Frankly, there are lots of reasons within the delegate-apportionment process that will bore you to tears (but prove irresistible to politicians). Yet there are also plenty of reasons to participate that may resonate stronger with typical voters than procedural technicalities.

Demonstrating active civic engagement to my 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son is my primary motive for voting next week. It also gets us into the school where my daughter will soon start kindergarten. Anything that gets her excited about soon starting kindergarten is a big deal right now.

Voting also provides us an opportunity to thank the poll workers who are essential to our democracy’s health. 

These (often older) women and men put in very long days working an ever-changing landscape that can go from sleepy-corner to pressure-cooker in the blink of an eye depending how the numbers fall on election night, usually 15 or more hours after their workday starts.

I volunteered as a poll worker on my 18th birthday and relished the thrill of going from the back of the table to the front to cast my first ballot. Nearly everyone I voted for lost, but that’s okay – sometimes that’s just how it goes.

Twelve years later I woke up to every news station in the state scrolling my name across the bottom of their screen as a loser, which was a unique way to spend my 30th birthday. But that was okay too. I hadn’t expected to beat my well-entrenched State Representative, I just knew it was important that we have a choice.

And we do, technically, have a choice on Tuesday with four (different) candidates and an uncommitted option appearing on each ballot.

Voting is so many things to so many different people. It is at times a ritual, a rite of passage, a hard-fought privilege, a weapon, or a shield, and it is always essential to our being a free and self-governing people.

This particular election is tricky in that it’s only open to registered Republicans or Democrats because we’re a closed-primary state. But it’s also the first time we’re implementing early voting and therefore a good time to turn out and help calibrate the system.

Closed primaries are just one of the many quirks in Connecticut’s beautiful, tortured, and long history of voting rights changes.

The issue was decided by the United States Supreme Court back in the 1980s, which introduces the next reason to vote in our closed-party primaries: they’re so retro they’re cool.

Put on your best ‘80s outfit and get to those polls! 

The right to vote’s scope, reach, and value are in constant flux with ever-changing legislation and innumerable court challenges. Partisans approach ballot access more like Gollum’s golden ring than mother’s golden rule because voting is so incredibly precious and vital to who we are as a people.

Lest I come across as overzealous, I’ll note that the choice not to vote is a personal one and that there are many respectable reasons not to participate.

My dad never voted again after Lyndon Johnson’s campaign promise not to expand American involvement in Vietnam ended up expanding to involve him. I understand principled opposition like that.

But for those who would vote in this primary only if they thought it’d make a difference – believe me, it will – in so many tiny little ways that don’t seem small at all to the tiniest eyes that are watching what we do (and looking for a snack).

Finally, demonstrating good citizenship is the best way to fight against cynicism in our public life. 

Prove that you’re a die-hard fan of democracy by showing up. In a world full of people taking destination vacations to watch spring training baseball, let’s at least cast a minor league stadium’s attendance worth of votes for our foregone candidates. Do it for the love of the game.

I hope I’ll see you out there Tuesday in the sunshine, rain, or snow. If I do, you’ll get a high-five from a three-year-old and maybe a sticker too (that’s why he most wants to go and maybe even reason enough for you).

The post Why Should You Vote? Because There’s an Election appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

For the past five years that creative energy has increasingly flowed towards poetry; in particular, child-friendly poetry revolving around the parenting journey from pregnancy through early childhood.

I now roam the Connecticut countryside workshopping and refining a collection of poems called Baby Bump: Poems For and About Expectant Parents.

It is always well-received and something that I’m increasingly proud of talking about and serious about getting published.

Today I’m sharing the best encapsulation of where I am in my artists’ journey. 

Woodbury Poet Laureate Sandy Carlson invited me as a featured reader at their October, 2023 showcase.

Readers were asked to reflect on a fall-friendly theme like transformation, so my presentation details my artistic transformation towards poetry.

