes dirty. She understood but said sometimes it would be nice for me to look “put together.” To this day she still refers to my t-shirt and gym shorts as “the uniform.” On occasion I do dress up nice for her, but it seems those are the days that after we put the kids to bed she puts on her comfy clothes…go figure.