Leaning out...

Ironically I am writing this from an RV with my 4 year old daughter Penelope crawling all over me making otter noises...  Yes after years of schooling, 2 advanced degrees, and a six figure income; I am starting over.  I left a thriving practice in Seattle to come to California and find myself.  Stupid maybe, entertaining yes. In the process of re-envisioning my life, I am running into trouble.  Financial trouble, parenting trouble, career management trouble...  I started out my career so promising, despite many challenges I somehow managed to land on my feet, grow a practice all the while co-parenting my daughter 50% of the time since she was 9 months old and resisting the temptation to put on a video for hours on end so I can work.  I cook her organic fresh meals full of vegetables that she does not like.  She tells me this daily.

In the end I have a bittersweet taste in my mouth.  I am 33, unmarried, un-housed, and in a ridiculous amount of debt from all that schooling that was supposed to deliver me from that life of poverty I was accustomed to.   In a way it has, have a higher standard of living than I grew up with.  But alas there is not enough time, I need another 10 years to become a good provider.  Yet time is not on my side in terms of having a family.  My sperm are aging as I am dismayed to note,  as more and more papers assert that male fertility like female fertility begins to drop off at 35.  Many papers are linking autism spectrum disorders to aging fathers.  Putting to end the myth and notion that males can indefinitely have healthy children.  My own father is on the spectrum making it likely that I carry some of those genes.  I always dreamed of having a happy family.  Unfortunately, I spent the better part of my peak fertility chasing women that had no intention of partnering themselves to me.  I feel a constant pressure to "do it all", have the family, career, house, car, all the things that make for a normal life in America.  In the end, I have lost myself.  I spend lots of time taking care of others, my child, and very little time on myself.  I have a growing rage inside at having worked so hard only to see my career dwindle as I put in time and energy raising my child.  Knowing that inside, if I don't exihibt sucess, then I won't be a good producer, and if I am not a good producer, then I will not be fit for a long term relationship.    I have no trouble attracting women, they just don't stay when I can't keep up the pace of "doing it all".    I am finding it very hard to advance my career while being a good parent.  Let alone have time to have a relationship.   Consequently, women come and go in my life as they should when I can no longer do the things that attracted them to me in the first place.

Every day I swallow my anger and resist my urge to scream "This is not my life!!" at the top of my lungs.  I hate being a single parent, it boils my insides every day.  It was the last thing I wanted in life after growing up in a single parent immigrant home.  I love my career and wish I could spend more time at it.  At first I blamed and aimed my anger and vitriol toward Penelope's mother,  later I turned a corner and began blaming myself.  For  A Long Time.  As I move and start my life over in a new place I have come to realize that what is happening is beyond myself and the choices I have made.  The world is and has been changing, rapidly.  Faster than this guy or guys in general can adapt to the demands of the world we find ourselves in.  Consequently, both men and women are unhappy and unhappily ever after.  And no one is writing a men's book about it.  I have tried to find it.  Maybe there should not be a "men's" book, but some guidelines and leadership to allow both sexes to work together.

The world is changing, women are "leaning in" to borrow Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook phrase from her book "Lean in" http://leanin.org/.  I am in a profession that is predominantly women. (Naturopathic medicine... Medicine in general is also looking to be predominantly female as there are less and less males going into it as a profession).  As I look back at the second paragraph of this blog I am struck by the notion that what I am experiencing is what women have been experiencing for a long time.  The tension of having to figure out how to juggle family life with career aspirations.  All the while feeling like we are doing both poorly.  (Right now I have a pink teddy bear and a mermaid laying across my arms as I type).   I wonder what will happen to all the men that lean out so women can lean in...

Since there were no books I could find to guide me in this brave new world, I have picked up "Lean In"  to see what if any advice there is to men.  I am lost.  My initiatory experiences as a male have not prepared me for this world.  I was programmed with antiquated notions of what my role is.  I am programmed to be a provider.  I am not the only male in this place.  I am just the only one brave enough or stupid enough to write about it on a public forum.  As the battle of the sexes rages on, I wonder when we can stop battling and move into true partnership.   I am seeking partnership not just romantically, but as a society, so that all may lead fulfilling lives.  I am now retiring this to go make a fort with my daughter.  Stay tuned.