How Mr. Mom Became a Stay at Home Dad

My colleague had a
baby and her husband decided to take a 12-month leave from his job to stay home
with the newborn. We, her co-workers, were all surprised, if not shocked.

That was nearly 20 years ago. We likely would have been as
surprised today. And we wouldn’t have been alone in our American reaction, as
we are one of a handful of countries without mandatory paid leave for either
parent. Though women have become a much larger part of the workforce in the
last century, increasingly voicing the need for adequate parental paid leave,
affordable day care programs, and flexible work schedules, American families
are still worse off than those in other developed countries.  And as
fathers begin to join women in experiencing the joys and responsibilities for
parenting, this Father’s Day, we have a new opportunity to make parents’ voices
heard.

In
the early 1990s, my colleague was alone in how proud she was of her husband who
understood her desire to go back to work to a job where she had an opportunity
for a promotion. She actually had no desire to stay home, and didn’t consider
herself the motherly type—yet another wrench thrown at our assumptions about
men and women.

The father in this case was, at the time, in his
mid-thirties and in an ascending, promising international development career. A
full year off from work would certainly hurt him professionally, or so we all
assumed. It was crazy, we said. Or, if not crazy, then just weird. What could
have prompted him to shift directions so drastically?

Three
years earlier, and before becoming a father, this man had survived a tragic,
life-changing event. That he didn’t die was a matter of chance. By the time his
daughter was born, he was in the habit of seeing things from a very different
perspective, quickly grasped how precious and unique the first year of his
daughter’s life was, and wanted to enjoy that experience fully. And so he did.

This
meant confusion from his wife’s co-workers. So, too, did it mean mornings on
the playground with nannies and moms (all women) and looks and questions he
would get from strangers as well as friends and relatives. “Had he lost his
job?” “Where was the mother?”

None of that changed his decision to go on as a
full-time dad. Not even the loneliness of staying home during baby’s naptime,
and the repetitive work involved in diaper changes, feeding, playing, bathing,
sleeping, repeat. The joys of parenthood made the hard parts of the task worth
it for him—just as so many mothers say it does for them. Still, by the end of
his 11 months, he was, he said, tired of being treated as Mr. Mom and ready to
go back to the office.

We
know now that my co-worker’s husband is not alone, just as we know that it does
not take a near-death experience to make fathers across America want to spend
time at home with their children. But it often takes courage to go against the
norm, even for something as benign as a dad wanting to enjoy the experience of
caring for a new baby. Over the past 30 years, fathers have been increasing the
time they spend with their children during the workday by 65 percent on
average. And now, 50 percent of fathers with young children reported diapering
and feeding their children more than once per day. (This, according to Promundo’s first-ever State of America’s Fathers.)

And
so, in the early 1990s, a caring father was looked at by those around him (and,
he has admitted, at times by himself), as Mr. Mom. A century into the women’s
rights movement, parenthood and caregiving were still considered to be part of
the realm of women, while whatever it is one needs to nurture a baby was
assumed to be missing from men’s DNA.

Fast forward our story just fifteen years,
however, and more and more men are finding fatherhood the most normal,
acceptable, and satisfying part of their adult lives. More men than ever are
stay-at-home fathers. According to census data, the number of stay-at-home dads has risen from just
six, individual, self-identified fathers in the 1970s to almost two million
fathers in 2012.

Fathers
as primary caregivers of their children are still a small group, and mothers
are still taking on more than their share of the childcare and domestic work on
the whole. But there is reason to hope that more and more men will start
embracing the caring role more fully, recognizing that all parents are
full-time parents, even if they are not full-time present. And there is reason
to work toward policies—like paid parental leave and flexible work—that make it
easier for working men and women to have relationships with their children. Studies show that having fathers spend time with their children in their first five
weeks has benefits for both the children and, in the case of heterosexual
couples, for gender equality within the relationship. And there is reason to
believe that norms and laws can be changed to create a culture where men and
women alike can have full and balanced personal and professional lives.

I
am happy for those fathers who have done so already—they are ahead of their
time. I’m grateful for the way they have inspired their peers to approach
fatherhood differently. And I look forward to a world in which “Mr. Mom” is
just dad.