An audio version of the talk may be streamed or downloaded here:

Or, the video version may be viewed here:

The post How Reading Poetry to My Pregnant Wife Turned Me Into a Poet appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

This plateau between Thanksgiving and Christmas finally permits me time to share an op-Ed recently published in The Connecticut Post and some of their regional syndicate papers.

During one of our many conversations on Gratitude last month (my daughter’s pre-K theme), something flipped inside my brain and I started thinking about my hearing challenges in a whole new way.

This inspired me to share my experience with Connecticut newspaper readers hoping that some might not only relate to my hearing frustrations, but also relate to my newfound perspective thereby lightening themselves of that burden.

It is a sincere attempt at spreading holiday cheer and positively contributing to the public discourse.

The following op-Ed first appeared in The Connecticut Post on November 27, 2023:

This Year I’m Thankful for Hearing

I complain a lot about hearing. 

Especially in crowds, but also at movies, in most group conversations, and at any public function lacking microphones. I didn’t hear a single one of the groom’s vows at a wedding I attended last week.

There are certain scenarios where I’m just not good at hearing, so I complain. Usually to my wife (sorry darling).

My doctor says the mechanics of my ears are fine but when certain conditions exist (such as cold and flu season), my ears take it harder than most. 

If we spoke at all in the first three-months of my daughter’s first year at pre-k, it’s almost certain I didn’t hear you.

I had regular hearing tests, tubes, and monitoring as a child but only sought care one time in my twenties (after a professor called-in for a class and only I couldn’t hear the speaker phone at the center of the conference-room table). 

The doctor who treated me was an angry old German man who put a balloon up my nose and squeezed real hard to pop my ear drums loose.

My current doctor recoiled in horror when I told that story and revived my hearing this time with surgical tubes. He regularly monitors me even now that one of the tubes has fallen out and suggests various over-the-counter solutions to keep my ears and sinuses healthy.

You know that little asterisk on cold medications that says, “unless authorized by a doctor”? That’s written for me.

Two years ago I flew back from a Disney vacation and quickly lost my hearing. I didn’t know if it was from an infection swimming in the pool, something that happened on the plane ride home, or anything treatable at all.

I was scared that I might never get my hearing back as it became so bad that I stopped feeling safe driving on highways and put Closed Captioning on all my TVs.

It was extremely disorienting on its own but when the several weeks it took to get in with a specialist coincided with a frantic series of events resulting in Dad’s sudden death in an emergency room flooded by Covid, it became soulfully disorienting too. 

I truly felt detached from the world that I could no longer hear.

In the two years since I’ve sought hearing treatment, representations from hearing-impaired people have strongly resonated with me. 

My heart soared when the FDA increased access to hearing aids by reclassifying them as over-the-counter, I visually-applauded with both hands when CODA won Best Picture, and I deeply related to deaf Olympian Matt Klotz’s frustrations about living inside TV’s Big Brother house, which was full of whispers he couldn’t possibly hear. 

Each of these representations have helped reverse my mindset this holiday season to stop complaining so much about my hearing and start being more thankful.

I encourage everyone to take a moment this holiday season, even when your whacked-out relative is espousing on some negative headline or divisive talking point that despite not wanting to hear what they’re saying, you’re thankful if you can.

Or at least that you could if everyone wasn’t talking all at once.

• Chris Gaffney

Chris is a stay-at-home dad, humorist and poet living in Wolcott with his wife and two young kids. His work may be found at www.uncommondiscourse.com.

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I’m deeply honored to serve again as a keynote speaker at the National At-Home Dad Network’s annual convention: HomeDadCon.

It will be an interactive keynote full of moments for members to share their own stories alongside mine as we talk about the magical parts of childhood.

The keynote presentation takes place on Friday, September 22, 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The keynote description follows along with the associated Speaker Bio:

Appreciating the Poetry and Whimsy of At-Home-Dad Life

Jon had Garfield. Charlie Brown had Snoopy. Calvin had Hobbes. 

