Why I Am Not A Male At-Home Mom

Things never change. When my eldest child was a toddler, I was a stay-at-home-dad. Did all the childcare, diaper changing, then toilet-training, meal preparation, laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, playing with wooden blocks, coloring, going for walks, going to story-hour and pre-schooler play time at the community center, etc., etc. (In my spare time I was a grad student but taking care of my son was far more important to me.) I absolutely loved it and would not have traded one single moment. That was a long time ago; that little kid is now 41 and the father of my two grandsons. But I can recall strange looks when we first showed up for weekday story hour at the library and being totally shunned by all of the moms at the pre-schooler play time despite being there for every twice-a-week session for a year and a half. These days I'm a work-from-home guy (three cheers for computers & the Internet) and although no child care is involved (my youngest will be 25 in May) I am the person who does all the grocery shopping and all the meal preparation and there are still people who seem to be perturbed by that. And they get even more perturbed when they find out I have always done all of the grocery shopping and meal prep (it's just a lot easier now that I don't have to waste time commuting to an office).

I hope that the stigma of the old time gender roles goes away - I am very young and so was my son's father when we had him (read 17 and 18). I was able (because of grades and further education) to provide more for the family and he stayed home with my son. Although things didn't work out in the end for us (for reasons not worth getting into) I still give his dad full credit for teaching my son many of the worthwhile gender roles that he might not have picked up from me.

Pick flowers for your mom and tell her how beautiful she is all the time. Hold the door for any woman and most elders. Please and thank you. Look a man in the eyes when you shake his hand, even if he is so tall it breaks your neck to do it :) Things like this are priceless and I might have glazed over them without thinking about it. I still thank him for these little jewels that makes my angel stand out from the crowd.

Love it!

this guy is a SAHD of a 7 year old. my guess is she is in school all day. so yeah, he has time to grocery shop. it's not about gender- it's about who has the time.

I am a stay at home dad, and i will tell you it's no easy task. Me staying home just makes sense becuase we have 2 very young children; another on the way, and child care was running us more than i was making when i was working. My wife didn't like the idea of our baby being in daycare so we argreed that I would stay home and she would work because she makes more money. Comments are always made like "she should be the one staying home and the man should be working" but this is what works for us and it was my wife's idea...

The jury is still out on this whole stay at home dad concept. I think i'm a little old school in gender issues. But, I try to keep an open mind and well its always a case by case....

Hah, you think it's scary now, wait till they drive!

Oops--didn't know that these comments didn't take HTML. Copy-and-paste away if you want to see the author's actual blog, I guess.

I've been a homemaker (my preferred self-description) for almost seven years. I'm fortunate that every woman I know (family and friend) has been either impressed or gobsmacked ("You are a god"..."Can I clone you?")...or, at the very least, polite. Perhaps I'm in the minority in my experience.

It's very easy to be hyper-sensitive to suspected criticism (even when it's not really there) and project our own insecurities onto others, which is what I kind of suspect the author of this article may be doing. For instance, the woman is the first paragraph seems "startled" when he tells her that he does the grocery shopping too and he writes "...why should she even ask?". Well, why shouldn't she? What's wrong with trying to get to know someone better? Perhaps she was just incredulous and impressed ("You mean you do the shopping too? Wonderful!").

Furthermore, I'm sure the entire history of at-home women would object to this author's implication that they haven't felt isolated quite like at-home men. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what he meant, but if he longs for camaraderie with moms, maybe he should start by displaying some himself and recognizing that for every year an at-home dad suffers in domestic toil and loneliness a mom has suffered in it for...well, for forever.

Of course, it's important to have support in and out of the family while being at-home. Here in Milwaukee there is a great at-home-dads support group that been around for a long time. Many cities have them and they are invaluable. Good luck to this guy, and good luck to all of us parents.

