Features
What it's like to be a stay-at-home dad
Posted: June 19, 2005
Writer and HomeDad member Richard Hallows spoke to FQ Magazine about his experiences as a stay at home dad.
Why did you decide to be a stay-at-home dad?
While my wife was pregnant with our first child we both came to the conclusion that we didn't want to have children just to put them into full-time childcare. One of us would stay at home. At the time, I was running my own small business and my wife was working full time in a secure and well-paid job with a company car, health plan, stock option scheme, and a pension. My small business was rapidly getting smaller.
It wasn't a difficult decision. If we wanted to eat, then I would be the one who stayed at home. With hindsight I suspect that I also had a somewhat unrealistic expectation of what childcare would involve. As far as I could see, young children seemed to sleep for most of the day, and when they were awake they happily entertained themselves for hours on end with an old sock and a cardboard box. This, I assumed, would leave me with the chance to do all the things I'd always wanted to do, but had never had the time. This was a very poor assumption, mainly because small children fairly quickly turn into toddlers. I had more free time when I was in the office every day.
Do you miss the office?
Some days, just for fun, while Alex and I are having breakfast, we turn on the radio and listen to the traffic reports. I don't miss the commuting, and to be honest, I don't really miss the work, but there are a few things I miss.
For a start, there's the chance to talk to other adults ? especially male adults, and the time spent without children being around. Since I've been looking after Alex, the only people I meet are either children the same age as Alex, or the mothers of children the same age as Alex. They're all lovely, but every now and then it would be nice to talk about something other than children or the inadequacy of the male of the species and to know that I won't be changing a nappy for the next eight hours.
Then there's the money. There is no salary for being a stay-at-home-Dad. There's no option scheme, no company car, no annual bonus, no health plan and no pension. Actually there's no financial recompense at all.
Going to work also provides a level of shared experience, and something in common with other people, other than children. I'm the only stay-at-home-Dad I know, and all my friends still work for a living. While they're talking about the latest goings on in the office, and the colour choices for the company car, it can be difficult to find the right moment to effectively contribute my thoughts on the price of children' s shoes. It's surprising how quickly I've become a one-subject conversationalist.
I guess the strangest thing I miss is the occasional pat on the back and congratulations for a job well done. While getting through a meal that's been eaten rather than used to redecorate the kitchen walls is an immensely satisfying experience, expecting a toddler to tell me what a good job I'm doing is probably unrealistic. There isn't a lot of spontaneous praise from my wife either. She actually looked slightly annoyed when I started fishing for compliments the first time I figured out how to switch on the dishwasher.
Fortunately, the office experience isn't completely denied to me. An integral part of being a stay-at-home-Dad is to listen attentively to my wife while she provides a review of her day in excruciating detail, even when I think she should be listening to me explaining just how many nappies I've had to change today.
What do you do all day?
A two-year-old toddler represents incontrovertible proof that pleasure is just the absence of pain. A typical day is based on minimising the pain by making sure he eats when he's hungry, naps when he's tired, and most importantly of all, doesn't get bored. Old socks and cardboard boxes just don't cut it any more.
It is essential to get out of the house. This is partly to avoid boredom, but also to avoid being constantly confronted by the numerous DIY tasks that need to be done. Thoughtfully, just in case I don't notice them, my wife has also left me a list stuck to the fridge. Fortunately there is a wide range of organised toddler entertainment available such as Bumps and Babes, Musical Minis, Tiny Tumblers and Tots and Toddlers to name but a few of the annoyingly alliterated entertainment options. Unfortunately these seem to involve a lot of time spent sitting on the dusty floors of nondescript church halls singing inane nursery rhymes, while trying to remember what happened to my career.
I have also been fortunate enough to be adopted as the pet inept male by a group of young mothers who meet for coffee once or twice a week. Surprisingly I quite enjoy these gatherings, although being the only man in a room full of young women isn't at all how I imagined it would be. It's one of those things where the experience really doesn't match the expectation. In fact, at times, it can be quite scary.
And then of course, as well as looking after a toddler, there are all the household chores that need to be done.
Do you do all the housework?
I have yet to devise a compelling reason why my wife should do a full day at work and then come home and start on the household chores. At first I went about the task of cleaning the house as if I was trying to prove that only a man could do a job properly. Each room was a project in itself, but the joy of moving furniture and cleaning crevices that haven't seen the light of day since we moved in soon wore off, so the daily routine of vacuuming, cleaning, cooking, washing, and ironing, is one that is now done in the forty-five minutes between when my wife calls to say she's leaving work and when she gets home.
She is invariably greeted by the smells of wet clothes, warm ironing, and that nasty burning rubber smell that the vacuum cleaner makes when it's been left running too long. Of course, there are some tasks that simply cannot be trusted to a man, especially anything that involves hand-washing, gentle cycles on the washing machine, or ironing on anything less than maximum heat. While I can now operate all our domestic appliances, I only seem to be able to use them at full power. My wife says it's typical man.
What do people think about you doing this?
Reactions vary a lot. Men with children tend to think I'm insane. Men without children seem to think I've achieved a state of nirvana where I send my wife out to work and spend my days drinking beer and watching television, unless I'm out socialising with young mothers while their husbands are at work. Women tend to smile knowingly to themselves and gently shake their heads like a television nurse silently telling everyone the patient just isn't going to make it.
The main family concerns seem to be whether I'll ever be able to work again, what it's done to my pension contributions, and whether this will have a long lasting psychological effect on my son. It is possible that being a full time parent will make me completely unemployable, and pension plans will have to wait. I try to make sure that Alex doesn't only see me with my hands in the sink, and there is plenty of time for football, cars, trains, and anything that makes a lot of noise and seems to represent a reasonable manly pursuit, to offset whatever image of male domesticity he might be acquiring. The role reversal issue is one that seems to get to people the most, but as for whether that will have any effect on Alex, only time will tell.
What's it like to have a wife as the breadwinner?
It is definitely a strange feeling for a man not to be the one dragging home the dinosaur meat, but I have no doubt that I'm making as big a contribution to my family as I would be if I were going to work. I still get the odd days consultancy work that helps with the bills, but Alex gets far more than money out of our peculiar lifestyle. He has spent more time with his Dad in the first two years of his life than most boys ever will, and there is so much about that to enjoy that I can live with the fact that my wife is the one who brings home the salary.
This article originally appeared in FQ Magazine and is reprinted with kind permission.