Chris Gaffney has wanted a comic sidekick for his entire life; it took becoming a stay-at-home dad to finally get one – and now he’s got two.

During this interactive keynote address, humorist and renowned public speaker Chris Gaffney reveals how his love for poetry and whimsy guides his cartoon-character-like kids (4 year-old girl, 2-year-old boy) through the Hundred Acre Wood portion of life.

And, how he copes with being the only participant who knows, as Christopher Robin knew, that even enchanted moments eventually pass.

Come prepared to share your two-minute story for an hour of bonding over tales of magic times, epic adventures, imaginary friends, or cartoonish shenanigans.

—–

Chris Gaffney has been an At-Home Dad for four years (4-year-old daughter, 2-year-old son) and created the website www.ctdads.com, which promotes monthly meet-ups for Connecticut stay-at-home dads. These dinners were co-founded with fellow NAHDN Member Mark Longbrake after returning from HomeDadCon 2022 where Chris gave a keynote address on authentic storytelling. 

Chris is currently workshopping a book-in-progress titled Baby Bump: Poems and Stories for Expectant Parents that encourages dads to start reading to their kids at the earliest possible moment, which for his family was the 15th week of pregnancy when fetuses can first hear sounds from outside the womb. Excerpts may be found on the People and Their Poems Podcast.

Many of Chris’ poetry performances have been widely praised, while others resulted in his self-assigned nickname as, “The Bad Boy of Connecticut Poetry” (after an OB-GYN’s spontaneous praise caused him to go long and get the hook).

Chris won the National Society of Newspaper Columnist’s award for best on-line humor column in 2019 as well as numerous public speaking and storytelling awards. His poems have been published in the CT Bards Poetry Review, Southwestern Poetry Review, and Rhyme & Punishment.

Chris is a non-practicing licensed attorney with a Juris Doctorate from UCONN School of Law and a BA in Writing with a Concentration in Political Rhetoric from Ithaca College. He resides in Wolcott, Connecticut with his two children and his wife Jenny. His work can be found at www.uncommondiscourse.com.  

The post New Keynote: Appreciating the Poetry and Whimsy of At-Home Dad Life appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

Ridgefield Poet Laureate Barb Jennes’ online poetry series showcases talent from throughout Connecticut to supportive and engaged audiences every month.

I am proud to represent my community in Poets from Connecticut’s Four Corners: Father’s Day Edition on Wednesday, June 7th at 7 PM.

Registration is open to all and may be completed here: https://ridgefieldlibrary.librarymarket.com/event/online-poems-connecticuts-four-corners-fathers-day-edition

The post Upcoming Online Poetry Showcase appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

I hope you enjoy hearing how my life’s journey led to serving as a stay-at-home dad to a 4-year-old girl and 2-year-old boy, how my artist’s journey led to poetry, and how I’m focusing them both to cheer on expecting parents by encouraging dads to get involved at the earliest possible moment (the 15th week of pregnancy) when fetuses first start hearing voices from outside the womb.

I’ve been slowly building this project up for nearly five years and am excited to start sharing more of it publicly in the weeks and months ahead.

The post Poetic Gestations appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

As I told the attendees during my keynote speech, “Stay-at-home dads are like exotic birds. Everybody knows they exist, but seeing one in the wild is completely disorienting.”

It was completely disorienting to speak, drink, and dine with such a large, diverse, and enthusiastic group of men who made the same decision I made three years ago to become a stay-at-home dad.

HomeDadCon (as it’s called) was amazing, empowering, and transformative – but so unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced.

When I try to describe it, I think of a difference I noticed between how the At-Home Dad audience reacted to a joke and how a typical audience would react.

I noticed it during a convention-wide session when the presenter asked everyone to describe ourselves without saying what we “do.”

My response was an “ok,” joke. Maybe a 5 or a 6 at best.

