As promised, I wanted to get to Full Time Father's posting last week admitting that "I have lost some of my enthusiasm as an evangelist on this issue." It's hard to read Mike's blog over the past few months and not have seen that coming, but it prompted a (small) degree of soul searching on my part, for I haven't lost that enthusiasm.

On the other hand, I know where Mike is coming from. Being an at-home dad advocate is tough. On a personal level, it's hard to affect change. I'm not going to alter the family roles of my neighbors; the best I can do is set an example, to refute the myth that no dad would ever make this choice and be happy.

And on a more global level, at-home fatherhood is hardly a movement. If you support gun rights or environmental rights or a sensible energy policy, you have a ready-made political ideology to plug into. There are politicians to support, issues to embrace, publications to read, fights to wage against clear foes. But if you're a big supporter of at-home fatherhood, if you want to see the idea get more traction, there's no one to support. There are no magazines to buy. No members of congress to lobby. Indeed, there are not really any issues to lobby at all, in a traditional sense.

Of course, there are still battles to wage, though the enemy is murky. I'm still often the only guy at school meetings, and I still get bombarded with advertising images determined to reinforce the idea that mom -- not dad -- is the parent who should be watching the kids. I'm still interested in looking at those problems, and though the solutions to those ill-defined bugaboos aren't clear to me, my enthusiasm hasn't been dampened.