Much like the women who have struggled to break through the glass ceiling in the work force, some fathers are finding it’s not always easy to step over the baby gate into the traditional realm of at-home mothers. While the notion of the stay-at-home dad is not new, more fathers are coming forward to challenge stereotypes that those who choose to be full-time parents are ill-equipped, lazy, or unmanly.
In 2008, at-home dads – not including those working part-time – numbered 140,000 nationally, almost twice as many as 10 years ago, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Those numbers are likely to rise, thanks to the ongoing economic recession; about eight in 10 laid-off workers nationwide have been men, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Kirkland father Bob Linarelli was laid off a year and a half ago from his job as a senior systems administrator for an information technology firm. He and his wife, who had stayed home with their sons, Joseph, now 2, and Matthew, almost 6, since they were born, talked about trading places several times. So when five months of interviewing didn’t result in a job for Linarelli and an opportunity came up for his wife to work outside the home, the decision was clear: Linarelli would stay home with the boys.
The switch wasn’t too difficult for Linarelli. “I did a lot of stuff anyway. I helped out around the house. Family has always come first.” He’s thrilled to watch his sons grow up. “I get to participate, see them learn to swim. I would have missed it.”
Linarelli’s wife, Elizabeth, is also thrilled with the arrangement. “Since it’s their dad that’s home with them, I don’t feel bad. I would have had a harder time working if the kids were in daycare,” she says. His family and peers have applauded their choice. He says most of the men he knows tell him, “I wish I could do that.”
Money is the driving force in most families’ decisions about which parent stays home. Over the last two decades, wives have been catching up with – if not surpassing – their husbands in income. In 1987, just 18 percent of wives in the work force earned more than their working husbands. That number climbed to 26 percent by 2006, according to most recent data from the National Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Paul Sundstrom of Seattle has been home with sons, Coen, 8, and Sven, 5, since the summer of 2004. His wife, a self-employed licensed architect, had previously worked from home and cared for the children. But when the family moved to Seattle from Colorado Springs, Colo., he assumed the role of primary caregiver.
As a high school teacher, Sundstrom was never the primary “breadwinner” of the family, but the switch to full-time dad entailed some sacrifices. His wife would have the burden of being the sole financial provider, while he was leaving his career “at the top of my game.” Yet had he continued working, daycare expenses would have devoured his salary.
“It didn’t seem like sound financial sense to choose otherwise,” Sundstrom says.
No Easy Gig
Stephane Roy’s work days once were consumed with research, test tubes and lab coats. But for the past three years, he’s been busy with pony tails, snack cups, and teddy bears. The 35-year-old Seattle father of one has been at home raising his daughter Sophia, now 3, while his wife, Brenna, works as an emergency room doctor.
Like many other at-home dads, it just made sense financially for him to care full-time for their daughter. He was working 60 percent of the time and made less money than Brenna.
Roy thought it would be a great bonding experience with Sophia, and that he could work part-time from home while she napped. It’s a misconception shared by many.
“I had one friend tell me that he would love the chance to stay at home and work on all his projects,” Roy says. “He just doesn’t get how much interaction kids require as they get older, and how little ‘me’ time there is.”
While some men regret having not spent more time with their children, Roy is brutally honest in admitting that he’s not suited for life at home with a little one. “I enjoy spending some time with my daughter, but all day is too much.”
“I love the freedom of being my own boss, but it simply doesn’t happen with a kid in the house, especially as they get older. I feel more like a slave than a boss at this point, and I would give anything to get out of the house,” Roy says.
The transition to working at home wasn’t as seamless for Linarelli as he had hoped, either. Trying to take a client’s call while tending to an upset child is challenging and school routines are wearing. “You have to get ready for school, get the kids to listen,” he says. “It’s stressing. We must get things done and not be late.”
Keith Dickie of Seattle enjoyed being home with daughter Charley Anne, who was three months old at the time. But now she’s one, and caring for her while trying to do household chores is harder than he expected … and he doesn’t get paid for it, he quips. “I have really gained an appreciation for mothers,” he says.
Societal Roadblocks
Stay-at-home dads struggle with the same daily sources of stress as moms do, but face unique social challenges.
Jeremiah Mushen’s flexible schedule as an Auburn firefighter has allowed him to be home in downtown Seattle the majority of time with 17-month-old son Hudson. His wife, Annemarie, works full-time as a telecommunications manager. Growing up with an involved father and working mother, he had the expectation that he and his wife would share child-rearing duties.