While a normal crowd would react with a respectable laugh or chuckle, the HomeDadCon crowd reacted like they were on Showtime at the Apollo when I responded, “My name is Chris Gaffney and I exist in-between the moments when my daughter needs to go potty.”

The different reaction illustrates HomeDadCon’s community-building superpower.

Everyone there just “gets it,” when it comes to an unconventional lifestyle that most other men don’t “get.”

Each of us speak the same language, tackle the same obstacles, experience the same highs and lows in the offbeat, isolating, and vulnerable lifestyle of: stay-at-home dad.

It’s the only convention I’ve ever attended where attendees are encouraged to skip sessions if they have even the faintest need for a nap.

The content is amazing but from start to finish the focus is on the dads. On the attendees, their self care, their families, and the flourishing community of HomeDadCon, now in its 27th year.

Though the presenter who asked me that question spoke frequently of sweat lodges, that’s not what HomeDadCon was – unless you count the fact that it was over 100 degrees outside and my hotel room’s air conditioner didn’t always work.*

*Which I count.

HomeDadCon couldn’t have been a sweat lodge because most of the communal spaces were freezing.

When it comes to temperature control at your next conference, I rate no place higher than the Residence Inn Phoenix Downtown.* **

*Provided that the environment you want is perfect for hugging a 7-foot-and-3-inches tall man who’s wearing a body-length Snuggie blanket with extra-long sleeves.

**And further provided that your conference is conducive to hugging and has at least one 7-foot-and-3-inches tall man (and correspondingly large body-length Snuggie with extra-long sleeves) as our’s did.

Everyone’s welcome at HomeDadCon; it is an open and affirming space.

During my keynote I asked the crowd if they all, “knew we were all feminists” and they shouted back, “yeah!” and, “obviously!” And were very receptive when I tied that energy to strong women of the past pointing out that there’s only space for us in the nursery now because we’re standing on the shoulder-pads of giants.

The convention’s opening remarks included a plug for the organization’s trans-positive t-shirt and the most-talked-about breakout session taught the art of fingernail painting.

Our most-disciplined attendees congregated for pre-dawn runs passing our differently-disciplined attendees who were just heading to bed after the late-night craft beer fundraiser for scholarships within our community.

It is a remarkable collection of people with a solid emphasis on mental and emotional well-being.

My only regret about attending HomeDadCon 2022 is that I also didn’t attend HomeDadCon 2021, 2020, and 2019. The prior ones would’ve been awkward since I was neither home nor a dad.

Having now opened the door to Dad jokes, I must amend my last statement to include the regret that on every elevator trip taken after learning superstitious people built our hotel, I was too slow answering the button-pusher’s question of, “Which floor?” with the hilariously misleading answer of, “13.”

So much for beginner’s luck.

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I’ll remember the location fondly as one of the only physical spaces to survive from my early childhood until my kids’ early childhoods nearly forty years later.

Mom was passionate about scientific education in Connecticut.

Before she started her thirty-year-long career at the UCONN Health Center, she was a stay-at-home mom and devoted member of The Children’s Museum where she often took me, my brothers, and our pre-school classmates.

Mom passed away from pancreatic cancer before either of my kids were born, but I feel connected to her when I visit the museum knowing it’s where she’d take them if she could.

I can almost feel Mom lingering in the halls.

The Children’s Museum encourages lingering; it’s not the sort of place one rushes through in a single sweep.

It’s built for observation, with an observatory-like planetarium at its core (Connecticut’s largest planetarium, which will be missed).

Their benches are aged by more than weather; they’ve soldiered generations of kids leaping off of them trying to fly like the just-released butterflies they observed.

Countless diapers have been changed on those benches by stay-at-home parents like Mom, forty years ago, and like me, today.

My appreciation for The Children’s Museum rose to a new level once my first child arrived in 2019.

The museum’s a true friend for stay-at-home parents. At times it’s been a place of reflection and escape while at other times it’s been one of community and celebration.

