Happy Father’s Day / The Trophy Husband

Happy Father’s Day! To commemorate the annual celebration of fatherhood this year, I am sharing the story of the Trophy Husband. I hope that the Trophy Husband and all the other tennis playing dads out there enjoy their special day. By that I mean, please grill something for us before you head to the courts today.

24+ years ago, as our oldest child was just turning 1, it had become patently clear that the dual career approach wasn’t working very well for our family. One of us desperately needed to hit the career “pause” button to make it all work. At that time, every factor considered in the decision matrix (yes, there was one) pointed us toward an arrangement that was fairly unconventional at the time. We became a household with a stay-at-home dad.

To illustrate the times, 24 years ago diaper changing tables were typically installed only in the women’s restrooms in public facilities. Fortunately most of the places he frequented with the kids were quick to correct that oversight once alerted to the need. When our oldest started kindergarten, administrative calls from the school routinely were made to me because they didn’t want to “bother” Dad with the fact that his child was running a slight fever or had the sniffles. It was a different era.

“Stay-at-home dad” was adopted as his occupation description when demographic data was required on a form. “Househusband” and “Homemaker” were also considered, but rejected. It was pretty frustrating that some people wanted characterize him as “Unemployed.” No one would ever have tried to hang that term on a stay-at-home mom.

The first formal use of “Trophy Husband” as occupation came when he was summoned for jury duty when our kids were in college. Prior that he had used “Trophy Husbands” as the team in one of his long standing fantasy football leagues. It was also frequently emblazoned on gifts to him from our kids. “Trophy Husband” was in common use in our household long before this blog was launched.

It is a minor source of embarrassment that I didn’t default to referring to my spouse as the Trophy Husband initially in this blog. The now deprecated “Fiend at Court Spousal Unit” nod to the classic Saturday Night Live skit, was kind of hard to seamlessly use in the writing. It is so obvious in retrospect.

The story of the Trophy Husband persona takes some interesting twists and turns through reflections of gender societal norms and microinequities. Even now, new casual acquaintances tend to assume that the Trophy Husband is retired. I don’t think that people ever regard stay-at-home moms of grown children as retired.

“Happy Father’s Day” to the Trophy Husband and all the other great Dad’s out there. Thank you for everything you have done for us throughout the years. It is genuinely appreciated.

Additionally, I would observe that you can’t spell Trophy without Troy.