Why do men decide to become stay-at-home dads? Recently, I, along with 3 other dads in Vancouver, were interviewed by Fairchild TV for their documentary on the rise of stay-at-home dads in recent years. According to Statistics Canada, men now account for 12% of stay-at-home parents (compared to just 4% in 1986). This blog post isn’t about arguing whether stay-at-home dads are on the increase, or whether this phenomenon is over-hyped, it is about exploring the reasons why men decide to become stay-at-home dads.
Financial Reasons
Ricky Shetty is a long-time friend of mine and a stay-at-home dad living in Vancouver. He and his wife Anne are the parents of 18-month old Rianne and are expecting their 2nd child soon. “We don’t want to put her [Rianne] in daycare,” says Ricky in the Fairchild TV documentary. He believes a parent gives the best care for a child. When Rianne was born, Ricky was running his own event-planning business. But he wasn’t able to make a stable income, so for financial reasons his wife went back to work and he stayed at home to care for their daughter.
“I’m not a big fan of a 9 to 5 job,” says Ricky. Being a stay-at-home dad allows him to continue building his business and his blog on evenings and weekends and providing care for his daughter while his wife works.
Playing to Each Other’s Strengths
Tobin Smith has a similar story. When he and his wife Sarah started having children, Tobin’s photography company was not stable so Sarah got a full-time job. “For the employer, Sarah has the more immediate skillset that would get her hired.” Sarah adds, “The way that our personalities work, I do better away and having the structure. He likes being at home and having fun with the kids, which I do too. But when it comes to strengths and weaknesses, he’s definitely better at parenting than I am and has a little more patience for the kids than I do.”
Tobin says that he could focus on rapid growth of his business, but that would mean 50% less time with the kids, and that’s just too much to sacrifice. One of the things he values about being a stay-at-home dad is that it isn’t his wife sending him a photo telling him what happened with the kids, he is actually there with the kids to experience it for himself.
Sarah says that many people, especially her parents, had a hard time accepting the fact that she was the breadwinner for the family. Many of her friends told Sarah that they thought Tobin was taking her for granted and how it was wrong that he was taking advantage of her. But Sarah says if the opposite thing happened, where Tobin was the main breadwinner, no one would think anything of it.
Taking Paternity Leave for the First Time
Sean Morong isn’t a stay-at-home dad, but he did take his full 35 weeks of parental leave to spend with his kids, which is rare for dads to do. Sean and his wife Monica have 2 girls and a newborn baby. “It’s so nice having him at home,” says Monica, “because during the day I’m playing good-cop-bad-cop all day long, and it’s tiring being the disciplinarian. So having him home is like, ‘Can you just stay at home all the time?'” When they had their first two daughters, Sean never considered taking paternity leave. Sean tells the story of when he was surprised to discover that his girls were talking in full sentences and realized that time passes by so quickly. On top of that, he was at a certain place in his career where he didn’t feel the pressure to have to climb the corporate ladder, giving him the freedom to take paternity leave to be with his wife and kids.
My Experience as a Part-Time Stay-at-Home Dad
Senior Reporter and News Anchor Claudia from Fairchild TV also interviewed Olive and me about our experience. I’m a part-time stay-at-home dad. I work about 3.5 days a week and am a stay-at-home dad 1.5 days a week, whereas Olive works 1.5 days a week and is a stay-at-home mom 3.5 days a week. We made this arrangement because we thought this would be the best thing for each of us, and for our daughter.
When I returned to work full-time after my paternity leave, Olive had a hard time adjusting to being a full-time stay-at-home mom. Being an introvert and a highly-sensitive person, she found that spending all day every day with a baby made her tired and grumpy, which diminished the quality of care she could give our daughter. We decided to try our current setup of splitting a full-time job. For Olive, having time during the week where she could work by herself in silence re-energized her and gave her a sense of accomplishment. For me, I really enjoyed the extra time I could spend with my daughter, taking her to the park, swimming or to the pet store. Seeing how well this worked for us, we decided to make a long-term change by starting our own marketing company (official website to come soon), where we could have the flexibility and freedom to both work and both care for our daughter.
There are a few sacrifices I’ve made to allow this to happen. First, I am slowing down my career growth by working 1.5 days less every week. Second, I miss having community during the week. I miss the interaction with my colleagues at work and it’s difficult finding other stay-at-home dads to hang out with during the day. But those sacrifices have been worth it, as my main job as a husband and father is to make sure my family is well.
If you’re interested in watching the full 26-minute documentary by Fairchild TV (English and Cantonese), the link is below. Our story starts at the 7:00 min mark.
http://www.fairchildtv.com/english/newsarchive_detail.php?n=27&topic=241&episode=358
(Note: This episode is shown on Fairchild TV’s website, and may be taken down at any time)
Photo credit: Karis Truman, Design: Olive Chan