How To Become A Retail Dad

First, you start off with part time retail jobs while you’re in high school and college because you know those comic books and Sour Patch Watermelon aren’t going to pay for themselves. The work is easy and in a surprising turn of events, you’re pretty good at customer service despite your misanthropic nature. 

When you graduate college, you realize your six years of retail experience are more valuable than your degree in Professional Writing. You can’t decide if you wasted your National Merit Scholarship or if getting an unmarketable degree was actually smart because what the hell it was free anyway. Still, it would be kind of nice to get a job using your degree so you give it a try. However, a brief flirtation with a small-town newspaper confirms your long-held suspicion that journalism does in fact blow. 

You make your triumphant return to retail. The hours are flexible which gives you time to work on your art (in theory your art is writing novels but in practice it looks more like dabbling in standup comedy and playing D&D). Also, you know you’re moving states in a few months so being able to easily transfer is a huge bonus. 

Now you’re in another state and you don’t know anyone except for your girlfriend’s family and the people you work with. You’re working full time now to pay for your apartment so this is no longer your side job it’s, well, just your job. You start to excel at it. 

You get promoted. 

You get promoted again. 

Suddenly you’re a store manager even though when you started this job you very clearly stated you would never be one. That’s okay though, it’s cool to be good at something and the money is pretty good. After seeing your first few paychecks you feel a little more confident asking your girlfriend’s father for her hand in marriage (that’s a lie you still totally almost poop your pants).

You get engaged. You’re incredibly thankful for your job because it means you’re able to buy a house, get married, and go on an amazing honeymoon in Europe. You come back to the States and begin building your new wonderful life with your wife. 

You only seriously consider quitting twice during your first year but you assume you’re just being a baby and talk yourself out of it. The longer you stay with it the more proud you are that for once in your life you actually stuck with something even though it was difficult. You barely notice you’ve stopped doing standup and writing. 

One day your wife takes a pregnancy test and it comes back positive. The conversation goes something like this:

“Okay.”

“Alright.”

“Alright.”

“Okay.”

There is a brief period of time where you have to wrap your brain around the fact your life is about to fundamentally change forever and then it’s pure excitement. You’re still putting in crazy hours but work becomes little more than background noise as you prepare to be a father. Meanwhile, your wife is a queen and somehow makes pregnancy look glamorous and easy. 

The baby is born.

He’s beautiful and you love him more than anything. You always thought people were exaggerating when they described what it feels like to hold your baby in your arms but now you realize they weren’t even doing it justice. 

Then your two weeks off are over and it’s back to work. For a while you ride high off the adrenaline of being a new father. It’s like the world has new colors and you have clear sense of purpose. 

But then your wife goes back to work and your crazy schedule starts to be more noticeable. You never have time for each other. When you are together you’re so exhausted you may as well still be at work. Still, you hold on because yet has to get easier, right? Plus you can’t afford to leave and take a pay cut. Your son was in the NICU for a few days after birth and you have a ton of bills to pay. 

You feel trapped.

You feel like a terrible father and husband.

You feel guilty because of how much slack your wife continually pulls for you. 

Finally it becomes too much. Your wife comes to you and tells you she would rather struggle for money and have you present for your family. The sheer sense of relief you feel reshapes the entire world. 

You quit. It’s glorious. 

Then you realize you’ve done nothing but work retail your adult life. You said you’d never work a nine to five desk job—an easy goal to make when you’re single and don’t have kids—and you were true to your word. But now you aren’t qualified for anything else so you bounce around to new retail jobs. It still sucks but at least the responsibility is less. 

You come to terms with the fact this is the way things are now. You get a therapist and start learning to cope. You try to figure out how to be present in the moments when you are with your family. It works about half the time but that’s still better than the none of the time from before.

You have good weeks and bad weeks. Now that you’re getting to spend more time with your wife and son it’s even harder when your schedule takes you away.

You miss dinners. You get pictures of baths, walks, and playtime in the backyard while you’re unloading a truck. You come home exhausted. Your wife and son were gone when you woke up and asleep when you come home. 

You sneak down the hall and see your son curled up in your wife’s arms and it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. On the days when you most want to quit, you remember that image and remind yourself that you provide for that. You no longer care what your job is, you’re just thankful you help keep them happy. You’re not a perfect dad but you’re a good dad, a retail dad. And that’s enough.