An open letter from parent bloggers... thousands of us.

Today I'm participating in a blog in.  Thousands of us, parents and bloggers, are doing this.   We're standing up and telling the 2012 Presidential Candidates that their bullshit will not fly this election cycle.  We will no longer tolerate birtherism as a campaign platform; a non-existent class warfare claim by the people who have been waging class warfare for on the 99% of non-millionaire Americans for the last thirty years; the lies that are passed of as facts and spun by your sycophants at your fake news organization; we will not accept your ignorance as a badge of honor nor your pride in your own mediocrity, your hypocrisy and your hatred and fundamental lack of humanity when it comes to the actual concerns of 99% of Americans.  We are on to you and we expect better for ALL Americans.  You've been put on notice. 

Dear 2012 Presidential Candidates, We are your future constituents and we are parents. We are American mothers and fathers and grandparents and guardians. Our families might be the most diverse in the world. Blended and combined in endless permutations, we represent every major religion, political ideology and ethnic culture that exists. We are made from equal parts biology and choice. Our children come to us in every way possible—including fertility miracles, adoption, and remarriage. Our very modern families embody the freedom that defines America.

We embody America. We are rich in diversity, but we are united in our family values. We come together today, with one voice, to express our grave disappointment in the national political discourse.

The 2012 countdown has barely begun and we are already being bombarded with the warmed-over, hypocritical rhetoric of 2008. We are living in a time where 25% of Americans now live in poverty, the unemployment rate stands at 16%, and we are spending close to $170 billion annually between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Given the current state of affairs we would expect every candidate to focus on the issues that truly matter: job creation, debt-relief, taxes, education, poverty, and ending the war(s). Instead, it is already clear to us that the conversation has been hijacked, with the goal of further polarizing our nation into a politically motivated and falsely created class-war.

We will not stand for another campaign year in which politicians presume to know what our family values are as they relate to the nation. To be clear, here are our family values: Affordable health care, including family planning, for all Americans.

We will not tolerate any candidate using the shield of “Choice” to blind us from the issues that really matter. When funding is stripped from organizations like Planned Parenthood, access to sliding-scale health care (including yearly pap smears & mammograms), comprehensive sex education, and family planning is blocked from the poorest of the population.

Access to education, and the ability to actually use it. We want quality, affordable, federally-funded pre-K programs made available in every State, in order to provide an even starting point for all children enrolled in public schools— regardless of the wealth of the district or town they live in.

A reinstatement of regulations, beginning with the Glass/Stegal Act, for banks issuing mortgages and full prosecution for those who engaged in fraudulent lending practices. We want full accountability —investigation, indictment and prosecution— of those individuals and institutions who engaged in fraudulent lending practices and who helped create the massive foreclosures that left many families homeless or struggling to keep their homes.

A return of strict environmental regulations protecting water, air, food, and land that were removed in the last two decades. We want our children to grow up in a world not weighed down by the strains of pollution and global warming. Between BPA in our products, sky-rocketing rates of asthma in kids, questionable hormones in our over-processed food, and more, we need leaders who will put our needs and safety over the desires and profits of large corporations.

Family planning, healthcare, education, economic solvency and environmental safety: these are our national family values. Candidates who demonstrate the ability to understand the gravity of these issues, and their impact on our families, and who can provide actual, viable solutions to these problems will garner our support and our votes.

We believe in this democratic system of ours, and we will continue to use our voices and our votes to see that it reaches its fullest potential.

Sincerely, Your future constituents, The mothers & fathers of America 

Stay at home dads

I've been reading a lot about being an expectant dad and there's lots of information out there about what to do once your baby is born.  Much of it is from the woman's perspective - what to do as a new mom.  For stay at home dads it's sort of been - "Do the same... only without the breast feeding."

Stay at home dads come from all walks of life. Many worked corporate jobs, I've known some who were grad students, professors, recently unemployed, artists... I'd fall into the latter category. I was not downsized. We do not have a traditional two income household and my wife definitely makes more money that I do.

I'm an actor.

My writing partner will tell you I'm a writer. I am. It's becoming more and more what I do. But that's mostly because of a stubborn persistence in making my own work. I have recently made the decision that I am finished with the bullshit involved in acting in New York. I do not kiss enough ass, nor, apparently, do I kiss the right asses.   I am finished with dealing with the gatekeepers to this work, to which I have dedicated my life, who treat actors like they are stupid.  Those rare champions of actors (you know who you are) have made working in this town a joy.  But I am finished with getting my hopes up during final call backs to have a movie actor walk in and take a job. I am finished with pleading with self important pricks half my age, attempting to prove to them that I am worthy of their representation. My time and my talent are far to important. I will do it, stubbornly, on my own.  (I said I was done with the bullshit, not with acting.)

Because I'm an actor.  Persistence defines who we are. 

My wife and I had this exact conversation - the one many artist have when they bemoan their career choice and wish they had gone into finance or some soul-less yet lucrative career or that I hadn't taken her up on her offer to drop out and join the peace corps before starting a family.  Something meaningful.

My wife said, "You're going to be raising a child.  What could be more meaningful?"

In the end, you can't take any of this with you.  None of it.  The paycheck, the swimming pool, the big house.  In the end what you leave behind are the lessons you share - the things you teach your children and the people they become.

Actor...  Writer...   The occupation I'll be most proud of is Dad.

Here's where I give a shameless plug to a friend's book.  A fellow stay at home dad.

Joe Schatz from Dad Blogs has a new book out.  It's not a how-to.  There are plenty of those.  This one is nine years of "things I've learned as a stay at home dad."  I'll be reading it.  The title alone is worth the price of the book.

Go support one of my fellow stay at home dads.