Support for Stay-At-Home Dads

Being an At-Home Dad is very difficult. It takes courage and resilience, and most of all it takes a person inspired by love. There are more Dads at-home with young children than there has ever been, and several reasons why, like job loss and women becoming high wage earners. Many Dads are taking control of their households because the several sectors in which they worked disappeared within a very short time: tool and die makers went away with the car plants, hundreds of newspapers across the nation failed, and new homes and businesses stopped being built when the bubble burst. Another contributing factor to the rise in at-home Dads is women in high-level corporate positions, women with advanced degrees and earning more money than their husbands, and women who want a career and don’t want to be at home everyday. For these reasons, awareness and support needs to be given for all of our At-Home Dads.

At-Home Dads need support to bring them through the “Baby Blues” and compassion fatigue. Yes, men get postpartum depression, too. They experience the hormonal ups and downs like their partner, but in a different way, a way they are supposed to ignore because they are men. I have felt socially isolated, hoping for insight and support with my choice to be a Stay-At-Home Dad, and thankfully it’s out there. There are many At-Home Dad specific groups, where men can talk about kids, problems and football. Athomedad.org is a good site for finding local groups. Another good site, Mr. Dad is also helpful. There are other sites, like Daddyshome.org in a limited amount of cities that coordinate local groups.

And, there are the social stigmas that confront Dads, just because they are a man they will never know as much there is to know about child rearing like a woman. I’m not bitter, just telling it like it is. I have had amazing support from many at-home Moms in my community and a few bad experiences. At the end of the day, I am satisfied with my life, my choice and am willing to get up in the morning and do it all over again, even though it is the hardest job, physically and mentally, that I have ever and will ever have.