I know this isn’t exactly a new thing, and I would be interested in seeing if the trend is increasing or not, but what are your personal feelings on stay at home Dads?
How do you feel about this? Do you initially think poorly of the Dad for opting to stay at home and raise the kids, take care of the housework, etc? What if said Father also runs a home based business?
I’m curious because I don’t personally know any SAHDs, but I have had several people say they knew of one or two, and that the “trend” is increasing. They typically had neutral views of the father, though one thought the husband in question was a slacker for it.
I love being a SAHD. It has some dull moments but, overall, it is great and satisfying.
Mrs Sapo loves it that she gets home to a clean house and a warm meal with two bathed and happy kids. My last job at the supermarket payed me about an hour of her overtime for my full day and that meant coming home to a house undone.
The nasty old hag we affectionately call my MIL, is not so hot about me being at home. She can’t wait for me to leave the room for a minute to make a stupid comment to Mrs Sapo.
I plan to start a little home business to fill my time now that Sapito is going to start regular school. We will see how that goes.
My feeling towards them depends on the circumstance.
I respect them if he is willing to go out and get a job but they’ve agreed (he and she) that SAHD is a good place for him.
OTOH, if it’s his role by default because he’s too lazy to go out and do something, I won’t have the time of day for him. Of course, he will have his own rationalization for not working.
My father is a stay-at-home dad, with my mom being the single source of the family’s income.
I feel no different about stay-at-home dads than I do about stay-at-home moms; I don’t see one as being any more of a “slacker” than the other. If it is a choice both parents want to make, and they can fully support themselves on whatever other income they are receiving, why not?
In my parents’ case, my dad decided to quit his job after I was born. It was a decision completely devoid of gender-role influences; my parents wanted one of them to stay at home and raise the child, and since my mom’s job paid more and offered more stability and health benefits, it was the financially smart choice to make. I think they made a wise decision, considering their intentions and the circumstances.
I’m a SAHD. When my wife and I decided to have our first child we worked in very similar jobs in the same industry, however she worked for a huge international company and my job was a small local business. Her pay and benefits were better than mine by far though, so when we agreed that we did not want our daughter in daycare I was the logical choice to stay home. We’ve since had another child and in the interim we’ve tried different arrangements, part time jobs, swing shift etc. but nothing really works as well as having me at home full time, dedicated to the children and house. I cook, clean and am the primary caregiver… I keep up with budgets and doctors appointments… still do yardwork and maintenance. ;> I’m also enrolled in online courses so that when our children get to school age I will be able to re-enter the workplace as a teacher since my skillset from before is woefully out of date now. I think this is becoming a more and more common situation as equality in pay continues to approach parity. All I can say is it works for us and I would encourage other families to keep an open mind about it if it is a viable option for them.
This is not quite the same thing, but Mr Aspy is a part-time SAHP/part time paid worker, and so am I. We share out the week so that there’s always someone in the house with the Small Girls.
It’s a really awesome arrangement - both of us get Adult Time at work (we refer to this time as “rest days”!), both of us get time to develop a relationship with the kids. Whenever I get chatting with other parents at the park or wherever about childcare arrangements I always rave about this way of doing things and it’s amazing how often I come up against people who are doing the exact same thing … and also rave about it. ISTM that of all possible arrangements this one is the one which is gaining ground fastest - and that’s a great thing IMO.
As far as full-time SAHD’s are concerned - my opinion is probably coloured by having kids and having been full-time at home, but I think it’s a great thing. I know it can be difficult socially though - most activities for parents and small kids have a default assumption in them that “parent” means “mum”. We’ve never had more than one dad at a time at Playgroup, for instance, and conversations among the parents can get a bit girly - it takes some effort to make sure the dads don’t feel excluded
The same thing I think about stay at home moms in our area: “Gee, I wonder how they afford that.”
Dad was occasionally our at home parent, twenty years ago when it was pretty uncommon, due to inability to get/hold down a job, and frankly he was better in that role than he was in the breadwinner role. It was a pity he wasn’t comfortable just doing that. I give Mum credit for not making a big deal of it.
We don’t have kids but my husband works part time from home and is the homemaker and that suits me just fine. Actually, it’s helped me appreciate the role of stay at home partner better, when I can see how much he contributes to our quality of life. With kids factored in as well I can see it must be a marvellous thing to be financially able to have one partner keeping things running smoothly. It’s definitely a job of its own and while I knew that intellectually before, the difference between when we were both working full time/commuting and now is amazing.
The funniest thing is I’ve got comments to the effect that we should have kids, so that he can be a stay at home dad, because that would legitimize his role in a way that it apparently isn’t, now, to some people. So I guess I hope that means the pendulum is swaying toward stay at home dads being run of the mill.
Same as Idlewild, I wonder how they can afford it.
I’m lucky I guess, in that my “full time” job generally involves three to four days off per week. So my wife and I share home duties fairly equally. She works part time three days a week, but we have to have our daughter in child care on those days as my days off are not consistent. This gives me the luxury of sometimes having days at home all by myself. When we can, the wife will spend a child care day at home and work on one of my days off. All in all, it works really well, though it may sound confusing.
Not a SAHD, but my husband is a work at home dad. The kids are in daycare, but he’s responsible for taking care of them in the morning and bringing them in to daycare (we try to bring them in as late as possible and pick them up as early as possible to limit their hours there), arranging and bringing them to doctor appointments, house repair and improvements (usually calling and coordinating with contractors, although he does the lawn maintenance himself), and some of the pet care. I admire him greatly–he has an enormous amount of work to do, even without the kids at home all day.
