WHY?

I'm sure some people would ask me why I'm a stay at home dad. I mean, I'm sure that being in sales, if I worked really hard for someone else and bring in some really big accounts, that maybe I could make the money to hire someone to watch over Katie. Or maybe I could bring Kim home, but I would just have to travel a lot (but it would all be worth it, right?)

For me, every morning when I wake up and I see that smiling beautiful face look up at me with all the trust and love that little body can muster, it gives me the greatest responsibility in the world to make sure that that little girl gets the best opportunity she can possibly get and I know that her mom and I are the ones that can give that to her. My goal is to not only be able to bring home my wife so that she can experience the same amount of joy that I get to experience every single day but to show the opportunity to others to be able to experience life as it should be experienced and to not have all of your energy sapped away by some lifeless building, all so you can get a meager existence of a paycheck and very little of a so called life. There HAS to be and there IS a greater hope out there for every single one of us and sadly, corporate america is not where it is. We have been failed way too many times by the false promises of "career advancement" and a "3% raise" plus some slap in the face bonus maybe, if we're lucky, at the end of the year. It's time that, one by one, we take our families back and we take our time and our freedoms back to the ways it used to be.

Honestly, how many people out there can say that in 20 years, they'll have stories to tell of the "good ol days" of having mom bake cookies when you get home from school or that family vacation you all went on when dad made you get up at 5:00 in the morning and you all crammed into the back of the car but got to stay at week at the beach? How many less people will be able to say they remember the times they got to toss the ball around with dad in the backyard because dad actually had time to spend with them? Sadly, most will probably have the story of the video games they played and that "I guess mom and dad loved us but we rarely saw dad and mom was always so tired that if we were lucky, we'd get a home cooked meal once a week."

I'm trying not to be pessamistic. I've really become more of a realist over the years. I just look around and see the facts all around me in my neighborhood. A dad that's gone an entire week because he has to work out of state to make money to support his family. I see a soon to be couple that is about to have twins and who are already looking at working into their 60s just to be able to have the extra money needed to make ends meet. I see a couple that passes like two ships in the night, because one has to take a 3rd shift job while the other works 1st shift. Please stop me if you've heard any of these or if any of these sound familiar. Wake up America! Sadly, this isn't a dream. This is a cold splash of reality hitting you right in the face. It's time for all of us to take our families back!