KC: While I appreciate SAHPs, it should not be paid. A working mom or dad still has to balance all the tasks that you do along with a 40+ hour a week job. Working parents still raise great children who turn into great adults. They still watch them grow up. Some wish they had the ability to see their children grow up more, but good working parents are still greatly involved in their children's lives and activities every single day. They are also still responsible for running a household. Staying at home is a choice, whereas for many people, working is not. You are not forced to stay at home. If you want or need an income, than you need to work out of the house or find an in house occupation other than your duties of being a parent. No one should be paid for being a parent. Being a parent isn't a job, it's a personal responsibility you chose to undertake. You are a parent because you want to be one. it's a life/lifestyle choice, not a profession.

Anyway, back to the point. I think the idea of a stay at home dad is great! Both of my parents worked, but often times my father was home more than my mother and I really benefitted from having him around. Moreover, I love kids and really look forward to being a mom, but I can't imagine myself staying at home for more than a year or two. If I make enough to support the family and have a husband who is willing and happy to stay at home with our child/children, at the very least until they are school aged, I will be thrilled and I hope our friends, family and community will support him in our decision.

As a stay at home dad, I have experienced the same isolation that you describe and it is frustrating, because only other SAHD understand what it is like, but it is hard to find another guy that you click with. I think the best I can hope for is to have a SAHM as a friend who is understanding and not judgmental. The trick is to not let that relationship become so close that others viewing it from the outside think it is more than it really is. As a father on that "suicide watch" (great visual that describes our day perfectly) I don't have time for anything more than keeping the kids and myself, fed, dressed, and alive. Household chores and shopping are tough ones for me, fortunately my wife has no overtime demands and likes to coupon and shop, so I get out of that most of the time. It is a lot of fun to get to play with the kids all day and see them develop, I feel very fortunate to be in my situation.

If it is possible for one parent to stay home, I believe it ideal for the child/children. As a stay-at-home-dad, you place your family's wellbeing over and above your own ambitions or ego. For that I salute you. As a stay at home mom, I would probably choose to chat with you instead of the other moms at the park/playgroup/whatever. Most moms bore the heck outta me, no offense meant to any moms reading this I'm sure you are the exception

I'm a housewife (read stay at home mom) and I know a stay at home dad who is feeling the exact same thing. I don't ask him about groceries etc, I know the life of stay at home folks and can appreciate where he is coming from. In fact, I admire him, he seems to have it more together than I do ;) He has been struggling with his "title" and what the world perceives in a stay at home dad, including being ignored by stay at home moms.

It's a real shame that stay at home moms, who should be empathetic to the situation, would gape at the thought of men doing the same chores normally associated with women. It's more of a shame when those same stay at home moms, who created a support group to deal with the loneliness and frustration that comes with the territory, should decline a request by stay at home dads to join - something that happened to my stay at home dad friend.

I hope you keep up the writing. Your stay at home dads in arms need you, and the stay at home moms - and quite frankly the rest of the world - need to see what it is to be a stay at home dad.

Good luck to you!

I raised my two sons without a wife.
The younger boy was 3 when she left.
I always had a fulltime job.
Except when I was at work, the boys went everywhere I did.
I did the maintenance on my 5 rent houses, remodeled my house, maintained my antique cars,
(I have never owned a new or modern car)
I built a 1935 Ford hotrod from the frame up and maintained my antique Harleys
I loved every minute of it.

I repeatedly read news article about women complaining about "how hard" it was to be a single mom.
They made me think, "Hmmm, maybe those women are not qualified to be a single mom."

It never occurred to me that what I was doing was "hard'.
Its just life and a good one at that.
Hotrods and Harleys and good kids that graduated college and became an Electrical Engineer and a Certified Jeweler

I'd add that humans were hunter gatherers far, far longer than they were subsistence farmers.

