Stew wants to be a girl

Since becoming a stay-at-home-dog, I've done a fair amount of research on the subject of child rearing. Contrary to popular belief, I don't spend ALL my time watching Fox News looking for ridiculous story ideas... but more on Ann Coulter later (what a vile, ignorant, disgusting, Fascist, freakshow, nutjob, name-caller she is... see what I did there?).

Anyway, "why does Stew want to be a girl?" you might ask. Good question. The answer is a little thing called gender nonconformity, which is defined as "...designating a person whose identity does not conform to conventional notions of male or female gender, but combines or moves between these" (Oxford English Dictionary). As a stay-at-home-dad, Stew is clearly trying to identify as a woman by taking on traditional female roles around the house (i.e., cooking, cleaning, caring for the child, babbling incoherently about how dirty the bathroom is, etc.). So, while Stew can still be found on the couch in his underwear watching college basketball on Saturdays (a man's job), he also likes to wear dresses and high heels around the house when nobody else is home. No, wait... that's supposed to be a secret. Forget I said that. Instead, a better example is that Stew takes on the role of primary caregiver to Claire and head chef of our family unit (he-he-he... I wrote "unit").

Speaking of units, check out The Unit at 8PM (CST) Tuesday nights on CBS (Channel 4 locally). It's about a secret, highly-trained, special unit of the Army (http://www.cbs.com/primetime/the_unit/)... it's a good little show, except when the episodes involve too much of the Army wives, who are quite annoying... especially the one with the pseudo-southern accent. I could really do without her on the show. Wow, where did that come from?

Anyway, back to Stew's gender issues. Using this same logic, I'm clearly afflicted with species nonconformity. As the family dog, I'm supposed to simply lounge around the house, jump up on furniture I'm forbidden to jump on, shed, give love when Linda or Stew has had a bad day, occasionally run up and down the stairs as fast as I can for no apparent reason, and ward off any unwanted visitors by barking ferociously then turning tail and running to another room to continue barking. But, since I'm also a stay-at-home-dog, my role includes washing dirty milk bottles and changing diapers. Because of this, I'm discriminated against by close-minded dogs within the community... mainly the intolerant Ann Coulter fans that are typically Afghan Hounds (probably because the hounds and Ms. Coulter come from the same gene pool... as the pictures clearly show). It's hard enough for a guy (or dog) to stay at home as a primary caregiver, but when people constantly refer to him as Mr. Mom or Linda's talentless loser husband who will never amount to anything or the creepy guy from next door who walks around in the nude all day with the curtains open, it just adds pressure to the situation. I, on the other hand, am consistently praised for being a "good dog" by friends and family, so it's all good with me.

Anyway, last week, Stew and I saw a story on a highly respected news source that relates to this topic. The news story comes from Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. Stephen Colbert, a three-time Emmy Award-winning writer and one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2006, is the host of "The Report." Colbert refers to Stay-At-Home-Dads as "a problem without a solution." Watch the clip below and draw your own conclusions... and have a fantastic week.

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?lnk=v&ml_video=82935