Posted on 02/22/2005 2:46:56 PM PST by qam1
More Men Go From Boardroom To Playroom
ANNANDALE, Va. -- The job comes without a paycheck. The hours are long. The rewards can be priceless.
It's not something you put on your resume, but millions of men have decided to give up their careers and become stay-at-home dads, Washington, D.C., television station WRC reported.
Some mothers may resent the attention to stay-at-home dads, since they've been doing it for centuries.
But the station looked at the growing trend because it's a option many couples may not have explored.
This is about children, parents and a difficult choice.
That choice was the subject of the popular 1983 comedy "Mr. Mom." In that movie, a laid-off engineer stays home with his three kids while his wife returns to work.
It's fiction becoming a fact of life for a growing number of couples.
Chip and Heather Covell of Annandale made the decision eight months ago. As a special education teacher, Chip needed a break. Meanwhile, his wife's teaching career was taking off.
According to the latest U.S. Census figures, 3.6 million men stay home while their wives work. That's a 54 percent increase since 1986.
Human resource experts say the numbers will continue to climb.
"The so-called Generation X and Generation Y workforce are a little more open to the concept of staying at home and a spouse, in this case a wife, earning more than the husband," human resources manager Steven Williams said.
Damon Riley's wife is the vice president of a marketing firm. Staying home meant giving up his job as director of new student orientation at Georgetown University.
"Her salary was probably more than twice mine at the time, anyway. And having somebody come to the house was going to cost us almost all of my salary," Riley said.
Riley has been staying home since his twin daughters were born seven years ago.
Mothers in their Olney, Md., neighborhood are supportive.
"He's just one of the girls. No offense, Damon, but he's just one of us," stay-at-home mom Sophie Stopak said.
But fitting in can be difficult. That's where a group called DC Metro Dads comes in. The Bowie, Md., chapter meets every Monday.
"It gives us a network of other men, we get to sit around and talk about guy things," one of the dads said.
The couples told WRC that they began by doing the math. They compared child-care costs with the loss of one salary, and decided it was worth the sacrifice.
LOL! I don't really have a problem with sarcasm (having a bit of a dry wit myself, in person), I am just going to plead pregnant lady brain...:)
Really, no offense taken. You aren't the first to make that assumption, so that's why I asked the question. :)
God's blessings to you, too. :)
Yeah people in that situation can't judge it, because there is too many emotions tied up in it. That is why our social scientists are so good at studying Gorilla behavior, yet so bad at studying human behavior.
I would not encourage discrimination in any way, merely use my own powers of observation and persuasion to influence the world in my own little way. What is happening now though, is the state is forcing integration and forcing women into the workforce. And indoctrinating women through the school especially that they need to basically be men, or they are traitors to feminism.
So they are pushing their agenda using public funds, which perverts the natural order.
I don't think of myself as an untraditional male presence.
Works for me.
Read all the replies on this thread and count the "I"s. There was sufficient truth in what I posted, and the thread provides some proof of that.
If you read some sort of a comparison criticism into my brief comments, you put it in there yourself.
Please see #86 for further explanation.
Sorry, LibertarianInExile, I meant to post #86 to both you and qam1, and direct the last paragraph to him/her.
That sounds like an extremely convenient way to discount the experiences of any and every man who's stayed at home with his children, and never felt diminished. Naturally it follows that it's also a convenient ploy to discount their spouses who don't think they're diminished either. I'll be uncharacteristicly blunt, I think it's bullshit.
lol. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a handbag that matches this beard, and still not have it clash with the tattoos?
Not really - what I am saying is true, though I have explicitly said it is not a factor in all cases.
I'm glad it works for you, but that being said, what I said is true in many cases. That you feel it hasn't been a factor in your relationship is a good thing.
You "guys" (ha ha) are a real piece of work:
"dad at home = self absorbed brats, women preferred in job market, feminized, etc."
It is modern society that separates men from their families. The overwhelming rule for a good society over the last thousand years is a Dad that is home or near home most of the time. Agrarian societies the dad works from home. Your comments taken to the logical conclusion means people like farmers are feminized brats ruined by modern society, when in fact the opposite is true.
Men at home are taking the more difficult job.
There are plenty of exceptions to the rule on both sides (stay at home women who walk all over their men, etc.), but I don't think any generalizations can be made.
As it turns out, I have more patience than the vast majority of women I know. It's just me. I'm not an impatient sort, and that quality alone has allowed me to be a good father.
As for the work thing, she was stellar in her field, and I was mediocre in mine. I don't slam myself for being average in that regard, few rise to the top of their fields. Rather, I congratulate my wife for being one of the few.
amen!
nice to see that some guys "get it".
"I thought it was best to fore go my career and stay home and raise my children"
I don't see where that is selfish statement, While if they said something like
"Staying home to raise my children would have been best but I latched keyed my kids because I had to work because I wanted to buy a Lexus like everyone else in the neighborhood."
Most definitely would be
Thank you very much.
One of the more interesting things I learned from the encounter is that affairs on ambulances aren't uncommon. The guy and the girl he was shacking with met when they were teamed on an ambulance. I never would have guessed.
My brother was a stay at home dad. It worked out great for them. He was coach of the sports teams, a Boy Scout leader, and very involved in his kids lives.
His kids are 23 and 19 and turned out wonderful!
My brother died this past year, and everyone is thankful of the time he spent at home. He had hundreds of people at his funeral. The old Scout troop brought in flags, and the boys from his old little league team all talked at my brother's funeral.
My sister-in-law is a vice president of her company. She's very successful and everyone loves her.
For one thing, housework is very hard work. It is physically much more demanding than sitting at a desk 9 hours a day.
Then you have to add in, grocery shopping, taking/picking up kids from school, volunteering at school, cooking, laundry, helping with homework, and then all the emotional stuff that goes on with taking care of kids.
On top of all of that, you have to pay bills, take care of insurance, take kids (and self) to the doctors, take care of sick kids.
We have a gardener, so I don't have to do that.
How can you even say that cleaning a bathroom isn't hard or tiring? We have 3 in our house. It's a pain to get all the mold out of the tile every few weeks. Then you have to scrub toilets and floors.
Then vacuuming a whole house is definitely tiring. Mopping is also tiring.
That's not even the cleaning kitchen which has to be cleaned 3 times a day.
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