I'd like to be a SAHD...

[sussexcoast98]

Completely hypothetical situation but I'd like some female opinion on this if I could please?

So I am male, 26, single, but would one day love to change this and have a wife and children of my own.

When that time comes, I would really love the idea of staying home with the children and being a full-time Dad!

Now, obviously none of you know me, but I am not one of those 'alpha-male', aggressive, insecure men who believes that women are second class citizens and that 'gender roles' come from reality, instead of ignorant and nasty social conditioning stemming from a time when women were treated as virtually inhuman and worthy of no rights at all. I believe that there is no such thing as a male/female divide, and there is instead an ADULT/CHILD divide.

I believe that either adult can carry out either of the adult roles, as they see fit, it has nothing to do with gender, as if only women/men were able to do these things, then it would be physically impossible for the other to do, but that obviously is not the case!

What I mean is: as a man, I cannot lactate. I cannot menstruate. That is an example of something that only women can do. It is physically impossible for men to do them.

It is NOT physically impossible for a man to stay at home and care for and bring up/look after their baby while their wife is at work. Social conditioning has brainwashed society into believing that it is WRONG if men are to do this, as society wants the role carried out by women, regardless of the man's ability.

Many use shaming tactics to try and push this agenda further, such as stating that it is 'emasculating' for a man to want to care for children, but there are men that do exist in society that are not insecure enough to be taken in by this - I am one of those people.

Obviously I know that it is something that would have to be agreed with both parties and she realistically would have to be earning more for it to work and be viable (otherwise we could both go part time to both have time with the kids and financially contribute, should she also want time at home with them as well)

I just really love the idea of doing the personal care of looking after and bringing up/caring for my child/ren in their early years and in addition to that, love the idea of pampering my lady when she has had a hard day, such as by cooking her a nice meal, and spending some nice time together in the evenings - hopefully with some cuddles and sex too! :)

Looking after our home and keeping it clean and tidy, is just simple common sense and something that needs to be done to stay hygienic - it is not a 'feminine' activity at all! All men have to do it to keep clean when they live alone, but once they live with a partner, it is suddenly a 'female' chore? So they were women before they moved in with their DW were they? Do me a favour.

If my lady is at work providing for our family financially then I owe it to her as her husband to keep my side of the deal and ensure that all household and childcare tasks are completed for her when she gets home. The exception to this would be if she proactively wants time alone with the kids to bond when she gets in, for example.

I really like the idea of cooking her a nice 3-course meal during the day and for her to come home to a nice candle-lit romantic dinner served up by her loving hubby! :) Who knows, perhaps it could lead to cuddles, snogging and sex to wind the day down!

I know these days are a long way off but I do have this dream in my head that I could be the modern day 'Rosa Parks' that changes forever society's perception of men and women, just as Rosa did with blacks and whites.

I suppose I have always been a very gentle, softly-spoken man that is described by everyone I know as very kind and loving and thoughtful, and I just have always found the idea of being a full-time dad as a sort of 'calling' - I feel it fits very well with my personality traits.

Hopefully I can one day find a lady to write a story with and we can be each other's happily ever after, but I guess I have to wait for now.

It goes without saying that the very large majority of men currently do not share my values, being very hands-off and sexist to their wives, you only need to spend 10 minutes on here on a daily basis to see that! But I hope this post can show some of the ladies on here that gentle, loving very family-orientated men do exist :)

Have a nice afternoon everyone x

I'm imagining him with a little goatee.

Do you have a fedora, OP?

But if I was to say that, as a SAHD, I'd be:

Odd

Weird

Sinister

Cringey

Creepy

Lazy

Have I missed anything?

Any adult, male or female, can want to be a hands on parent. As you have said yourself,

It’s incredibly rude to call someone else’s ambitions or preferences weird

The problem isn’t dads, the problem is you.

I read a couple of sentences, then scrolled through to see the length...

and thought, I wonder what would happen if you put into chatGPT "Generate 500 words of text about wanting to be a stay at home dad, to try and get women on a women's site to put their time and effort into a pointless nonpost from a men".

