For those who don’t know I am a stay at home dad. I am very lucky that I get to be there for my kids. I take them to school in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. While they are at school you will find me at home doing work for Life of Dad. On Friday mornings after I drop off my children at school I do my weekly grocery shopping. I do this for two major reasons. One reason is that I am a creature of habit. The second reason that I do this is so my family and I can enjoy the weekends and not have to spend time at the grocery store. Most at home parents (moms and dads) do the shopping during the week for that very same reason.

Last Friday after I took the kids to school I went to the store to get the weekly food shopping done. I got all the items off my list and went to the cashier. I was wearing my Life of Dad hoodie and the clerk who was ringing up my items looked at my hoodie and then looked at me. After his initial scan of sizing loidhoodieme up he says to me with a smirk, “Life of Dad? Shouldn’t the Life of Mom be doing the grocery shopping?”

I took a brief pause before I answered his question. It seemed that he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that a dad can be the one doing the grocery shopping. You see ever since I have been the one to be at home with my kids I have come across people who find my choice of being the at home dad very interesting. It sometimes is seen in a positive light, while other times people look at me like I have three heads. I get it. There are some who are “old school” and feel that the mom should be at home with the kids. Others are cool with the concept of a dad being the one staying at home with the kids. It is a 50/50 mix from my experience.

Heck even one time while I was with my daughters at the mall shopping for birthday presents for my wife, a clerk asked me if my wife knew where I was. She seemed shocked that (A) my wife would let me take my kids to the mall without her and (B) she didn’t need to know my whereabouts. I politely told her that I am a stay at home dad and I am with my children all the time. I went a bit further to say that if I told my wife what I was doing she wouldn’t be surprised when she opened up her gifts on her birthday. It seemed like an okay reason to her. Thankfully she let me purchase the items from her store.

Let’s get back to the grocery store clerk who feels that a woman should be the one to do the grocery shopping. I wasn’t going to give him the old stand-by answer of how the world is changing. No, I felt like he wouldn’t buy that notion. So I just went with the cold, hard facts.

I told him that I work from home and that I am fortunate enough to take my kids to school and pick them up in the afternoon. He asked me what I did and I gave him the short version. I started to see some understanding from his facial expression. He seemed to now accept me as a man. Phew…..I was nervous there for a minute. After that we started to talk about Star Wars, comic books, and the Batman versus Superman film that is going to come out in a few months. I am pretty sure that he forgot that he was talking to a stay at home dad. I didn’t want to bring up that subject with him again. I didn’t want to share another awkward moment with him. Thankfully for the store clerk the next two customers were women who each had their kids with them.