Hear It from a Stay-at-Home Dad

We've said it before, and we'll say it again. Even in our educated society, saying that you're a stay-at-home-mom is still sometimes met with negative reactions. There are still people who think it's equivalent to saying you're lazy.

From the Daily Nebraskan:

Regardless of how many women share the aspiration, society has a generally negative attitude toward stay-at-home mothering, often stereotyping it as an excuse to shop, sleep in and watch soap operas, said junior accounting major Georgia McCormick, echoing a thought expressed by several women interviewed.

McCormick protested the stereotype as being inaccurate.

“People think they stay at home to go shopping or do whatever they want,” she said, “but I look at my mom, and she’s always running, running, running, doing something … People don’t really realize how much they really have to do.”

If people think like this about SAHM's, I wonder what they'd say about stay-at-home dads. Dan Nielsen, guest columnist for the News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) and primary caregiver to two young kids, tells of the kind of responses that he gets. Good for him though, that the "most common" response he gets is "one of genuine interest and open support". In the article, he shares some of the challenges he faces in taking care of 2 little girls. He has found ways to accept his role and, in fact, to revel in it, as his secret fondness for his minivan and his jogging stroller reveals.

From the News Tribune:

It’s not considered very macho to push kids around in a stroller, but this is no ordinary pram. It has a full rain cover and suspension system, and converts to a bicycle trailer.

And if I ever take up cross-country skiing, I can buy the adapter kit to mount skis on it and pull it behind me. It’s the kind of stroller James Bond would have if he ever became a stay-at-home dad.

Stay-at-home dads? They're a good thing!

Read Mark Coddington's article "Students express desire to be stay-at-home moms here. And Dan Nielsen's "You’ve got to get around to be a stay-at-home dad" here.

Sources: The Daily Nebraskan, Nov. 8, 2005; The News Tribune, Nov. 8, 2005