It’s a different vibe sitting quietly in the darkness of Turtle Town at 2 PM on a Tuesday while the aquariums distract your one-year-old for long enough to offer you your first moment of peace for the day, versus showing up on a Saturday to join the crowd meeting both Mr. Peanut AND the Weinermobile.

That’s just one of the distance-friendly activities The Children’s Museum scheduled after Covid hit and none of us first-time parents knew what to do.

My daughter and I watched their live-streamed butterfly releases online in the spring and, by late summer, felt confident enough to observe a few in person.

Their masked and time-ticketed Halloween party was the highlight of our fall.

I’ll forever cherish the videos of my daughter leaping between exhibits dressed as a two-year-old Peter Pan, and our blurry selfie in front of Conny, the life-size sperm whale replica featured prominently in the museum’s front yard.

I’m really glad the town of West Hartford is preserving Conny at a park across the street so we can continue visiting him when we’re in town.

For those who’ve never had the pleasure of stepping inside a sperm whale, Conny’s interior is a hollowed-out cavern sculpted to fully convey the massiveness of the majestic creature.

It delighted me, just last week, when my 18-month-old son stepped inside and immediately screamed to hear his voice echo, just as I did at his age (and last week too).

Conny evokes awe; he wasn’t put there as a trophy. He was built during the 1970s save-the-whale movement and remains a powerful statement considering Connecticut’s whaling-industry past.

That remarkable exhibit is just one of the immeasurable ways that The Children’s Museum has enriched the lives of our youngest citizens for over forty years.

I wish The Children’s Museum the best of luck at finding a permanent location and look forward to joining them at their temporary home when it opens this fall – even if I’m still a little sad.

The post A Fond Farewell to The Children’s Museum’s First Home appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.

I’ll probably forget to watch the drawing live, but I’ll have my ticket handy for whenever I first see the winning numbers.

There’s probably a way I could have them texted to me but its nice to purposely seek out something fun every once in a while.

I’ve always loved the lottery. It’s held a special place in my heart ever since my grandparents mistakenly thought they won $35 million when I was 14 years old. Talk about a family-wide thrill!

I try not to dwell too much on my family fortune that never was. I’ve good-naturedly participated in every office pool that ever invited me.

The truth is, my life probably won’t change right away if I win tonight.

As a stay-at-home dad, I quit my job years ago, and as challenging as raising a 3-year-old and 1-year-old may be, it would still be me getting them up in the morning and putting them to bed at night no matter how cartoonishly large our house becomes.

In fact, I’d probably be so worried about them growing up with a sense of entitlement that I’d overcorrect and end up denying them many of the standard joys in life.

Still, as Joe Diffie used to sing, ”I’d like to have a problem like that.”

I worked behind the counter of a neighborhood gas station when I was sixteen and the regular lotto players started coming during my shifts because I spoke English well and was good at operating the machine. For some of them I even memorized the games they played and knew their regular numbers.

I’d see the glimmer of hope in their eyes once they finally held their ticket. It was beautiful. Sad as hell, but beautiful in its own way.

On my way home from a haircut yesterday, I found myself without kids in public for the first time in an eternity and bought myself a Mega Millions ticket. My wife did not approve, but a billion dollars buys an awful lot of forgiveness.

Today I’m re-sharing a column today that I wrote back in 2019 titled:

DON’T LIVE LIKE YOU ARE DYING, LIVE LIKE YOU WON A SMALL AMOUNT OF MONEY ON A SCRATCH LOTTO TICKET

Even if you don’t win the Mega Millions tonight, hold on a bit to the hopeful mindset if you’re able. Sometimes that’s all it takes to make the world seem brighter.

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The 2-minute-long video below includes a reading of a poem I wrote for our first-born child:

You Started as a Secret

The post A Poem for Expecting Parents appeared first on Uncommon Discourse.