ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 13, 1996 TAG: 9611130023
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LINDA SHRIEVES KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Yeah, yeah, we all know the new dads of the '90s - men who have taken on the yoke of parenthood and become equal partners with their wives when it comes to child-rearing.
But there's a segment of the male population resistant to any home-training or social pressures: the jock daddy.
The jock daddy plays golf every Saturday (and Sunday, if he can get away with it). Or he plays softball three nights a week, plus practice on weekends. Or he goes deep-sea fishing all day Saturday and tells his wife, ``You and the baby can come.'' A 6-month-old. On a boat. For five hours.
Right.
You might know one of these guys. Or maybe you recognize his wife - she's the neighbor who's cutting the grass (Dad's too busy to do it), shuttling the kids from Little League to the library and dance lessons, doing the laundry and getting dinner on the table.
In many cases, she works too. But she married a jock or a hunter or a fisherman, and now he can't get sports out of his system. And she can't get him to stick around the house, split the chores or help out with the kids on weekends.
Though this might sound like whining to some, it can be a fatal flaw in a relationship. Whether it's the husband spending his weekends on the golf course or the wife who takes off for the mall on weekends, when one partner spends most of his or her leisure time away from the family, the relationship suffers.
And, if the pattern continues, it can destroy a relationship, counselors say.
``It's tough. I've seen a lot of situations in which the partners split up,'' said Carole Burton, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Florida. ``Some people just get irked and get a divorce. But the grass isn't always greener. It's very tough to be a single parent.''
For most couples, the best strategy is to calmly negotiate how they will spend their free time. List your priorities and discuss them.
Burton suggests that sports widows avoid lambasting their husbands with lines like ``You're a selfish jerk.'' Instead she suggests this: ``These are my needs so that I can be sane and pleasant. These are the kids' needs. We need your help.''
But Burton says it's unrealistic to expect a jock to give up all his sports. ``This type of guy needs to get out, run around and hoot and holler,'' she said. ``If he doesn't, he will turn into the biggest irritable grouch.''
But, she notes, women need some down time, too. And if the jock daddy married a woman who also plays sports, she needs time to run around and hoot and holler too.
``And chasing the kids around doesn't give you the same level of satisfaction,'' Burton said.
How women handle the jock dad varies greatly.
Some women sit around and wait for him to return. After all, they have chores to do around the house, and it's hard to take a handful of kids on an outing by yourself.
But other women refuse to wait for Dad to come home. They counter by taking the kids on excursions.
Counselors say it's healthy to get out of the house and have some fun with the kids. But they advise you to be up-front about your plans.
``Lay your cards on the table,'' Burton said. ``The night before, tell him what your plans are for the next day. `We're going to do this. You're welcome to come. You can pick.' Then the decision is his.''
But ``to sit home and wait for somebody,'' Burton said, ``that's for the birds.''
Jackie, a 30-year-old mother of one, knows the jock daddy type. She lived with one for several years, and they had a baby together.
``He plays golf all weekend, plays in a men's lacrosse league and then, get this, he coaches high-school lacrosse after work on weeknights,'' said Jackie, who asked that her last name not be used.
``For a while, I thought, `Should I just accept this?' But then you're miserable. They go off for the day, leave you at home, and they think you're happy with that. I couldn't do it.''
The two split up less than a year after the baby was born.
``If you can't adjust anything in your lifestyle to accommodate for a baby, the relationship isn't going to work out,'' she said. ``And he wasn't adjusting anything.''
Now her former boyfriend has become more of a homebody than he once was. He spends most of his weekends at home with their son, who's 19 months old, rather than playing sports with his friends. But, she notes, that was a change she couldn't nag him into making.
``He needs to do this on his own. You can't push somebody to change,'' Jackie said.
She says their relationship is better now that they live apart.
``We get along really well. We hang out. It's been easier, frankly. Before, I got really angry,'' she said. ``Now I don't sit around at midnight, thinking, `Where is he?'''
Jackie recognized that she couldn't change her former boyfriend. That, therapists say, is smart.
Too many women enter relationships thinking they can change their partner. Or they delude themselves into thinking that he'll change after they have a baby.
The key to whether a sports-obsessed father can change is ``the narcissistic level of the father,'' Burton said. ``If he's so self-absorbed that he can only focus on his needs and wants, forget it. If he's higher on the evolutionary scale, and can understand that other people have legitimate needs other than himself, then that will work OK.''
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Robert Lunsford. color.by CNB