Four of five years ago, I would have been horrified at the thought of writing a blog. I am a very private person and thought blogs were done for self publicity and for attention but I know this is not true. There are millions of blogs on the Internet, people blog about everything from sailing to sex. I only started this tiny blog because I love writing and I had nothing to do when I first arrived in Moscow. I thought a blog about being a full time father at home, looking after a baby in Russia would be interesting. I have been my own one man laboratory test and you can read the results. I have openly shared the results with you dear reader. I am naked before you. A blog is also very therapeutic if you want to give your thoughts and opinions on a topic. You can make a blog deeply personal or light, the choice is entirely yours. People blog because they have a strong opinion on something, because they are lonely or because they simply love writing. I do it because I love writing and see life with a bitter sweet sense of humor through writing. Writing is fun and I think I am fairly good at it. I have never struggled for things to say about being a stay at home dad in Moscow or about life here, both sweet and sour. Living here has provided volumes of writing material.
As this blog has got known about in a very tiny way on the World Wide Web and within the expat community, my approach to how I write and what I write has greatly changed. The general rule is when writing a blog that is not totally anonymous, don't write about anything that may offend people you know and don't write about any topic that you would not want people that know you, to read about. If you don't want to be questioned by a friend or an acquaintance about a post that you wrote then don't write it, you will save yourself embarrassment later. I write as I feel and as I see, warts and all. I do not write about deeply personal and private stuff. I only write about life here, life as a SAHD and tourism as well as a few carefully worded posts on other issues. My blog is little known and is a just an electronic ripple in a giant pond that is the Internet.
What has amazed me about being a stay at home dad in a place like Moscow, is the different attitudes that I get from people. If you are a stay at home father anywhere in the world, you will be met with different reactions by different people. At times you will feel like a homosexual in the 19th and 18th century and at other times you will feel like the village freak. I have felt like both here. I have not decided what I dislike more, groups of British expat women with expensive private school accents that would look at home at a surrey village fate. They stand together in a Moscow playground, you can see they are English by how they are dressed, they call their sons Timmy and their daughters Sophie. The other groups are Russian nannies together in a Moscow playground that I can't fully understand and who look at me with fear and with concern for the safety of my kid and tell me off if he is not dressed for the arctic when its + 15 degrees outside. Both can be equally annoying and equally scary. I find these Britsih expat women empty and dull, although I became just like them in my full time dad role. The difference between me and them, is that I realized what I had become and threw away my, yoga mat, knitting needles and breast milk club membership card. I digress, I'm off on a rant that could be the subject of entire book or blog.
Have you ever been to a smart party, a BBQ where you don't know anyone? If you have, then you would have been asked by a man or woman "so what do you do" It may be that you are out of work, in between jobs or that you work in a mortuary, in which case you may want the ground to open up and swallow you from embarrassment or guilt. I hate that question, even when I was at the top of my game and in work. People will often make a few snap judgements as to why you are a stay at home dad. They will think that you are an alcoholic, lazy, stupid, not really a man or they may admire you and think you are brave to do what you do. You will be asked what you do for a living and when you reply, be ready for blank expressions and looks at you as if you have just escaped from the good ship loopy. It comes with the package of being a stay at home dad. There are some SAHD's here who are frauds, they have full time nannies. If you want to be a SAHD, drink from the big cup and don't pretend. Roll your sleeves up and get on with it. You may love it or hate it, try it and see.
I have found that what ever people think, either positive or negative, you will always have guilt. I have guilt about doing what I do, although I feel very proud and fortunate to have looked after my kid from a baby to the age of over two years old. We live in a society with expectations and within a superficial, environment of smiles and bullshit, the expat community in Moscow is the worst for this. People may not always say what they think or how they feel but you can feel it and see it in their eyes. My advice is, if you are going to be a stay at home dad in your own country or abroad, have a thick skin and be tough. Do what you think is best and enjoy the experience. If you are sensitive, then you will suffer from occasional doubt, guilt and lack of confidence. It has taken me time to adjust and to develop a thicker skin than the one I had when I arrived here. I would not want to do this process again in Moscow but its been a learning experience that I will never forget. The best attitude is not to care what people think, although many will accept you, some will not compute that a man can follow his wife abroad and look after the kids. These negative attitudes are interestingly usually from woman. You can draw your own conclusions.
