Stay At Home Dads

[theviscountess]

Do any of you have set-ups where your husband stays at home and you work full time? Or your husband works very reduced hours and you work full time?

How does it work for you? Is there anything else to it that should be considered that wouldn’t be an issue in a more traditional Stay At Home Mum set up?

My husband was a stay at home dad. It worked very well for us, but I think he found it harder than he should have done. Lots of women not comfortable with a man around for things like playdates or coffee mornings. School gates were tough at times. Also some employers openly questioned why he had done this when he returned to work. Kids were very happy though and that is the main thing.

When my DCs were in primary school, quite a few families had this set-up. There were 4 in my DD’s year from what I remember and lots of Dads at the school gates who worked full-time but flexibly. The SAHDs were included in coffees after drop-offs, etc.

A quick look at the babysitting thread shows that some of these attitudes are sadly still with us.

Brainwave89 totally agree.
Wonder how the thread would go if a woman wanted to not be a sahp but work in construction or similar.
I was once asked by a female doctor why my husband had taken time off work to care for our sick child but I continued to work, as it was expected the mother should be at hospital. I nearly ( sarcastically) asked for a male doctor as I expected to see males as doctors. But didn't.

There's a couple of SAHDs in our NCT group, all of the SAHPs do things together during the week. I like that my DS is growing up seeing it as normal for a man to be the SAHP and the woman to be a working parent. Both of the dads in our group are treated just like the mums, bar talking about shared experiences of birth/breastfeeding etc.

DS was a stay at home dad for 8 years looking after three young children. As mentioned, he didn’t get invited to coffee mornings. He is about to take a 12 month sabbatical to replace their nanny and work with his neuro diverse DS.

I have known a couple of SAHD. I think it needs a fairly confident man as they need to walk into a room full of mums and babies.
My husband and I worked opposite shifts each 3 days a week but when he had the baby, he struggled to socialise because he wasn't confident going to baby groups etc. It didn't work out for us but does for plenty of others- only you and your husband know whether it will work for you.

We have this set up and it works amazing for me.

For my husband probably not so much. None of the mums want anything to do with him and part time child care still defer to me primarily despite being told multiple times he is the primary carer.
He is job hunting and it's had a massive effect on his career as employers don't understand why a man would take out a few years to look after kids. He struggles with this mentally and finds it really hard - on the plus side the kids love having him about

It's quite difficult, I think. Mums often get resentful when the child runs to the Dad when they're hurt. Dad's can get lonely and tired of being broke, even when they are included with the Mums they often don't have much to say.

The unlikely friendship between Kevin and Liz in Motherland makes sense because they are both outcasts from the main group.

Its not our set up but some of the SAHD ive met over the years have been popular with the other playgroup mums as a 'safe' non threatening, non sexual man.