Joel Martin Schuppert (49) is a volunteer at the community centre where Alice and Jack go to exercise yoga at with other seniors. He provides water , sandwiches and even fruity milkshakes for the seniors. He was actually a Navy Ship line cook before retiring - he was able to retire early due to his wife 's income being greater than his and him staying at home with his three children - boys who are now grown men. Many people laughed at him and called his parenting “babysitting” due to sexism and people at large seeing childcare made by men as “emasculating”. However, when Joel tells them he was in the Navy as a line cook, they suddenly thank him for the service, which he finds just simply confusing.
Joel got into volounteering thanks to one of his sons who wanted to get extra credits for college. He stayed there after his son left due to moving out of state and really likes Alice and Jack - Alice or her charismatic personality and bright smile , and Jack because they can talk about the Navy. Joel finds it reassuring that even though he didn’t technically fight , Jack still calls him “a brother in arms” , as he says “unfed soliders are useless soliders”. Jack also sees nothing degrading in the fact that Joel was a stay at home dad and his wife made more, even though he admits that in the old days it would have been unthinkable. It gave Joel a new perspective on his situtation and even though he finds it tough managing his remaining two son’s antics, he is grateful that in this day and age people seem more accepting of others stepping out of traditional gender roles compared to , say, 50 years ago. One of his sons still lives with parents despite being adult and going to community college and the other is still a teen, so he naturally can’t move out yet. The third and oldest son is currently in another state at university and admittedly Joel is the proudest of him , seeing him thrive and live on his own , even though both his parents and brothers wish he would call more often and the family didn’t have to find out about what he’s up to solely from Facebook.
Joel has heard some rumours about his middle child - the son who goes to community college - mistreating his girlfriend , however he chooses to ignore it because the young man introduced a certain Latina girl by the surname of Nicoletti to the family - if he was truly mistreating her , he wouldn’t tell his parents about her or claim that he takes her seriously, would he?