I will not add any more posts to this blog for a while as I think I have covered almost every topic that I set out to write about, from looking after a kid as a dad in Moscow to touristic experiences. I will however update it occasionally but other than than that I'll say no more for now. I hope you enjoy this blog dear reader and find some posts helpful, interesting or entertaining. If I can help with any questions regarding the blogs contents, then please contact me and I'll try and answer you if I can. Have a look through the blog roll for the very best posts.
© All Rights Reserved.
Some great advice there! I also hate the "so what do you do" question...
ReplyDeleteI blog as a record of our time abroad, and started off writing it just for friends and family to read. I also love being able to help other people in a similar situation, or who are just about to embark on an expat journey themselves!
I look forward to reading your posts about Moscow! Emma
Emma there are lots on Moscow as this blog is about life here in Moscow but there are also other tourist posts - see the blog roll. P.S I may write one about just Moscow, if I can find the enthusiasm.
ReplyDeleteI like your "stand up and be counted" attitude with the audacity to be proud of what you do. It reminds me of Rosanne Barr who used to claim a unique euphemism: "I'm a domestic goddess!" I love euphemisms--you're "retired" or a "professional father". You're a creative guy and I'm sure you can think like a PR agent and think up a moniker that would make their government beauracrats proud. I like the SAHD, but it is apologetic--go aggressive :-)
ReplyDeleteI can't be too aggressive as Moscow is a funny place as is the expat community, some of which may occasionally by accident or by intention, read my written ramblings.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Sounds like you've found your way :) I like your comment: 'I find these British expat women empty and dull.' In my experience, it's not just British women but a certain type of expat woman who hangs out in a pack of other expat women, obsessed with their little darlings, unable to stay away from the school for more than a few hours at a time, showing an absolute lack of imagination about how to spend their privileged time overseas. Oh, I've had a rant on this bubbling to the surface for a while - but am not brave enough to do it on my own blog! Not that I think anyone I know reads it, but you never know. I may not be a SAHD but I too have reached a stage of not caring what the expat pack think and am grateful for the few genuine friends I have made here in KL. Enjoy your time off from blogging but hope you won't stay away too long. All the best :)
ReplyDeleteI've really enjoyed reading your blog. I stumbled onto it today via a Facebook group. I lived in St. Petersburg for 6 months in 2002, and then in Moscow off and on for 3 years until 2007, until I moved back to the States.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I just wanted to let you know that your stories have me laughing out loud at the things you've seen around Moscow, as I've seen many of them too. When I was there, I worked as a private English teacher, and know first hand what it's like to be sitting in the back of a Rolls Royce with child X while Mrs. X goes shopping, and also what it's like to be scolded by the Russian nannies in the parks if the child you have with you isn't dressed for the arctic, LOL. Fun times.
I'm looking forward to your next post!
Thanks Ex pat, the power of the pen or keyboard is like a drug to me. I may post another entry soon as I feel inspired by Russian bling and Russian aristocracy to tell all......Watch this space soon.
ReplyDeleteYou have one of the best blogs I have ever read. Please keep posting. You have all my family laughing. We lived in Moscow for 3 years and can relate to a lot of what you have said. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteI think you should not be at all ashamed because of your status as 'father who stays home'. Lots of fathers might envy you in secret, and would change with you for a couple of weeks, at least. I think that the family is also about sharing jobs and responsabilites and when a woman works and the man stays home with the children is a great example how a good family can work. For the kids it is vital to get attention, for the man it is a great opportunity, and for the wife? A great support and good background.
Very interesting reading as I too am an English dad in Moscow. I'm more of an English granddad really. I've live in the Russian capital, in the Taganka district, for almost 20 years, though, and have become rather fond of the place; in fact, on the very rare occasions that I have visited the UK these past 20 years, I have looked forward to returning "home", to Russia.
ReplyDeleteI said I'm more of an English granddad because, after having left England in 1992, I only married "late", in 1997 when I was 48; since then, my Russian wife has borne me 3 children: a son and 2 daughters. My son is 12, my eldest daughter is 10 and my youngest is 3. You can understand now why most folk on seeing me out with my brood think I'm their granddad. However, unlike you, I'm not a full-time dad as I'm the only breadwinner in my family and I'm still working. In fact, I don't think I shall ever retire.