Couple of slightly OT notes --

I used to get aggravated when our son was in a Montessori preschool and during various out-of-school events which I attended as well as my wife, I'd be outside keeping an eye on my son while the women stayed inside and chatted. What got me was that these overwhelmingly PC liberal moms, who would be the last to admit that men as fathers bring anything unique/special to the table (or are needed at all - several divorced & single moms), would without fail dump their kids on me w/o ever asking. They'd see me and just disappear, leaving me holding the bag. Their presumption was quite irritating. Same thing applied elsewhere (beach, park etc) when I'd be trying to play with my own son, and we'd get swarmed by other kids desperate for attention to the point we couldn't really enjoy ourelves, as the moms just sat on their asses ignoring them.

What you are doing is an utterly rational and of course respectable choice. However you shouldn't be surprised at the challenge this poses to your identity as a man, because it is utterly foolish to presume that more traditional parenting gender roles are just arbitrary (and backwards) culture, when in fact they do have a deeper evolutionary basis -- mom *did* stay closer to the camp with the kiddies for her work while the dad ranged farther afield hunting mammoth (or other tribes to raid).

Unfortunately, it's not just that that wiring gives you some doubts, it gives women doubts about you too, on average, even though they may deny it and even if they may honestly think it doesn't tinge their opinion of you. None of that has anything to do with the logic of what you're doing andt the love you show for your kids. But it doesn't make it easier.

I can relate in a few ways however -- my wife works too, as a teacher (most mom-friendly job in many ways -- she was able to take the 1st year off w/o penalty). So I have been a very involved dad from the beginning.

There was definitely some tension on the part of some *women* to my doing that -- they thought it was great I would get up in the middle of the night for a bottle or regularly change poop diapers, but apparently thought I was supposed to always roll over on any baby-related decision and defer to them.

Not to mention the strange looks we got when we both went to the the pre-birth lactation class, where we were the only traditional (M/F) couple :)

All the above said, there seems to be nothing that will draw female interest to a guy like seeing him out solo with an infant or toddler. I don't think I've ever been so attractive to the opposite sex :)

Seriously, its similar to the effect when you're newly engaged or married -- in your everyday random interaction with women they become warmer, even subtly flirtier -- partly that I guess you're 'safe', as in taken, but also that your attractiveness goes up having already received the most important thumbs up from another woman. Maybe not true alpha male, but you've definitely gained status in their eyes.

Bummer that if they find out you're SAHD rather than highly involved but working dad, that your status goes back down.

Pater Familias,

I really like your blog and post. I too am a stay at home mom and its not an easy job. There are so many chores to do and I can't keep up with everything; school, children, housework, finding a job, and husband. It gets frustrating sometimes and lonesome. I think being a stay at home parent should get paid too. But we don't, only through rewards of seeing our children grow up as wonderful adults like us. I have to give you credit for raising your children up and because I really admire a good man and father being responsible like yourself. I wish more men, fathers would be more like you.

K.C.

Unfortunately, whether you are a stay at home dad or a working mom there are women out there who will judge you. Good for you. You are doing what you and your wife feel is right for your family. Now bake some cookies and go to the nearest stay at home mom's home, believe me she won't turn you away and you'll be included in the club.

All down thru history (until WWII) both parents stayed at home and took care of the kids.
Before World War Two, 90 percent of Americans lived on the farm and the boys worked outside with the fathers, the girls worked in the house with mom.
After the war, 90 percent of the population moved to town and the fathers worked in factories and the women raised kids at home and taught in schools.

Thus began the emasculation of men.
Then the Democrats started demanding that women start working,and they demonized men and used welfare policies to create single parent families.
All this is good and proper Communist policies.

I'm surprised people still react this way- especially to the grocery shopping. That's really no big deal. My SO does the grocery shopping here when he feels like it and he cooks more than I do, too, though I am the one who stays at home with the baby. He's told me he would not want to switch roles with me, ha ha, but there isn't this division of labor based on gender. We do have a male in the neighborhood who comes to the baby playgroup every week and people don't balk at that. It's a little different, but it's refreshing to me, at least. I think you could go outside your comfort zone some and kill some of that isolation. You are offering people a necessary perspective in our modern world! Good luck. :)