Though I've done lots of deep thinking about at-home fathers of late -- the convention is coming up, I have articles to write and a book proposal that is becoming more and more solidly formed in my mind -- I want to get some anecdotes out of my mind and onto paper.

When DW and I (of all the S.A.H.D. shorthand I've picked up, I think I like DW -- for "darling wife," I hope -- best) were newlyweds, we had a running joke about who would get to be the housespouse when the children arrived. Everytime I made dinner, or DW did the laundry, we would loudly award outselves housespouse points, a mostly-humorous way of lobbying for the position of at-home parent. This repartee always ended the same way: DW would declare that pregnancy and childbirth were worth so many housespouse points that no amount of laundry would ever put me in the lead. If there was at-home parenthood to be had, she would get first crack. And nothing about the pregnancy invalidated that. Even the two of us, the thoroughly modern couple, operated for years with the idea that if anyone was to stay home, it would be mom.

As it turns out, DW found her chosen career to be stellar and engaging. And my paternity leave turned out to be deeply moving. We both realized that housespouse points or not, we were both being driven in different directions. It wasn't that I hated work or that she prefered it to home life -- a skip-dinner workaholic she ain't. It was just that we realized that we needed different mixes to remain fulfilled. So when the time came -- all of sudden -- we made a choice that put me in the minority. But it was a good choice, and one that I wish more men had.