One of the biggest fears men have when they learn they’re going to be a dad is that their sexy wife will cut their hair, gain a bunch of weight, and start wearing mom jeans. When they bring this fear up, however, their wives usually get very defensive and yell stuff like, “You don’t understand how hard it is to take care of a child! You go off to your job where you talk to adults and have nice lunches while I’m stuck here changing diapers!” Men usually drop the subject after hearing enough of this talk, and, if after having a baby their wife turns into a “mom,” they grin and bare it.

Well, folks, the tables have turned a bit in this modern world, and, with my wife working and me staying at home with the baby, I have become my greatest fear of what she’d become. I’ve put on some weight (from eating whatever unhealthy crap we have in the cupboards), rarely ever shave (the man version of cutting your long hair short), and even started to wear dad jeans.

You’re probably wondering what dad jeans are. Let me explain. In my pre-baby days, when I had disposable income, time on my hands, and the ability to go to the mall on a whim, I would buy “cool” jeans. Sometimes I would even spend a hundred dollars or more on these jeans, and, if I do say so myself, I did indeed look cool. Well, around the time Maddie was born I had about three of these “cool” jeans left from the days before money was tight, and would pretty much wear them exclusively.

Life for these jeans was not so good after the baby came because, as parents know, strange things end up on parents’ clothes that never appear on the clothing of the childless. I’m talking about drool, baby formula, spit-up, even unfortunate stains as result of a diaper change. These stains come so fast and furious, in fact, that when I needed to go out recently I found that all three of my remaining cool jeans were hopelessly soiled and in need of a washing, a washing that would have to wait now that our washing machine was pretty much used exclusively to launder onesies.

With little time to spare I ran into my closet and dug and dug until I found a pair of long forgotten jeans my mom had bought me years earlier.

 “I was buying some jeans for your father, dear,” mom had told me, “and thought I’d get you some too!”

I looked at my dad who had hiked his pair of these bland jeans up around his waist, then smiled politely and tossed them into my closet.

That was then though, and this is now. In the age of Maddie I had no choice but to pull these awful pants on. I buttoned them around my waist and peered into the mirror.

 “I’m no longer a man,” I thought with apologies to Saturday Night Live, “I’m a dad.”