I telecommute once a week, more if I have a doctor’s appointment I couldn’t schedule for my usual day at home. I cook on the weekends and on my telecommuting day, and we usually have leftovers the rest of the time. We’re going to get a maid service, because neither of us has the energy to clean (we’re lucky we do the laundry once a week).
He hated working for other people (he’s a freelance journalist) and I have the good benefits and the steady income. His most serious problems are (1) lack of adult conversation, and (2) time crunches when he has deadlines and there are house/kid things to deal with during the day. He makes enough money for us to send them to daycare, but if we didn’t, he would be the one to stay at home since I’ve got the benefits.
I have a friend who has three kids (twins and an older). Her husband stays home because she found the job first and the cost to keep that many kids in daycare is astronomical. I think she likes the arrangement most of the time, but she would like to see him get a life outside the home, which he is resistant to doing. He worked part time for a while, but it didn’t work out. When the twins get into school full time, I think he’ll probably go back to work.
My DH is the stay-at-home parent now and has been for a little over a year. The transition was a little difficult while he learned the ropes, but now it is working very well.
When the Hallgirls were little, I was living with a great guy, who although he was an artist, he was still largely a SAHD for the Hallgirls. When the kids were in school, he was working on his art, but was also overseeing the household and all that is required to keep it up while I worked outside the home all day. In the summers when the Hallgirls were home from school, he was there all day to oversee things, which went way beyond “babysitting”. He was a fantastic SAHD, and I really, truly loved having him at home, knowing my girls were in such good hands. This has been about 20 years ago, and I still look back on it fondly with much appreciation that he was there for them (and for me) during those years. (We’re all still very close today.)
Hallboy (7th grade) has a friend at school whose dad is a SAHD (the mom is a doctor). The dad is VERY involved at school–makes every single field trip, frequently volunteers for almost anything that needs to be done at school, etc. Although he’s not working outside the home, he’s very actively involved with the lives of his children.
Same here. I also wonder “Don’t they get bored? I can’t imagine being completely occupied all day!” when the kids are in school. Having seen the effects of bored SAHMs who never got back into the workforce once the kids were away, I really can’t imagine how one keeps themselves occupied if they’re doing nothing outside of the house besides running errands and herding children.
Been there, done that. It’s a hell of a job, being home with a toddler and an infant. The question would seem to be largely one about the money – who can most afford to leave their job. And these days, when the odds are decent that the woman makes as much or more than the man, it seems like there ought to be more of a movement for the man to stay home. But I don’t really see it. I don’t know whether the pressure is societal or individual, but nine times out of ten, it’s the woman who stays home. I guess there’s cultural conditioning at work that’s a little hard to overcome.
I’m of the opinion that only boring people are ever really bored. I find things to do, there’s never a time I couldn’t find work to do around here if I wanted… but in my ‘downtime’ there are books, the internet (straightdope, anyone?), friends, my classes and school activities… tons of stuff. Then again, my daughter is in kindergarten and my son is under two so taking care of and educating them takes up a large part of my day in and of itself… I’m rarely ever in an empty house. (right now the boy is taking a nap then I’m off to pick up my daughter ;>)
I’ve known several, and also one or two stay-at-home hubbies (no kids, but the man has taken on the traditionally female role of household management and care for the spouse with a stressful career).
Sure there are probably a coupla lazy-ass types leeching off a successful female out there somewhere, but on the whole, it takes guts and imagination for a man to relinquish the stereotype of “me, man – breadwinner; you, female – nurturer.” And a very good sense of self, impervious to nay-sayers.
I’m all for any family that wants, and can figure out how to have, a parent at home. That said:
A dear friend is a SAHD to a 4 year old. It worked out better that way, for the money and for where both of their careers were.
Now, 4 years later, he still loves spending all that time with his son, but I’m a bit worried about my friend. He has always been an outgoing person, but these years of semi-isolation have definately affected him. I see this couple dropping into almost a reverse 1950’s lifestyle. He takes care of the child and the house. Other then child related activities and activities that include the whole family, he doesn’t have much of a social life. She works long hours, goes out for drinks with her co-workers, attends conferences. If he starts wearing gingham and pearls, and having her favorite drink waiting when she comes home, I’ll be realyl worried.
My dad retired when I was quite young (second grade or so) and was a SAHD for the remainder of my years at home. (For the record, he was a teacher - he hit is 25 years when I was about 7 and allowed the district to bribe him into retirement.)
I recall the first year being a little turbulent because my mom (who kept working until I was in college) and my dad had different notions about what “appropriate childcare” “adequate housecleaning” and “proper meal construction” constituted. They worked it out though, and the system worked well for them. My dad still worked occasionally when my brother and I were a little older - mostly in construction roles since he was a Master Carpenter (shop teacher). He used to drop us off at school, head down the the coffee shop, have coffee and gossip with the boys, do the errands (shopping, mail pickup, etc), go home and clean the house and then start dinner. The school bus dropped us off - and then he kept us from killing each other all afternoon and supervised homework if any until my mom got home.
Since I’m in my 30’s now - this was a good 20 - 25 years ago.
As for affordability, don’t overlook the tax implications of having a family and a mortgage and only one income vs two.
When my wife and I both worked, we were around a 6 figure income level. We also payed nealry 600 per month on daycare alone, and another hundred per month for my wife to drive to and from work.
When she quit work, we dropped to about 60% of that, but our tax liability took a HUGE dive. My tax liability dropped by about 8 thousand per year based on that alone. Add in the other 7 thousand in not paying for child care, and that made up over 15K of income, a very significant portion of what she used to make after tax. Not to mention she was happier, we ate out less, etc.
That being said, it was definitely difficult. We were on a very tight budget for a few years, and had to use some savings to supplement our income.