Any SAHD's out there?

[in8]

HI

I was just wondering if there are any SAHD's on this board and what has your experience been?

[boobear]

My husband would love to be a SAHD, and I'd like to be a SAHM, but right now we need 2 incomes. Within the next few years that may become an option (it will depend on what job makes sense to keep when the time comes).

[Jish]

There was a gent who is a sahm who used to hang out in my circle (not here). He was a very well educated man (Phd) and when they had children he decided to stop commuting (nearly two hours one way) and stay home. He has now been a sahd for over four years. I don't hang with him much anymore since our discipline styles are vastly different (we are very gentle discipline while they use spanking and bribes as tools.) I do miss his input and outlook. I wish that there were a bunch of sahd's that posted often. That would give such good balance.

[ekblad9]

Sorry, I'm not a dad but wanted to say how great I think it is that you are a sahd. My dh tells me everyday that he could never do this job! We took him to lunch today and with the craziness of four kids at Subway I think he was releived to get back to work!

I hope you can find some other dads for support here! Good luck!

[familyman]

im not a sahd by choice, my job just has a lot of down time. i do wish i could figure out how to make a living and stay with they kids. one fantasy is to travel with them and have someone pay me for it(family travel mag articles?). staying home all day would drive me a little bonkers, but not becouse of the kids.

[Susu]

i'm surprised that there haven't been more responses. maybe its too soon.

DH is a SAHD, but he doesn't use these boards. i know a few other SAHDs as well.

[Dov]

I'm a SAHD... even though I also work/study at home and I go to school during the year. I've been working on some short stories about my experiences in the past five years since our dd was born. I tried thinking of an article for Mothering but I'm hung up on the idea that most Mothering readers wouldn't be interested in those experiences.... they aren't the most edifying bits of reading and they wouldn't make one feel all gooey inside. We're barely making ends meet because of our choices to raise our kids and that's not the most glowing endorsement of the messy but enviable job of full-time parenting (without a "real job"); who would want to read that? Most of the pieces I've seen on SAHD's are the situations where mom is a surgeon or lawyer and they can afford to let Dad stay at home and raise the offspring. In our home mom's a poorly paid teacher (we're supposed to feel guilty she makes so much money... we haven't yet figured that one out) and Dad's an unemployed writer/college student so it was a no-brainer... Dad became a SAHD by default.

What experiences do you want to know about? The psycho women in the grocery stores who treat the SAHD like he's invading their turf or try to "help" him shop? The mind-blowing experiences warming breastmilk while trying to get the Dalmatian and dd to not do flips off the couch? The guilt and shame of feeling great about hanging with my kids when I should be a "productive provider" for my family? The failed attempts to get jobs at bookstores--you haven't lived until you've been told by a twenty-something that you're too old and not retail material because you have kids and haven't worked a "real job" in five years.... and where's your wife? The frustrations of trying to get financial aid & childcare in college where most aid and childcare resources are reserved exclusively for female students...? The joys of mud made from tomato soup? The world at infant eye-level and how big people who stand upright don't exist? The art of tying ponytail holders in tiny little braids with short thick fingers? The bliss of mom's consternation at the "dinner" of yogurt-filled apples and falafel puree? The pride a SAHD feels when his ds goes to the farmer's market with his sister wearing a tutu, princess slippers, and fairy princess headgear and Dad incurs the wrath of every homophobe in the county?

Come to think of it, I guess I have as many positive ones as negative ones.... most were funny for me but probably not for anyone else... had to be there I guess. I'm rambling. SAHD's are out there and in here too. This one has to go back to work.... I heard something from the other room about oatmeal and DVD's....

Dov

[Jish]

Dov,

Write the article and send it in. I would LOVE it! I was nearly in tears laughing at most of the mere paragraph you wrote.

I wish I knew more sahd's. I love the differences in "style." When I see dads at the playground I'm often reminded that I really should stop nagging about the sand in their shoes, and simply take off my shoes and join right in. I consider myself a fun mom, but sometimes I get stuck in nagging mode and can't get out.

I also like the fact that I can actually have a conversation with a guy that doesn't emcompass rehashing the details of my labor.

