Fathering As A Career Path: The Emergence of The At-Home Dad
by Linda Marks

Many of us, baby boomers or those born before the boom, grew up in homes that were emotionally fatherless. Roles for men and women were clear. Dad was the breadwinner: off to work in the morning, gone all day, and too tired at night for much of a conversation as he relaxed reading the paper or in front of the TV. Mom's job was to take care of the homefront: this meant keeping the house in order and raising the kids. Few of us even thought to question this. It just was the way things were. 

First the women's movement questioned the limited scope of women's roles. Then, the emergence of the men's movement brought cultural permission to grieve the absence of our fathers in our early lives, and recognize the impact this fatherlessness has had on shaping male role models for both adult men and women today. 

So, today, the pendulum is beginning to swing in the other direction. Not only is there a trend of dads spending more time with their children, but also more than 2 million dads have chosen fathering as a career path. Some come to full-time daddying through chance; for example, a lay-off removing their previous full-time employment. Others come to it by choice in an era where  woman's earning power can be equal to and sometimes greater than a man's or when a family realizes SOMEONE needs to stay at home with the kids, and that someone need not be mom.

Three Dads and Their Babies 

Bob Donnelly, 37, of Boxborough is a career-dad. "I've been at home for two years since our oldest son was born in June 1994. We had another son who was born in October 1995. My wife and I had always talked about me staying at home once we had kids. I had pretty much run out of professional aspirations and have the temperament to be at home a lot, while my wife, an MD and psychiatrist, really loves her job and would go nuts at home all the time.

"I was laid off from a job managing a residential treatment program for teens just about the time my wife first got pregnant. So, the timing worked out great. I don't really work outside as such. I'm a part-time musician and play the local club circuit, more for the love of it than anything else." 

Nelson Dionne, 48, of Salem has taken on at-home daddying, having completed a long-standing prior career. "I've just retired from my career as a police officer on a disability retirement. Three years ago breaking the law of gravity. I blew out my knee on a police bicycle. My younger wife, 39, decided I had too much time on my hands. The baby would not have been possible without the pending retirement." Nelson and his wife, a pediatric occupational therapist, worked hard to bring their child into the world. Fraught with infertility problems, the Dionnes worked with specialists at the Beth Israel hospital, and today are the proud parents of a 10 month old son. "Being a junior geyser (meaning being close to the big 50) puts a whole new perspective on being a career dad. I don't have to fight issues like career the way a 25 year old might." 

The growth of home-based businesses creates another context for parenting: more moms and dads can work their hours around their children's schedules and needs, and best of all, have their workplace be at home. 

Peter Baylles, 39, of North Andover is one such career father. While his sons, John, 4 and David, 1, take their daily naps. Peter publishes his quarterly newsletter At-Home Dad from his home. Even before he was laid off as a software engineer in 1992, he and his wife Susan, a fifth-grade teacher, had talked about changing their dual career status. "I would drop John at day care. Susan would worry about him all day. She'd pick him up. I'd get home at 7. We said, 'If we keep doing this, we're going to be on autopilot until he's in college." Even so, because of financial concerns, the Baylles didn't make the switch until Peter was laid off. 

Yet as Baylles began his new routine, he struggled with issues many at-home fathers face. "You go to the play-ground, and it's all mothers saying, 'So, when are you going back to work?' In the beginning I thought, "I can do this myself." After a while I was climbing the walls. You need at least one other father to relate to." In the spring of 1994, Peter started his newsletter to promote the home-based father. It has now evolved into a national organization to help the 2 million at-home dads in America.

At-Home Dad is written to provide connections and resources for fathers who stay at home with their children. It has six regular sections: a cover story or feature covering the issues of the day for at-home dads (for example: Dads Who Clean Bathrooms and the Women Who Love Them, Organizing a Playgroup In Your Town, and Single Fatherhood), a spotlight story/interview about one at-home Dad (previous dads covered include Brian Bassett, creator of the "Adam" comic strip. Keith Dilley, father of sextuplets, and a diary of one father's first days as an at-home dad), a home-business section featuring personal accounts of home businesses run by dads with their kids at home, a section with useful tips for dads, (many from readers) with activities for kids, a section with resources for dads and letters from readers, and finally, a networking list enabling subscribers to connect with at-home dads across the country. The newsletter has over 700 subscribers with ages ranging from 25-50. Most subscribers are in their 30's, come from white collar jobs and are tired of the dual-income lifestyle.

