Are you thinking of being a stay at home dad?
If so you are not alone. Recent research has shown that around 200,000 men now take up the role of parenting and homemaking and that almost half of all new dads consider it.
So what are the reasons that more and more men are taking up this role?
Well one reason is a financial one. With more women becoming career minded and with their salaries rising sometimes they earn more than the man and are more financially secure, so the father will give up his job to take over at home. Another reason is emotional. Not all women want to bring up children and sometimes the man will be more emotionally suited to raising children and will want to be able to spend all their time with them. The other main reason is practical. Depending on the parent’s jobs, what hours they do and how far they have to travel to work it may be that the dad is more able to adjust his working life to fit in around the children and the home.
So there are plenty of good reasons why more and more men are becoming stay at home dads but what qualities do you need to be able to raise children?
Well unlike for normal jobs you don’t need any qualifications to be a stay at home dad but you do need to have the following qualities to be a good parent.
First of all and perhaps most importantly you need to be caring and loving to your children, even when they wake you at three in the morning. This will have to be part of your nature so if you are not naturally loving and kind then perhaps child-rearing is not for you.
Next you need to be organised. Children love and need routine and if you don’t have one or can’t implement one then you will be living in chaos and your children will most likely be disruptive and behave badly. Apart from the day-to-day routine you will need to know where everything is and what you need to take when and where. Getting out of the house with young children can seem like a military operation with the amount of stuff that you have to remember to take with you. You also have to plan ahead and leave yourself plenty of time if you have to be somewhere at a certain time. You will be amazed at how long it can take you to get out of the house with children in tow and, if not organised, will frequently arrive late to doctor’s appointments, playgroups, nurseries, etc, to much bemused head shaking from other mums at ‘that disorganised home dad’.
Also you need to have bags of patience. Children will try the patience of anyone with their repetitive behaviour and everyone will be pushed beyond the limits of their patience at some point, but the more patience you have the better you will be able to cope.
You need to be a practical person as well. There is not much point in remembering to bring the bottle warmer and not knowing how it works, or how the buggy folds up. Also you should have a practical approach to life and know what to do if things go wrong.
Finally you need to be selfless. If you are going to be bringing up children full-time then they must be the first priority, in other words their needs come before yours. They are not able to look after themselves so they need you to do things for them and to be responsible for their welfare. You will have to put your needs and wants behind that of the children, often not getting to do anything you want to do at all.
So these are the main qualities required of anyone who wants to raise children and as you can see it is quite extensive, so what are the benefits to bringing up your children yourself?
Well there are many great benefits from raising your children yourself and becoming a dad at home with the main one being just watching your child grow and develop and going through various stages of their life with them. It is wonderful to see your child’s first steps, hear their first words, take them to their first day at school and see their individual characters emerge. It is lovely to be able to spend time with your children, playing and talking with them and to teach them and show them things and watch their reactions. It is immensely rewarding and gratifying when you see them learn something new or say or do something that they couldn’t do before.
Another benefit of being a stay at home dad is that you are in control of your days and can manage your time yourself to a much greater degree than if you were constricted to being at work at set hours. This gives you a bit more freedom so that for example, you are able to take advantage of any nice weather and go outside or to not have to go out if the weather is bad.
One big advantage of looking after your own children is that you are in complete control of how they are raised and you know that they are being looked after and brought up the way you want. If they were looked after by a childminder or at nursery the people who bring your children up may not share some of the same views and opinions as you and you may find your children doing things you don’t like because they are told it is ok to do so by other people.
A small benefit of being a stay at home dad is not having to look smart all the time as you might have to do if you went to work. You can just wear what you want and you don’t have to shave every day.
So there are many benefits to being a stay at home dad and it sounds very rewarding and beneficial to all. Well it is but there are a few points to consider before going ahead.
Firstly looking after children is very hard demanding work both mentally and physically when you are with them all day long and you can feel very drained and tired at the end of the day. You may find yourself longing to go back to work for a ‘rest’ after a couple of weeks at home with the children.
Also on the downside is the fact that you may well feel isolated from friends and family who have ‘proper jobs’ and will probably miss adult company and adult talk. You will often be by yourself with the children and will be talking about Teletubbies and teddies tea parties rather then sport, cars or politics.
Another thing to consider is that you will not have any working hours as such in that you will be ‘working’ 24 hours a day 7 days a week, with no time off and no holidays from the children. You will not be able to ‘knock off’ at 5 and have a rest, even if your partner comes home and helps out you will find that there are still plenty of things to be done around the house. Also you do not get any time off when you are sick, children do not accept sick notes, they still need looking after, feeding, washing, dressing and playing with even if you feel like you need to lie down for a week.
You may also find the whole homemaking and parenting lifestyle very boring. A well looked after home and family runs on routine and discipline and you may find that you get incredibly bored having the same routines and schedules week after week and you could end up feeling ‘stuck in a rut’.
So to sum up becoming a stay at home dad is something that should be considered carefully and thoroughly before you decide to go ahead with. It involves a complete change of lifestyle and although it is very rewarding it is also very demanding and not the easy option as many people see it. It is a huge responsibility to bring up children as you are effectively in charge of what they learn, how they behave, how they view the world and people around them and their very own nature. It is something that should be entered into with responsibility, love, fun and dedication.
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