Hollywood's Typical Stay-At-Home-Dad

So last night I stopped the dial on HBO and started watching Little Children.

My wife was half-asleep but didn't stay that way for long. Here's the info description from Comcast:

Best Actress Nominee Kate Winslet gives a tour-de-force performance in this gripping and incisive slice of suburban life set in Massachusetts. She plays an unhappy housewife who has a ruinous affair with a restless stay-at-home dad.

The movie opened with four Desperate Housewives gossiping at the playground. Onto the scene burst a studly stay-at-home dad who made the women feel like school-girls anew. One even jokingly remarked that they hated him BECAUSE his presence made her "put make-up on in the morning".

Note to female readership - Y'all should be doing that anyway!

Now this far in, Mrs. C-Nut, piqued by the familiar context (a Massachusetts setting to boot!), was no longer on her way to dreamland. She was sitting up, with glasses on. I, was laughing my hiney off. Remember, I too am a work-at-home/stay-at-home dad who spends his fair share of time at parks with *moms*. And I too, am a stud (see profile pic).

The dude, played by Patrick Wilson, was a former college football star and a bar exam flunkie. He's emasculated by the fact that his wife (Jennifer Connelly) wears the pants; and palpably depressed by his *primary caregiver* role.

The frisky Desperate Housewife was Kate Winslet. She was the *second wife* of a porn-obsessed workaholic. She too felt all-around unfulfilled.

I had to turn it off, er pause it, 42 minutes in because it was just getting too late. Apparently the rest of the movie is about, suprise, surprise, home-wrecking adultery between Kate Winslet and the stay-at-home DILF; along with a subplot on a neighborhood sex offender. I may watch the rest later this week.

Though I had never heard of it, Little Children was a big hit with audiences and the Academy (3 Oscar nominations). Was the acting and the plot that good? Or did the story just arouse a lot of daydreaming bored women?

Of course, I'm sure the film also ruffled the insecurities of a few late-working husbands.

Here's the trailer, though it doesn't really focus on the hilarious first 42 minutes that stirred my wife. You'll have to see the full movie for that.



I've got to admit, with my aggressive playground rotation and the pervasive friendliness of this region, I have met a bazillion *moms* in the past year or so. And I have good relationships with a super-majority of them - notwithstanding a few Morons like that French chick.

My wife is well aware of my popularity. I have unabashedly told her that every stay-at-home mother's fantasy is...

...a man that can change diapers, feed toddlers, etc.



And of course every hardworking man's latent fantasy is a woman who can bring home the bacon!