STORY STATEMENT
Covid thrusts a working parent into full-time fatherhood where he must raise his young son in a world not accustomed to fathers.
Thus begins a journey of discovery, exploration, identity, and learning as father and son sprint and stumble through life.
ANTAGONIST
There is no clearcut bad guy, no ultimate villain in my memoir. Instead, there are several antagonists or “antagonistic forces.”
My Own Demons
Parenthood is as much about the child as it is the parent. I grew up in a household, in a family that was starkly different than the one I have now. And I carried that, held onto all of those things well into adulthood.
What manifested was this myriad of traits. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. An explosive temper. Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity disorder. And in my journey to successfully raise a young child, these are the demons that are persistent and manifest in ugly ways.
The Outside World
The looks from mothers at the playground, and the questions that subsequently followed. A trip to Costco at peak hour with an irritable toddler. A jaunt through the clubbing district of a large city at midnight with a sleeping child in stroller.
As a full-time father, the outside world is this force that shakes you, that makes you question who you are, what you are doing, and if you are doing the right thing. It is a force that is at once isolating but also one that you must participate in.
My Child
Poop accidents in the bathtub, carefully prepared food thrown on the floor, meltdowns in crowded public places. Children can be these unpredictable forces of chaos and destruction that test everything within you.
BREAKOUT TITLE
A Father and His Son – This is fairly simple and straightforward.
The Only Dad at the Playground – An enticing proposition with promise of intrigue.
Forming a Bond: A Full-time Father and His Son’s Journey – More descriptive and evocative than the first title.
Honorable Mention
Leo and Me – A simple but endearing title.
COMPARABLES
Raising Raffi: The First Five Years by Keith Gessen
Written out of the need to share and communicate his experiences and journey, Keith Gessen offers a starkly candid view about fatherhood and all its highs and lows, all its challenges and joyous moments. My own manuscript echoes the motivation, theme, and style found in Raising Raffi, and ultimately the hopes and dreams of a father with his child.
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year by Anne Lamott
Raw and at times irreverent, Anne Lamott offers an unfiltered window into the world of rearing children. The format is journal entries, each day a new adventure, a new challenge, a new absurd situation, written in a way that is open and vulnerable, honest and endearing. My own manuscript is formatted as journal entries, and like Lamott, I strove to keep my writing honest, open, and vulnerable.
Honorable Mention
The Ultimate Stay-at-Home Dad by Shannon Carpenter
Practical advice from a full-time father written with humor and relatability in mind. Everything from how to pick out the best stroller to seeking solutions for anxiety and stress, The Ultimate Stay-at-Home Dad is a guide to being a better father and a better human being. My own work is a balance of storytelling and advice, with the ultimate goal of sharing and helping others who may be on the same path.
CONFLICT AND CORE WOUND
A new full-time father, pulled by internal and external forces, must find a way to raise a child in a post-Covid era where his world has flipped upside down.
OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT
Inner Conflict Conditions
There are these internal forces that plague all parents. As a father, it was hard for me to identify, to reflect, to mitigate those negative voices that spill over into a child’s life. I found myself thinking about the younger days, before kids, when I was free from responsibility. I thought about my previous identity, this working adult that was successful and earning praise and promotions. I dwelled on the influence my parent’s had on my own parenting style, my own ticks and traits that I didn’t want my child to inherit. It was this battle, this reckoning between what and who I was, and what my current reality looked like.
Hypothetical Scenario – Inner Conflict
I make this lovely dinner for Leo, carefully prepared to his liking. He takes one look at it, frowns, and refuses to eat. For the next hour, I battle him, coaxing and negotiating, bribing and threatening him. He takes a few bites, most of it ends up on the floor, and I lose it. My anger erupts, and I yell and send him to his room. Food is this trigger point because I was raised on this idea of not wasting food, and this idea that cooking for someone is an act of love.
Interpersonal Conflicts
Parents – I want my children to see and to love their grandparents. When they do come and visit, I am too often reminded about the way I was raised and it is this double pain, the pain from my own childhood and the pain of seeing my children experience the same treatment.
The Wife – She is the most important person in my life. The one whose words matter. Her advice about raising children or her commentary about me as an individual trigger an instinctive defensive reflex. I hear the words but they are like knives, piercing into me and making me feel like I have holes. I have always been sensitive to feedback, a byproduct of my own upbringing.
Hypothetical Scenario – Secondary Conflict
It’s the first day of preschool for Leo. He’s nervous about meeting new friends, seeing his teacher, and being in a new environment. I’m nervous for other reasons. I walk into the school holding Leo’s hand and we are immediately greeted by a cacophony of noise – children shouting, screaming, and parents yelling. I’m the only dad, and the moms all turn to stare at me. I force a smile. A few minutes later and one of the moms pops the dreaded question, “So what do you do for a living?” My face gets hot and my mind races, struggling to come up with an alternative to “full-time father.”
SETTING
In a world where daycares around the country are closed due to Covid, a father must forfeit his career to raise a child at home. Home is a battleground, this cramped apartment overflowing with teethers and plushie toys, unorganized shelves of junk, and dirty clothes and dishes. There is little room to breathe, little room for escape.
It is within these walls that he must find a way to persevere, to raise his son. It is within these confines that he must teach and mentor, must play and guide, must admonish and discipline. With boundless energy and enthusiastic curiosity, the child explores his home, often with sticky, unwashed hands and a penchant for throwing things.
There are other places. The playground, the supermarket, the preschool. There is less control in these places, more opportunity for shame when the child is inconsolable and others are looking on, more opportunity for harm when the child is bullied by a peer and the parent must restrain his fury, more opportunity for judgment when the father is the only dad at the playground.
But a child needs both. The inside world and the outside world, and the father must negotiate and navigate between the two, while keeping his sanity.