My wife is an engineer by profession, but she has been a full-time housewife and mother since 1999.
I agree with your comments about some Russian nannies and Russian "aristocrats": I avoid both like the plague. Fortunately, we've been lucky with nannies, the present one and longest serving of them being one of our neighbours, whose children have already grown up and flown the nest.
Most Russian grannies become the nanny of their extended family. Unfortunately, my wife's parents had died before I met her, so no Russian grandmas on hand in my Russian family. This causes comments of great surprise amongst my Russian acquaintances and colleagues on their finding out that there are three children in our family (huge by Russian standards) and no granparents available for service. "How do you manage?" they ask incredulously. "I don't", I reply, "I just bring home the bacon. My wife is a full-time housewife and mother, but we have a hired help".
I also fully understand your attitude towards a certain species of expat. I have really never asssociated with my fellow countrymen here in Moscow and now feel that I have gone far too native to be able to build up any kind of rapport with them. They usually complain endlessly about Russia (not that I'm saying that Russia does not have more than its fair share of faults and social problems) and cannot understand why I am raising my family here or why I have lived here for so long. I should add, however, that over the years I have become acquainted with several other expats like me who have settled in Russia with their Russian spouses and who are raising their children here. These "anomalies" include Englishmen, Irishmen, Scots, US citizens, an Australian and a New Zealander.
I'm getting no younger though, and my wife would really like to start work again. Perhaps I shall one day become a stay-at-home-dad and look after my little girl Sasha (my other two, Vova and Lena, will soon be in their teens) whilst my wife works. Of course, if that were to happen, my tasks would be far easier than yours are now, as all the hard work would have already been done by my wife.
All the best!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThanks Exile. We are expats here but like so many in that we dont have 'free' this and 'free' that or a driver but we survive. I am not a fan of Moscow or the stereotypical expat bunch but I try to see life here with a sense of humor as if I did not I would go crazy or worse. One expat mother said to me the other day at a Moscow playground, "we have a 220 sqm flat and its too big". I asked here how she got to the playground she said "we have a driver". I vomited inside and played with my kid wishing I was not in Moscow. At times I feel like a fraud here.
ReplyDeleteI should have added above that what makes life so bearable for me here is the possession of a dacha. In the summer months we all move out some 55 miles west to our summer country retreat situated not very far from Mozhaisk. Apart from a few weeks on the Black Sea coast, that's where you'll find us each summer. We have had a bumper crop of apples, pears, plums and various berries this year, as well as gherkins that we grow in our greenhouse and the usual herbs and onions and garlic etc. We don't grow these things because we're short of cash, but because it's fun. My wife makes great jams (well varen'e really - a runny Russian jam) and various druit juices and salted gherkins and so on. Sadly, the dacha season is at an end now and this weekend will probably be my last visit there, where I'll just finish off tidying up the garden. In summer there with the children though it is just great.
ReplyDeleteA dacha must be perfect and an escape you are lucky. Love it and enjoy it, as I think you do. I have always dreamed of growing my own veg and fruit. I am sure its hard work keeping the garden tidy? You can sit outside in the summer with a cold beer and have a BBQ and watch the kids run around. That is worth more than any gold.
ReplyDeleteYou don't seem to miss England and I don't very much either but I could not stand to live in Moscow for too long, to be honest I hate Moscow.
I can, see you followed my DT comment. You are a Russian convert even with the Bolshoi, so I can't change your opinion. You bought ILR t-shirt and won't give it up. No worries, lets agree to disagree.
ReplyDeleteYes, but I experienced the old Bolshoi and it really was falling to bits. I was last there in 2000 with my wife, when we watched the opera "Tosca". From what I've seen and read, they seem to have done a good job of renovating it and bringing its theatre technology up to cutting-edge modernity.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the other week that the Soviet symbol has been removed from the portico and replaced by the Imperial double-headed eagle. But what made me smile is that Apollo on the quadriga still has his genitals covered. I'm sure I read somewhere that he was not so shy when he first appeared on the Bolshoi portico and that it was the Bolsheviks that had his courting tackle covered with a fig leaf. And I'm also certain that I read a couple of years ago that Apollo was going to be once more revealed in all his glory after the renovation of the theatre. Somebody somewhere clearly thought otherwise.