What Mothers Have Known All Along... 

What are some of the greatest challenges of being an at-home dad? Nelson Dionne says, "I'm so sleep deprived it's hard to remember the fun. My son is on dawn patrol, up at 6 am, and doesn't like to miss anything. Once he talks, the problems will be different." 

For Bob Donnelly, "Probably my biggest challenge is being financially dependent on my wife. She's always earned more money than me, but now she earns it all, and that can be tough sometimes. She's very good about it. It's just one of those guy things that pops up, usually when we make a big purchase, like a house or a car." 

Peter Baylles reports, 'The redundancy of caring for a child, keeping cool under the demands of two small boys—I calmly explain why they cannot do something. This gives me patience. If you can handle whiny kids, you can handle anything!" 

At a more generic level, at-home dads wrestle with isolation and bumping up against the social norm. Baylles comments, "At-home dads need to connect more with other fathers to show they are not alone." His At- Home network and DAD-to-DAD, a national network founded by Curtis Cooper to help dads form playgroups (now run in collaboration with Peter Baylles) are two resources designed to help dads connect. 

Donnelly adds, "Any couple considering such an arrangement should do so if it REALLY works for them and if each is comfortable with a non-traditional role. You do get questions and wrinkled eyebrows and all kinds of assumptions about you, given where the culture is at and given the relative newness of dads staying home."

Dionne has joined a group called MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) to connect with other parents of young children. "The group meets in a church and has people to watch the kids downstairs while parents meet for a speaker and coffee. I'm the only guy there. Nonetheless, not having the kids there gives you the chance to talk with other parents." 

Of course, there are the rewards. "My biggest reward is knowing that our two boys are being raised by their parents and not hired help," says Bob Donnelly, "and finding out through watching them that I apparently have some feel for the job of being their dad." For Peter Baylles, his greatest reward is having such a loving child. "I remember with my first child, he was 2 or 3 months old and had not really smiled at me yet. I was in the backyard on a warm spring day holding him in a lounge chair talking to a neighbor. I was not looking at what he was doing, focused more on the conversation. When I finally did look down at him, he had a huge smile...just staring at me. That's when I fell in love with him." 

Researcher Robert Frank, a doctoral candidate at Loyola University in Chicago, found through a survey of at-home dads that children of at-home dads turn to their fathers twice as often for nurturing as the children of fathers who work outside of the home. 

Too, there are cultural benefits to dads raising children. "The kids of at-home dads will be less stereotypical and less biased. They will see that mommies stay at home and work and daddies do both too. This gives them a realistic view of the outside world," notes Peter Baylles. 

Bob Donnelly concludes, "Time will make what is currently a phenomenon into something everyday, which is exactly what this should be. Who stays home with kids is not important. That they are raised by parents who love each other and them and work together to establish and maintain a sane, safe and reliable home life is what's important." 

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Linda Marks, MSM, has practiced heart-centered, psychospiritual body-centered psychotherapy for sixteen years.  She is founder of the Institute for Emotional-Kinesthetic Psychotherapy in Newton, and author of LIVING WITH VISION: RECLAIMING THE POWER OF THE HEART (Knowledge Systems, 1988).  She has taught and spoken nationally and internationally, and has been a leader in the emerging field of somatic psychology.  She lives in Newton, MA with her four year old son, Alexander.  Linda's new book EMBODYING THE SOUL: DANCING INTO LIFE is due for release in the spring of 2001.  You can contact her at (617)965-7846 or LSMHEART@aol.com

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Notes 
1. A survey by At-Home Dad newsletter conducted by Loyola University researcher Robert A. Frank found that even fathers who are not the primary caregiver are spending more time with their kids. They are now spending 94 minutes per day with their child as opposed to 26 minutes per day according to a 1988 study.

2,4 Reference: "Full-Time Dads Launch Nationwide Group", The Christian Science Monitor, August 29,1995. 

3. Reference: "It Takes a Strong Person to Survive Life on the Daddy Track", The Los Angeles Times, August 20,1995. 

Resources 

To subscribe to At-Home Dad newsletter, send a check for $12/year payable to At-Home Dad to: At-Home Dad, 61 Brightwood Ave., North Andover, MA 01845. Editor Peter Baylles may also be reached through e-mail at athomedad@aol.com.