This role asked a man to stop being what society has always told us what a man is and step up and be a redefine what a real man is.
If you have never seen this film, go watch it right now. There are spoilers galore in this piece becasue the movie is 30 years old.
The film starts when we see a man who has it all. He has a hot wife, kids, the house and the job to pay for it all.
Then the job goes away.
The his wife finds work and it pays really well and now he is going to take care of the house.
This is where the comedy and the tragedy blur lines and take you on a journey that a lot of men have faced over the last few decades and it's something I've faced myself.
How I became The Movie Whore is becasue I was a Mr. Mom.
Society defines men by what they do for a living to provide for their families. For man to have that taken from him after a life time of programming, well, let's just say the movie is funnier than the reality.
We see evidence of this in the film when Mr. Mom goes to the company picnic and is looked down on by the rest of the guys his wife works with, becasue he's Mr. Mom and that isn't very manly. To try and regain some measure of his masculinity which has been blatantly attacked, he way over performs in a little kid like obstacle course race, embarrassing himself and his wife.
Mr Mom's go through a time where they feel emasculated and it comes from all angles.
Stop for moment and think about it. What do think of a when you think of a family man?
Did you think about a man cleaning his house, doing laundry, making dinner, helping with homework, listening to every bodies problems?
I doubt it and as you were reading that last question somewhere in the back of your head it said that this was a wife's job. Even the women had that thought and it's ok, it's been programmed into us all.
I went through a period of this feeling myself.
What was interesting was making friends with the girls. For me this was no big deal like it is in the flick. I always had mostly women friends. I like them more than hanging out with guys where everything is a competition. Funny thing is, this is the same reasoning I have heard from women who have always had more male friends. Women are too competitive with each other.
However I never had all my women friends take me to a male strip club for a night out with the girls. Honestly I don't know what I would do if they did. Mr. Mom handled it like a man. Just went through it and made the best of it and ended up having more fun then he thought he could.
That's just how men are, we'll go along with it at first just to see where it is going. We are very curious that way. Besides we have a hard time telling women no, we hate hurting your feelings but don't know what to do when you give you an honest answer and you get mad at us.
Mr. Mom has hard time with the housework and the kids at first. He's used to dealing with adults who do what he tells them and have a job to do and he doesn't have to know what they are doing at every moment of the day.
Kids on the other hand, these kids give poor old Mr. Mom a run for his money, no they kick his ass at first. A baby eating chili, a grilled cheese made with an iron and it gets worse from there.
I had a good head start for my experience. I did a lot of the cooking and grocery shopping for my mom when I was old enough to drive. I helped her plan the menus and make the list and then she gave me the atm and the car keys. I guess I was a responsible kid.
My mom taught me how to clean the house and I did it every week.
The Air Force made me clean like a mother fucker, and they taught me to iron my own shit, they taught me to be responsible for me.
My second wife let me really see all the work she does. She gave me the back stage pass into what it takes to be mom. She even tried to help me be a better dad. If only she had been a better wife... She knows I say these things and she says similar.
Being a single father with an 18 month old, well my son teaches me everything else I need to know. Him and his sisters, my 3 step daughters whom I love every bit as much as my son. They are 4 incredible kids and they make me a very proud father who just happens to play Mr. Mom for a living.
Mr. Mom also fell into the blunder I found myself in. He ended up a fat lazy slob watching soap operas all day with the house falling down around him. Me, I ended up with a stumble and flash game addiction and then I discovered blogging. Holy Shit was this a bad thing for the rest of the world.
Wait a minute, you mean I can write some shit and throw it out there for the world to read and talk about this shit with people all over the world. SIGN ME THE FUCK UP NOW!
I like to talk to people more than I like to just throw shit out there. I want to hear your opinions. Look at this way, I spent over a decade in customer service call centers in every position but running the center itself. I am used to talking to people all day about their problems for a living. I like it, I love it, I am programmed to it.
When Mr. Mom started to see the world of disarray that had become his life, he did what any real man would do, he took charge and fixed that shit and started with himself. He started with himself and brought everyone with him.
He didn't just get himself better, he got his kids better, he got his wife better, he was getting his girlfriends better. Once he accepted it and owned it like a man, well there was no one that was going to stop that man from taking care of his family, just in a different way.
He didn't do it Mom's way, he did his way, he just had to figure out what that should look like.
I had help before I ever even got here.
Being Mr. Mom didn't make him less of a man, it revealed the real man that had been hidden for far too long.
I like to think I am on that track myself. I try like hell and when I look into the eyes of my wife and my kids and my friends, I know they see a real man. Now I got a house clean and laundry to do and school paperwork to finish up and wife to have lunch with on her lunch break.
Have fun kids and go watch MR. MOM right now and then go call that man you know who is doing the job and see how he's doing. I bet he is bored as shit and waiting for the phone to ring. I know I am.
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