Every Father’s Day, grandparents honor the dads in their grandchildren's lives, with an array of ties, robes, fishing lures, and colognes. For grandparents whose grandchildren are being raised primarily by at-home dads, though, there may be some lingering doubts in their gift boxes as well. While the number of at-home dads is surging nationwide, it remains an uncommon choice for a father to put his career on hold for diaper and playground duty — and it was virtually unheard of when many of today’s grandparents raised their own kids.
In 2006, the Census Bureau estimated there were about 159,000 stay-at-home dads in the United States, a 60 percent increase from 2004, but demographic experts say those numbers have almost certainly risen since then, as families react to two trends — the tightened job market nationwide, and the increase in the number of couples in which the wife out earns her husband, currently between a quarter and a third of all marriages, according to various estimates.
How are at-home dads handling their role? The evidence suggests that they, and their kids, are not only surviving but thriving. According to a research by University of Texas psychology professor Aaron Rochlen, at-home dads not only report higher overall satisfaction with their lives than the general parenting population, they also report greater job satisfaction than they had when they last worked full-time.
Here are a few more reasons to celebrate the at-home dads in your lives:
His Kids Get More Attention
Parenting researchers have found that children with at-home dads may actually get more overall parenting attention than other kids. That’s because full-time working dads are more likely to sacrifice time with their children for their jobs than are working moms, who remain reluctant to let go of time with the kids. “If there’s a choice between the mom staying at home and the dad staying at home,” says Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California-Hastings law school, “the child ends up with more parental attention when dad stays home.”
It’s the Best of Both Worlds
As should be obvious to any grandparent who has spent significant time in a playground, moms and dads parent differently. In general, dads are a little more rough-and-tumble, a little more "challenging" than most moms. And that's great for the kids, says Scott Coltrane, associate director of the Center for Family Studies at the University of California-Riverside. “It’s important for children to be exposed to different parenting styles, and men and women parent somewhat differently." Even though some moms may criticize dads for their non-verbal tendencies, that benefits kids too, Coltrane says. "A father might be less verbal and more physical than a mother. And so children learn to read people differently, and develop greater emotional and communication competence.”
| Would it be okay if your son or son-in-law became an at-home dad? |
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Yes, if it makes him and the kids happy. 92.3%
No, I'd be too worried about his career. 7.7%
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He May Just Be Better at It
Before Mark Haskett married his wife, Christine, they talked about how they’d raise their kids. Neither wanted to hire a nanny or place children in full-time day care. But while Christine, now a partner at a San Francisco law firm, had no desire to stay home full-time, Mark, a photographer at the time, said he'd have no problem with it. Now an at-home father of two, Mark has never looked back. His mother, Grandparents.com contributor Kathleen Curtis Wilson of Alameda, Calif., admits, “I would never have thought this would work out way back when he was 18, but it’s worked out very well. He’s absolutely the one in the family who should be at home. He goes with the flow much easier, and it’s amazing how much the kids have bonded with him. I’d never seen a stay-at-home dad firsthand before. They’re raising two wonderful children."
Kathleen Wilson writes of her efforts to find more time to spend with her at-home dad son and his children.
But He Still Needs Your Support
As fulfilling as at-home dads find their role, a skeptical or critical parent or in-law can still cast a cloud over their homes. “For a lot of guys I've met, getting their parents to understand the decision to be an at-home dad was one of the tougher parts of making the transition," says Brian Reid, who produces Rebel Dad, a nationally recognized website for at-home fathers. "I think that fatherhood has changed enough in the last generation that the new crop of grandparents doesn't always get it at first. The fathers who have sat down and explained exactly what they're doing and why tend to be able to get their parents’ support more quickly,” Reid adds. "If there's one thing that grandparents understand, it's the well-being of their grandkids — a happy dad raising happy kids goes a long way toward getting grandparents on board.”
Columnist Beverly Beckham's son has spent time as an at-home dad. "The time he has spent with his daughter has been the best of times, harder than he anticipated," she writes.
Continue the discussion in our Grandmothers and Mothers Unite group, discover what grandfathers can teach their grandchildren, enter the debate about whether the country faces a "boys crisis," and find great diaper bags for (dads and) granddads.
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