I always thought that parental blogging wars were best left to the bloggerhood of moms. Fights like Bottle Vs. Breast, Spanking Vs. Timeouts, and Drunk Mom Vs. Sober Mom and more rage throughout the maternal side of the internet on a daily and nightly basis. I thought that Dad bloggers, at least this one in particular, were immune.

Begun the Dad War has.

It started recently as a variation of one of the more popular internet mother battles – the Working Mom Vs. Stay At Home Mom*. This inevitable dogfight is that of the SAHD Vs. The Working Dad, and neither side is giving up his foothold. Both think they are doing their job, and each side feels like their territory is being infringed upon by the other.

The SAHD cares for his kids by being a modern day multi-tastic parental whirlwind of caregiving power. He overcomes male stereotypes, has a great sense of how to raise his kids his way, and knows what to do in order to keep his parental working counterpart on top of the game as well. Cooking? Cake. Cleaning? Easy. Diapers? No problemo. The SAHD does it all and a little bit more, and is on call 24/7 for his family. That’s always.

Working Dad, on the other hand, is the epitome of what a Dad was made to do. He brings home the bacon, wins the bread and wears the pants. His adoring family is waiting for him when he walks in the door at the end of a hard day so he can put his feet up, eat his homecooked meal, spend some time with his wife and kids, and hit the hay. Why does his his family treat him right? Because he works hard for the money. Honey.

It was only a matter of time before these two dads began to butt heads in an all out brawl for the battle of who is a better father. Which one am I? Right now, I am Working Dad.

What about SAHD? Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time. And no, he’s not dead. He’s me.

Here’s the deal. I spent a good portion of my time as an at-home-dad, and now that I’ve got some time in as a working parent, I’ve found that I still get to do all the things I used to do for my family. It’s certainly not easy, but such are the choices we make. I choose to do as much as I can to try to be the most I can for my family.

But that’s just me, people. The most important thing for other familes is that they choose the roles that fit them best. Silly little battles of my personal choice versus your personal choice are just that – silly. What’s the point of fighting, even, when there are other families who are in their situation without the luxury of choice? This applies to all the “battles” of parenting: moms who can’t breast feed for medical reasons; dads and moms who lost their jobs and don’t have a choice of who is staying at home; widowed single parents.

The list of situations that aren’t you are endless. Stop fighting them and start winning your own battles. My own rages on, but I’ll keep fighting until I can just be “Dad.”

* More popularly known as SAHMs which is so much cooler sounding than SAHD or “Sad.”

[Note: While Phil begins his journey down Working Dad Road, John is continuing the path of SAHD/at-home-part-time-working dad. One of the reasons we started this blog to begin with was that we both simply wanted to be better dads. I can't speak for John, but I'm pretty sure we've achieved that, although many challenges await both of us, as well as all parents. Let's fight together! And we'll never forget our awesome, hardworking wives, either, without whom the fight would be unimaginably more difficult. _Phil]