Stay at home dad

[dadhasquestions]

Hello, just looking for thoughts.

Wife and I are high earning professionals, with three young children. We are managing fine, but I am thinking of giving up my job to spend more time with them. She is ambivalent.

The general advice received from other professional men is don't do it; it's difficult to "get back in" the career later, financially risky, and it's much harder for men emotionally.

Some questions.

1. Has anyone have experience where the husband willingly becomes the stay at home dad? Was it difficult / emasculating / (insert choice of word, recognising gender differences)?

1. How important is it to spend time with children in the early years Vs their teenage years?

1. What else should I prepare for practically and emotionally? Assume money is tight but manageable.

Cheers

Is your wife happy to support this financially?

Why your wife ambivalent?

My DH did. He enjoyed 18 months at home an is very open about the gap in his CV. He has had only positive feedback and it’s been commented at more than one place since that another man is jealous of him having had that time with DS and they wish they had done it.

Could you drop one day a week to start with and see how you manage?

I have two colleagues whose husbands became SAHDs. One couple is divorcing as the DH was basically useless - he was a babysitter, not a SAHD. So she would come home, he'd hand over the toddler as soon as she walked through the door, no housework had been done and she was on toddler duty until bedtime. Really not ok, and definitely not what a SAHM would do.

It works well for another colleague. But her DH is very hands on and loves being at home.

So I think it depends on your expectations. I've had a few days with my toddler by myself (I'm not a SAHM) and it's intense. Getting shit done is like a military operation. You really do need to treat it like a job otherwise 1) you'll get lazy and depressed and 2) it won't work for the family.

My DH is on a 3 month break between jobs right now. We chose to keep toddler in full time childcare. DH offered to stay home but I know him and I'd be coming home to a fucking disaster every day. No thanks.

If your children are under school age, I think it’s wonderful. If they are in school all day, it’s just being unemployed. I’d say the same for a woman - I don’t work at the moment (due to ill health) and while, yes, I do the school runs, I don’t do significantly more than I did when I was working, because my kids are at school all day.

The only thing I’d caution is make sure you have a plan for how you’d manage financially if your wife suddenly lost her job or became too unwell to work.

I got cancer and bam, literally have never gone back to work. That was 2 years ago. If I ever return to work FT, it’s at least another 2 years off or longer. I am just a little bit looking to dip my toe back in this summer and see if I can cope. Thankfully, it was me who got ill and not Dh. My sad little £30k a year salary as a PhD level academic 🤣 is like a drop in the bucket compared to dh’s £100k or so. It hasn’t really mattered that much that I can work. Had it been the other way around, we would have lost our house.

Never voluntarily give up an income without a plan for what you’d do if you lost the other one. That said, before you jump in with both feet, take 3 weeks of parental leave so you are home FT doing all the parenting, the bulk of the housework, the food shopping and meal prep. See how you feel about it.

I think it’s exhausting and I personally wouldn’t choose to be home FT with small children if I had other options. I do think there is a balance to be struck though - part time working and PT SAHP is a nice balance for a lot of people.