[familyman]

write on DOV (pun intended), i will love reading your story, in Mothering or right here. hearing stories from the battle lines of Sahd make us ap dads feel not so alone. one other thing i get when i go out with my three to the park or shopping etc, is that i'm a visitation dad and did not choose to be with my joys.
ps. i'm with thier mom and have been for twentyone glorious years.

[jempd]

I'd love to see an article on SAHDs. DH is staying at home right now, today is officially his first day of being a full-time SAHD. He's going back to school in January, and will be doing some substitute teaching in the fall but other than that , will be SAHD. He's a little worried that he'll be very bored and lonely. There seem to be other SAHDs where we live though. I'd love to tell him how other SAHDs deal and will try to get him to read your post, Dov.

A friend of mine was a SAHD for several years, from his son's birth to when he was about four. His wife and he broke up and she (very vindictively I feel) sued for sole custody. I could never figure out how a judge could not look at the situation and see that here the guy stayed home for 4 years and was the caregiver all day long all that time and not award joint custody. Broke my friend's heart. But in the end it's not so bad because he lives near his son and sees him nearly every weekend and on school nights that his mother needs a babysitter. She did not think he was fit to have joint custody but did not seem to think that extended to not having him babysit with little or no notice whenever she wanted it. Anyway, he has a really good relationship with his son and it was so cute so many years ago when I visited him and he was holding the little baby in the park with the moms and nannies, and he was the only man.

[Dov]

Thanks for the positive interest in a piece on SAHDs. At some point, I'll have to get over my inhibitions and do this... oddly enough when it comes to writing a fiction story I have no inhibitions... I wonder what that means.

Anyway, Jempd, your recent post made me think of something. The SAHD issue is kinda weird in that it suffers many of the same ignored-status and legitimacy discrimination that many SAHM's experience but in different ways, particularly in the family court arena. I always feel wounded deep in my guts when I hear about fathers who are abused by the court system. I used to work as a paralegal for a family law firm and I saw decent Dad's, SAHD and otherwise, routinely being run-over by the court. It is so horrific to witness that kind of thing, especially when one also sees some real meat-heads who need to be sans kids for a while so they can grow up. I suppose that's the real flaw with an adversarial, punitive oriented family court system instead of a cooperative, solutionizing one.

Oddly, when I talk about this with other feminist (I prefer "egalitarian" or "gender-balance-oriented" as labels for myself) friends, male or female, people get uncomfortable. We "sensitive new age guys," as Christine Lavin calls us in her song of the same name, get run-over by the misogyny of our chauvanist brothers who just don't have a clue; their assinine behavior hurts men too. When men or Dads suffer discrimination, we're not allowed to talk about it... if we stand up for ourselves as men, our feminist friends bail on us or worse. I can understand the urge to pretend that men are not subject to discrimination but as a SAHD who has to live in that reality, I can't accept that myth. Disempowerment of any social "group" is never a good thing. I don't know if any other men have observed this phenomenon or not. It'd be an interesting element of SAHD experience to explore.

On a different tangent, any of you SAHD's out there, ever get "help" from stranger moms and women in stores? Maybe it's my being vertically challenged that attracts the overly benevolent.... I still can't figure it out. I should start writing down all the "help" that is offered to me by well-intentioned but totally clueless women (the "advice" given by moronic, un-enlightened males is usually demeaning at best, but just as irritating).

One time this smiling, grandmotherly woman decided that she should hold my baby while I went and found my wife. When I refused and pointed out that my wife was at work, she was shocked. She then gave me a pointed lecture on the inferiority of males doing women's work, and the selfishness of younger generations of men like me, keeping women out of their rightful places as mothers and homemakers. We men are at fault for most everything according to her. Ironically this was at an organic farmer's market where there were at least four other guys in the line of sight packing offspring in packs and slings. Why'd she pick me? Yipe! I can't even remember my response, if I even had one other than to shake my head and try to move away.