I imagine this is just another form of a man enjoying using up female resources for kicks.

YANBU to want to be a SAHD. Personally, I think men and women should equally have the choice to stay at home and care for the children or it's whatever works for the family. Or both work part time and both spend time with the kids. There's plenty of women out there who earn more than their partner so I guess with your goals in mind, you can just only date high earning women who love their jobs? I agree with you over the gender role thing although it seems these days even SAHM's are belittled for not working as we live in a society where working yourself into the ground as a wage slave is valued above time with your kids or time in general. Or over just one partner being around all day over the kids and overall partner time of an evening. I do understand where you're coming from over the three course dinner date thing, just not sure if after being with kids all day people have the energy anymore lol. I am childfree and wouldn't know for sure. You seem like an analytical and articulate guy, though who is self aware and knows what you want so best of luck with your search.

Or can a man's ambitions only be a certain way?

You clearly have an agenda here despite your vomit-inducing, sexist nonsense first post so why don't you run along now and play with your toys before bedtime.
Seriously! 🙄

"The three course meal thing may have been a pipe dream but certainly not embarrassing - we can all fantasise at times!"

That's a big issue, not getting your head around the reality of young children/babies. They don't run to a routine and are unpredictable. You only need you all to come down with D&V and it takes weeks to recover and catch up with the house. Your whole day is dictated by the baby's needs. There's no time for hobbies, even when they are little you've got to watch suitable stuff. You might get one that you can't put down, that doesn't do regular bedtimes etc. The part time plan can mean a break down in your relationship. Along with that you might have money issues. As for it getting easier when they are at school, schools these days demand a lot of parental involvement and then the child's hobbies start. It's difficult to claw back time for you. As posters have said, you could have one that wakes hourly. It's sleep deprivation on a torture scale. It isn't sexist to say that the Mother tends to manage better because of the attachment between mum/baby. More women look after babies, but more men kill them stating tiredness/frustration. There's nothing wrong with you deciding that if you have children, you want to be hands on, but you need to consider the reality of that. As for shaping them, they can be completely different people to you and want to do things differently.

Nope. It’s not you wanting to be a SAHD that's making people cringe. It’s the way you talk about it. It’s how patronising and condescending you are. You are cringe AF.

couples have sex. Often in the evenings. Often after they have eaten, as food = energy, which is a good idea if you want to be intimate.

Yeah thanks for this. We didn’t realise energy is good for sex. Thanks for coming on here and mansplaining this to a group of women who have probably had way more sex than you ever have.

I have always babysat and looked after young family members and every last one of them have said what a natural I was and how I had a calling for it - heads literally turned in the room when they saw the way I interacted with a child I barely knew, and how they responded to me. A few times they refused to go to family gatherings if I wasn't there!

This is just unbearable cringe. You really think you’re something fantastic don’t you?

. Just a little post I was hoping would bring a smile to a few faces and make them think 'oh, that's sweet!'

I don’t think ANYONE thought your post was sweet. It has brought smiles to our faces, but for all the wrong reasons!

Eh? I was defending you!

A-bloody-men. Thank you.

I take it the vast majority don't like the idea?😂

I wonder if you are autistic or if you lack male friends / male role models OP. The want to be around children also doesn’t come across as charming, it comes across as something else.

Putting the onus on women there, I see.

It’s not that people don’t like the idea… they don’t like the way you talk about it, and compare yourself to Rosa Parks.

You're not being serious, surely..?

You're saying that a man that WANTS to bring up his children comes across as 'something else'?

Would you think the same of a man that worked in childcare, or a babysitter perhaps? Childcare jobs they have chosen to have?

Do you believe the SAHD's that already exist are 'something else' as well then? Or how is that different?

In essence if one or both parents want to be SAHP, there is nothing wrong with it whether you are mum or dad, as long as everybody is getting their needs met and everybody in the relationship / family unit is happy and doing what they want and need to do.