Therefore he has been surprised by some of the comments he has heard when out with his son. “They make you do everything nowadays,” one older man in his 60s commented as Mushen changed Hudson’s diaper.
Linarelli has also heard the odd comment when he’s out with his boys. “Oh, it’s your day out with the kids!” He doesn’t want to get into explaining. He says, “People assume dad’s on vacation or taking a sick day. People don’t assume it’s a stay-home-dad.”
Clearly stay-at-home fathers make some people uncomfortable. Rich Kaselj, a part time stay-at-home dad from British Colombia, was recently barred from a parenting group in his area. He and another dad got the boot via an e-mail saying the mothers in the group had voted to make the group for moms only because they “worried for the security of their kids.”
In a 2008 sermon, televangelist John Hagee delivered a sucker punch to at-home dads everywhere when he called them lazy and said they were going to hell if they let their wives care for them. “You call yourself Mr. Mom, God calls you a bum,” Hagee said in his rant.
One of the most commonly used terms for a stay-at-home dad is one that rubs Sundstrom and others like him the wrong way. “I always heard the ‘You’re a Mr. Mom?’ line from moms,” he says. “If there is a more antiquated and condescending line, I haven’t heard it yet.”
He recalls an afternoon at a grocery store where his boys were very upset because he wouldn’t give in to their pleas for candy. He was already struggling to maintain his composure when a woman approached and asked if he wanted her to find their mother.
Sundstrom wrote about his frustrations with these and other experiences in a February 2006 editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “I hoped to call attention to how dads can be treated but I underestimated the hate mail and comments I received,” he says.
Peer Support
Dads typically don’t have much social support, says Mary Gentry, program director for the Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS). When they come to groups that are primarily women, fathers are included, but are not drawn in by the group in the same way as mothers are.
“While things are changing, I think that the life of a stay-at-home dad remains tough and isolating,” Gentry says.
Sundstrom agrees that connecting with other parents has been difficult. He believes at-home dads are more likely to keep to themselves, perhaps as a way of showing they don’t need any help or out of fear of being misunderstood.
“I was scared to death when I would take the boys to the park or the indoor gyms,” he says. “I’d sit by myself and feel uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure how I, being in the minority, fit in.”
Mushen says it’s harder for men to find social networks. “Changing diapers is not a big deal. The lack of social interaction is tough,” Mushen says. “Men tend to be more socially isolated as far as parenting is concerned,” he says, noting that male friends who are fathers are unlikely to share parenting tips.
Groups aimed at fathers don’t always encourage social networking. Mushen said a class he took at a local hospital for expectant fathers focused on avoiding shaken baby syndrome and how to change a diaper. While he found the information helpful, he says none of the dads were encouraged to exchange phone numbers to form ties outside the class. He says if he knew then what he knows now, he would have tried to do that.
Some dads note that joining groups would be easier if they weren’t advertised as gender-specific with names such as Listening Mothers and Mom2Mom. Sundstrom says he might have considered signing up for such support groups if he’d found any that weren’t so clearly targeted toward moms. “Being a parent is unique in itself,” he says. “I don’t understand a need to separate by gender.”
Others understand why moms might be hesitant to reach out. Roy recognizes that during a baby’s early weeks, moms would be likely to be discussing, among other things, breastfeeding, which can be a painful, emotionally charged issue. “Asking them to talk about it in front of strange men, even men whose wives are breastfeeding, is a bit much,” he says.
Pleasant Surprises
For these reasons it’s sometimes difficult for dads to approach parenting groups, and therefore helpful when moms reach out. Dickie was encouraged by moms in his PEPS group to join them on walks around Green Lake and various other outings. “It felt more like going for a walk with friends, as opposed to a group of women I didn’t know,” Dickie says.
Redmond dad Pat Linder, who stayed at home with his son, Aidan, and daughter, Kiera, was pleasantly surprised by his positive experiences being asked to join two different parenting groups, one from a local hospital and one in his neighborhood, both made up of mothers except for him. “It was a relief,” he says. “It would have been harder to invite myself into a group.”
When asked what the best part of his experience has been, Linder is quick to answer: “I feel close to the children. I feel very lucky that way.”
His advice for dads contemplating staying home with kids: “Be confident in yourself. Be comfortable. I was able to find groups because I’m comfortable with what I’m doing. If I don’t think it’s weird, then others don’t think it’s weird. Let the fact that it will be good for your kids be your primary drive.”
Melanthia M. Peterman is a Seattle freelance writer and mother of a toddler. Laura Spruce Wight is a Seattle area freelance writer and mother of a toddler and a kindergartener.