Another particularly icky experience was when someone in a checkout line (an organic indoor market) wondered "aloud" why some men were "ignorant" enough to think they can replace moms (my five year old was 3 at the time and having a vocally rough day which was getting her younger brother worked up pretty good too). What a whacky assumption for her to make! Am I really "replacing" mom? I thought I was just being Dad. My kids don't seem to care. The worst part was when the female clerk agreed, loudly, and blamed it on patriarchy (my own feeling is that neither partiarchy nor matriarchy has any place in 21st century life, although my wife owns everything we have . As I was leaving the store, the conversation was still going on behind me and I heard the lovely quip, "men are just sperm donors and the sooner they get that the better off we'll be." Ouch!

Those are the worst of the negative experiences I've had that I can recall and since I've had more humorous ones than those, I don't want to gripe too much about the lack of comprehension among some women (a minority I'd like to think) as to why a guy would want to be a SAHD. The funnier ones are like the time when this mom (with four in tow) was lecturing me on shopping cart safety (mine were in the big part building a castle with the sacks of nuts, flour, and other bulk items), while her four kids were testing their cart's "surfability" until one of them fell off and knocked over a display of tomatoes. The lecture ended there and I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to check out another aisle's offerings.

Man, what's with the DVD's and gloppy foodstuffs.... okay back again... my daughter was trying to show her brother Tarzan on the DVD case (not the disc thankfully) and he was the one wanting to use it as a plate for his mashed potatoes. My son is very bummed Tarzan can't wear mashed potatoes but he'll get over it. I think it's a signal for me to get off this thing... originally I was just pausing to check email... hah. No electronic equipment was harmed during the writing of this post.

Dov

[Susu]

dov, wonderful post! a great read with my morning coffee. thanks

you know sometimes i get miffed at the fact that when my husband goes out with the kids people offer to help, but when i go out with them, all they want to do is poke and grab. hmmpfh. Although getting too much advice (and even a small comment can be too much sometimes) can drive anyone batty.

sometimes i feel at a loss as to how to help dh. as a sahd he receives no support from his peers and not a small amount of ridicule. i feel that our children are so blessed to be able to have a father there with them. they are so happy too. but i'm the only one who gives him support and its not enough.

are there any other boards besides this one where sahd's go to talk? he won't join this one. i think the "mothering" title kind of turns him off.

[jempd]

Geez, how confusing. I thought it was patriarchal and unfair to NOT be a SAHD! You can't win. I myself would think it a refreshing and pleasing sight to see a man in actuality doing the day-to-day care of kids. But people get threatened (I suppose) by the sight of people not in their assigned boxes.

Also, on that visit to my friend when he was taking care of his baby, we went to the park and he said, Notice how the moms and nannies take care not to get too close to me. And he was right, he had a park bench to himself.

[kirch]

Just a quick reply to your thread-I too am a SAHD, at least part time, and I am a student as well. I sympathize with your stories and can relate to some extent. My main reason for replying(I mostly just read the Vax boards to learn and feel supported by our decisions) is to give a bit of support to your thread as I feel SAHD's are very important and often ostracized in America. I think our son (1 yr) is a more balanced individual for having both a SAHM and SAHD. We both enjoy our time away when we are at our "other" lives, as well as our time with our son alone, and our time as a family, all equally. Our son gets a more balanced gender perspective that we both feel is very intregal to his development and neither of us really miss out on any milestones in his day to day physical and mental development. Bravo to all the SAHD's and congrat's on making an unbreakable bond with your children.

[scribblerkate]

Just wanted to chime in my support. Dov, I can't believe those women had the nerve to say such things to you (or so you could hear them). I know a lot of wonderful, educated, thinking moms who believe the same thing, and say it when just us moms are around. I find it very hurtful, even though I'm not a guy, b/c DH is the SAH in our family, and that was a very conscious decision on our part.

I wish DH would come on here and read your wonderful and insightful posts. He is so resistant to checking out the boards, and I can't figure out why.

Dov, I've thought of submitting to Mothering, too. You should go for it! Please! More AP/NP moms need to hear from great dads about their ability to parent well, and even be the primary caregiver, darnit. Consider it creative nonfiction, maybe that will help.

[scribblerkate]

OK, one last thing. kirsh, I totally totally agree with you. I have recently graduated and taken the bar and now am looking for a full-time job. I am worried that the dynamic in our family and in our son's life will change with me unable to be around less often. Of course, DH will be there, but I have loved the fact that DS got to spend lots of time with both his parents.

[XM]

Dov~

.