Justification for the father at home

I am a father that stays home to take care of his daughter while my wife goes off to work each day. I am proud to be able to do this, and yet I need to defend being a career father on a regular basis. Yes, I realize the supposed abnormality of our situation, but still… Why should I have to explain why I’ve walked away from the workplace to raise my child? And why do I get the impression from people that I’m explaining this to that I should feel ashamed of doing so?

My wife and I were both fortunate to have a parent stay home and raise us, and for both of us it was our mothers. We both had parents that saw the importance of raising children themselves instead of farming out the work to daycare centers. I don’t wish to knock daycare providers, but there is no substitute to having at least one parent actively involved with their children for the better part of the day. So, not only are we raising our daughter as we see fit because we’re not sending them off to daycare where she would be forced to conform to some other person’s ideals and values, we always have at least one of us on hand when she does something special or has a “first”.

At some point between the Baby Boomers and our generation (X? Y? What is my generation called, anyway?), it became socially acceptable for women to be in the workplace. The unfortunate thing was that not only did that not seem to reciprocate to men staying at home, but it was deemed necessary that both fathers and mothers leave the family and join the workplace. Starting with America’s post-WWII boom the middle class lifestyle has been determined to be the sprawling suburban home, two cars, and a bunch of expensive toys to impress your friends and family. Somewhere along the way that life became unsustainable on one income, and part of accepting women into the workplace seems to be in small part to bring in more money so we can all sustain our consumer culture and keep that money flowing up the ladder to the pockets of the owners of the corporations promoting and selling all the crap. You can find some side rant on the current economic mess to insert here, but I’m more looking at a moral side of it.

The in and out of it is that in our want for a bigger, better house with all the trimmings we’ve given up the opportunity to actually parent our children. It’s like we’re inching toward the world set out in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 where all children go straight into daycare from the day they’re born and everyone needs to work so they can afford to cover every wall in their livingroom with a television screen so we can have our shows and (more so) advertisements enveloping us in glorious three dimensions from all sides. It seems ridiculous to me that people define good parenting and good living as the ability to buy stuff instead of the ability to physically be there for your child.

When my daughter was born, we realized that what we wanted as parents was to be there. And we knew that in order to make this happen we would have to look at where we were with our careers and see what sacrifices we would have to make. That’s right, to raise your children right you have to make sacrifices in your own life. And it seemed apparent that myself, a substitute teacher at the time, would be the one to walk away from my career for a time while my wife, who has her dream job at a major international corporation, was in a better position to be the breadwinner.

Other things had to go, had to change. Our rental townhome in Eden Prairie? For not much more a month we could own a house to raise our child in. Our two cars? We could manage with one. Nights out on the town? We’d have to cut back. The latest, greatest stuff? If we really need something, there’s avenues for which we can get the equivalent for less or free.

We found a house in an urban location not just because of the amenities offered to us as adults (we have bars, restaurants, and entertainment within walking distance) but as parents. Within easy walking distance of our house there are two community schools (the closer one unfortunately is closed, but hopefully the district gets in a better financial position so they can reopen it within the next five years), four playgrounds and parks, the library, and a children’s theater company. It’s not a huge, modern home, and there’s been a number of questionable design choices in remodeling over the years and abuse from uncaring renters that left us with some cosmetic cleanup to take care of over the years. We don’t have a great room, television room, and formal parlor, we have a livingroom that functions as all three. It’s called a livingroom because that’s where we live. We don’t have four bathrooms, and we’re lucky that this old house came with two. Our house has just two useable bedrooms right now, with one huge room upstairs and an unfinished basement both reeking of potential for when we decide one child isn’t enough. And what we lack in unnecessary square footage we gain in comfortable coziness. Vaulted ceilings are for office lobbies, not livingrooms.

The walkability of our neighborhood and its connectivity to the rest of the Twin Cities Metro Area via mass transit has made the decision to become a one-car family a lot easier. We weren’t making car payments, but we have saved a lot on car insurance, gas, and maintenance by only having to pay for one car. All I had to do was make two adjustments. One was to start shopping more locally (something I try to advocate anyway), and with a plethora of mom-and-pop shops in walking or biking distance I’ve been able to keep more of our money in the community instead of sending it off to some big company headquarters elsewhere. The other is to adjust to taking mass transit when I need to extend my range, something that takes a bit of a different mindset to do after years of automobile use (mostly I had to buy a watch and learn the ins and outs of the schedules). Any travel I need to do by car can either wait until my wife is home from work or I take her to work to use the car during the day. There is maybe one time every other month where we look at where we need to go and when and wonder how we’ll manage to go separate ways with just one car. But when one looks at the cost of insuring the extra car and realizes it’s the same cost as diapering our child, the cost of feeding the gas tank is the cost of feeding the kid, and that regular trip for an oil change is every three months, just like the co-pays for doctor visits and vaccinations every three months, well, I’d rather pay to provide for the twenty pounds of live, growing human than the ton of dead metal. The slight inconvenience is bearable.

We’ve also had to cut back on our recreational spending, but that’s expected when one has to divert funds to diapers and formula.  And I’ve really wanted to go to Gusto lately, but can’t justify spending near a hundred bucks on dinner for my wife and I.

All of this was stuff we would have had to do whether it was myself or my wife staying home with the kid. That’s what happens when you bring a child into the world and go down to one income. A family has to eschew frivolities that eat up money, something that’s not too tough when one adjusts to finding enjoyment in experiences instead of purchases. But not only are we not living up to the so-called “American Dream” as it’s defined today, we’ve got this abnormality in that it’s my wife that brings home the bacon whereas I am the one that stays home and cooks it, which is where I had started off.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s tough. You have to do things like start blogging just to make sure you still know how to put ideas together and commit them to paper (or the screen, what have you). You seek out playgroups so that you have the company of other fathers that have made the leap into the realm of full-time caretakers of their children. You take odd night jobs here and there for the dual purpose of making ends meet and having real, adult conversations with coworkers. You have to put up with the stereotype of the inept father. Remember such gems as “Mr. Mom” and “Three Men and a Baby”? And then there’s the good old traditional “Me Provider, Her Nurturer” roles of yore that dictate that I need to be the one out in the workplace while my wife is home caring for child and home.

If you read this out loud, be sure to scratch yourself and do your best Neanderthal grunting when you say, “Me Provider, Her Nurturer.”

Maybe there’s some perception that I’m less of a man for being the one to stick around the house for my daughter.  As if playing with her and her dolls, changing her diapers, preparing her food, and everything else implies that I’m more June than Ward.  Or perhaps people look at me and think that I was a failure at my career, or maybe I was laid off and I spend my time babysitting and sending off resumes and eventually I’ll be right back on track and in my rightful place at some job.  Very few people ever seem to consider that I am doing this by choice.

Let me make one thing clear: No matter how much I would love to have more regular adult contact, no matter how much I would love to contribute more to our bank account, nothing is more important and rewarding than being here for my daughter. Nothing. I have been here to see her grow, to teach her basic skills, to get her interested in books and building toys, to take her outside and let her explore, to make sure she’s eating right, to kiss her owies and hold her when she goes beyond her capabilities and falls in the process, to be the parent that she needs right now. The sacrifices are worth it.

And my wife and I believe we’re raising our child to be a better person because of it.  It’s what our parents did for us, and it’s one of the best lessons about parenting that they could have ever taught us.

Tags: fatherhood, personal thoughts