Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad

written by David Eddie

This was another twenty-five-cent find at the library's used book sale. It caught my eye because Jay and I are good friends with a couple in which the dad is the stay-at-home parent. The book looked funny and I thought I might read it and pass it along to our friends.

Lesson learned: there's a reason why certain books are sold for only twenty-five cents at used book sales.

Well, no, actually this book isn't all bad. There are a lot of redeeming elements that are hilarious, touching, philosophical, even thought-provoking. There's also a surprisingly useful 20-page stretch in which the author pontificates about how to cook -- portions of which are, in fact, making me contemplate hanging onto the book instead of feeding it back into the book donation bin for the library's next used book sale.

Cool elements:

• If you are a stay-at-home parent (male or female, doesn't matter) you will find a lot of humor here. Eddie covers all the typical woes of parenting: sleep deprivation; disobedient children; kids' impact on your marriage; the mental toll of interacting with people under five years old, all day every day; the "what-do-you-do-all-day" question asked by well-meaning but clueless friends... and he does it in a way that you can really identify with. His style reminds me of a machismo version of the Girlfriends' Guide series of books by Vicki Iovine.
  

Not-so-cool elements:

• In too many places, Eddie tries just a little too hard to be funny. I got tired of hearing him prattle on, sometimes boastfully, about what a raunchy cad he was (and still would be, if it weren't for having children) in his pre-fatherhood days. In fact, it was annoying enough that I almost pitched the book after the first few chapters. It also caused me to decide not to pass the book on to our friends that I mentioned above. The good and funny parts are offset too much by the overly animated retelling of his days of womanizing, drug use, and general irresponsibility.