I never have possessed an ILR t-shirt, nor do I intend doing so; and although I do much prefer living in Moscow than in my home town in the north of England, I still dislike many unpleasant things here of a socio-political nature and those same things are also disliked by my wife and my Russian colleagues as well.
You are absolutely correct about my not missing England. I lived in Germany for a short while before moving to Russia and it was there where my disaffection with my home country really first began. I really didn't like Moscow when I first came here, but after a while it sort of grew on me and now I think of it as home: it certainly is to my children. My two eldest, whilst conceding that England is "cool" (they've been there twice), are adamant that they do not wish to live there; nor does my wife for that matter. So for me, as they say, home is where the heart is.
Exile, I enjoy reading your replies. They interesting and intelligent. May I ask what you do for a job here and do you have a blog? It would be interesting to ask Russians or long term expats here in Russia, what they think of Moscow and Russia good and bad.
ReplyDeleteI have come across a few expats on the WWW for Russia who are married to Russians who won't hear a bed word said about Moscow. Some even get offended.
I must say although I am not a fan of Moscow, I'd love to experience real Russia and live outside Moscow I am sure life would be better. As for the UK, I feel ashamed to be British when I see how the country has become.
Exile, you can always email me if you have time via the contact on the blog I'd love to pick your brains and experience on a lot of topics.
Thanks.
I teach English. I have taught my mother tongue to all ages at all levels, both individually and in groups. I have worked freelance and for established language schools. That is how I first came across some real fat-cats, one of whom being he who invited me to be his live-in mentor for his child and his wife as well - I had forgotten about the request that I teach his wife. However, for the past 6 years I've been teaching business English in-house as an employee of a business English language school. I haven't always been a teacher though. For 15 years I worked as a coal miner in the UK. Then my whole life changed in 1985 and I had to leave my native country in order to seek employment. I first went to Germany, where I began rapidly to pick up German. To cut a long story short, I eventually graduated in Modern Languages (German and Russian)in the UK and after postgraduate studies qualified as a teacher of modern languages and of English as a foreign language. I still couldn't find employment in the UK though, so off I went again to Germany and then to Russia, in both of which countries I had studied as an undergraduate. (To be exact, I studied Russian in the USSR, in Voronezh, a place that I'm still rather fond of.) I went back to Russia on the invitation of acquaintances that I had made there previously. That was in 1992. In 1997 I married a Muscovite. I have had a Full Residency Permit for a Citizen of a Foreign State for several years now, so I need no visas in order to enter Russia. In effect, that residency permit gives me practically all the rights of a Russian citizen apart from the right to vote in elections: I can start a business here, for example, and become an employer.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean concerning your shame about being British. When I last visited my home town in 1993, there seemed to be a surfeit there of semi-literate benefit dependent no-hopers, many of whom appearing narcotic and/or alcohol dependent as well. Of course, the majority there are trying hard to make something of their lives, but it's the seemingly ever increasing underclass that makes the biggest and most unfavourable impression. In the UK there are very many post-industrial dumps like my home town. Moscow is also a post-industrial city and a post-Soviet one to boot, but it isn't a dump in my opinion. There's no Bolshoi Theatre in my home town!
An interesting life exile. You have a gift for languages. Any tips for me to work here? I don't want to go to a school where they pay peanuts and expect the world. It would also be interesting to hear your views on the good and bad of Moscow and living in Moscow, we could compare notes although I have only been here 2 years that seem like 20 !!!
ReplyDeleteWould you be happy to write an article on it and email it to me? I'd love to put it on this blog and credit you as the writer.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI just found your blog while googling for check if anyone ever wrote something about an issue I want to write about..and I was very happy to discover your story.
When I read that you hate the What do you do ? question, I had a moment of shock: I know it is stupid, but as I have never met a stay at home expat dad I thought it was a question created to make feel bad the expat wives, so I have really a friendly feeling to you and will come back to read more of your story. It is also nice coincidence my husband is today in Moscow for kwor, probably meeting with one of those rich russians fathers of kids parented with the mentality you well described above
Hi Valentina please read it and enjoy it tell a friend.
ReplyDeleteP.S Can you get me a job ?