Realistically you have to make it work depending on your child’s needs and family financial needs; some families can and want to make it work for one parent to be a SAHP, some families unfortunately can’t but want to make it work, and some families both parents are working and that works great for them too.

I guess the issue with this thread is the way it’s come across - being a SAHP (or quite frankly parent any day of the week!) is absolutely nothing like the OP has described as we all know, even with the most laid back of infants / toddlers / children! It shows a complete lack of understanding and more of an ideology / fantasy of what the days would look like.

As a PP said, often when the parent has been out to work that day comes in, the parent who has remained home needs a break quickly and the other parent gets going straight away with helping out with childcare or jobs at home. It is obviously just nothing like OP has described, genuinely couldn’t be much further from it (in my experience anyway, and all the other mums and dads I know - very small sample size I appreciate).

Everyone knows you’re the perfect parent until you have children. When real life hits, and children appear, it is completely and utterly different.

If a woman who didn’t even have a partner came on here posting about dreaming of being a SAHM I’d politely suggest she might have some issues (if I didn’t think she realised already - which I think most would, but I’m not sure you do?) Do you not think it’s a little early in your (non-) relationship to plan the childcare agreements? I’d recommend focusing on other ways to make your life more fulfilling at this stage.

To be clear, nothing at all wrong with having some issues but important to try to be aware of them.

It’s how your posts come across tbh. You can be a hands on parent, and work full time? You seem to be belittling both SAHM’s and working parents at the same time with some of the stuff you say.

It’s the way you’re coming across and the method in which you are doing it, on an anon forum too. My DH works with young people, but he doesn’t go on mumsnet to talk about how much he loves being around children…

Ah so you want the woman to go through conception and pregnancy. Then she can go through the birth and breastfeeding. Then after she has gone through the sleepless nights of the first few months, then poof , like a puff of smoke you will walk in and play house??? Wow you keep going on about equality, YOU can't do these things!!! You can only step in once she has done the hard work which means you are not being equal!!!

This

I just really love the idea of doing the personal care of looking after and bringing up/caring for my child/ren in their early years and in addition to that, love the idea of pampering my lady when she has had a hard day, such as by cooking her a nice meal, and spending some nice time together in the evenings - hopefully with some cuddles and sex too! :)

This is a ridiculous and sexist notion that your wife will have had a hard days work being in paid employment while the SAHP just has it easy pottering around playing with lego. Many paid jobs are much, much easier than being a SAHP, so why assume that she needs pampering not you?

The limited number of SAHDs that I have met, quite frankly, have found it too difficult and the working wife is still the one to do the night wakes and does all the childcare 100% of the time she isn't at work.

I think you're wasting your time thinking about this, OP. I don't think you'll ever have to worry about it 😂

*Southlondonmum22
*
'Yet the tagline is ‘by parents, for parents’ not just mums'

He's not a parent either. He's a naive, annoying kid - with an odd manner ('my lady'/ 'nuclear war can't come soon enough') trolling a forum with women (in my case) twice his age and with a mountain of experience.

It's not that we flat out hate the idea, OP. It's the fantastical way you're imagining it to be. Frankly, it's insulting to the work women actually do when they're SAHMs or on maternity leave, you take no future partner into consideration, or indeed what's best for the child, nor the financial aspect of bringing up said child on one wage or two part time wages; let alone finding two PT jobs.

That's not to mention your attitude towards women, your egocentric way of speaking, and the fact you have no experience with children. No career in place to even give yourself a safety net of money. Just a load of wishywashy bullshit about cooking dinners and getting sex.

And many, many more issues.

For the record, I outearn DH and love my career more than he does. If either of us were to be stay at home parents, it would be him. I'd have no issue with him doing so outside of financial obligations (I would not be willing to drop to one wage, his or mine, so this is purely as fantastical as your ideas). He's a fabulous dad. But he's also level headed, knows what children entail, and would be making the decision based on real life experience, not some lunatic daydream of candlelit dinners and marathon sex.