First and foremost let me say I am so grateful the time I get with my 2-year-old daughter. However to say this past year hasn’t been extremely difficult would be a lie.

I was previously a top performer in my role at work and was surrounded by other go getters. I had things to be proud of.

A year now of staying home and wife working full time I feel like I’m disposable. My life has become quiet, slow and dormant.

My wife’s over the last year has exploded with adventure. She’s picked up body building and got into the pro scene. She has friends and is grinding everyday to make that life for herself.

I do my best to give her all she needs to get to where she wants to go but in the process I’m losing myself. I feel I’ve given all that I can with nothing else to give.

This time has been incredibly hard on me mentally. I’m a very social person and that is almost non existent and seeing my wife have it all is hard.

I’m not trying to complain. All I will say is I have a very different opinion on the SAHD thing. I have so many people tell me how lucky I am and how nice it must be.

It’s hard. It’s challenging in a completely different way I think most don’t understand without experiencing it.

I’m lost. I’m lonely. I’m tired.

SAHD with 10, 7, 3 yo kids and a wife. Kids can be picky eaters and other times eat a lot. My wife likes the look of a full fridge and sometimes buys a bit too much.

I myself am frugal and hate to waste food. As a result my lunch at home isn’t just leftovers, it’s like 4-5 food bits of leftovers in a really weird combinations. Best example was yesterday:

1/3 hotdog from Costco my kid didn’t want from Wednesday
A 1/2 bag of instant rice, with the juice of a Costco rotisserie chicken mixed in
A small smoothie consisting of a banana, and two bowls of leftover cereal (life and oatmeal) with milk in them
A small bit of leftover refried beans, Mexican carry out from the weekend
Half a toasted everything bagel with bits of scrambled eggs on top, my wife didn’t eat it
A mandarin orange

I never eat food gone bad and try to eat a reasonable and healthy spread of food. The food can be a bit random but I take pleasure in eating food that would otherwise be thrown out and lead to wasting both resources and money.

Just wondering if other Dads here do this too.

Mom's not home after work again. So idk, being a parent alone isn't easy.

I am convinced that our role reversal has us completely screwed up. I’m not saying only a mom can be the stay-at-home parent, but clearly, stay-at-home dads are in the vast minority. I am one of them. I feel that my role reversal is killing me.

I don’t know if anybody else can weigh in on this, but when you have a working parent and a stay-at-home parent, and the working parent is the father and the stay-at-home parent is the mother, I feel like there are clearer lines.

The dad goes to work. The mom runs the household and parents. I have a working wife who makes all the money. I’m the stay-at-home parent. I’m a stay-at-home dad. I run the household. I parent the kids when my wife’s working. She obviously parents them when she’s not working, but I’m the default parent. I’m the food parent. I’m the sole driver.

So I end up doing everything: all the errand running, all the grocery shopping, all the food prep, all household maintenance, chores, cleaning, trash, everything.

Now, what I don’t understand with my role reversal is that my wife also wants to have a say in what I do. She doesn’t just get up and leave and go to work in the morning. COVID changed a lot of this with working from home. She sometimes works from home, but also works from the office now.

However, my wife always wants to have a say in what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. I feel like if the roles were reversed, the dad would leave, go to work, and he’d have nothing to do with what’s going on in the house. He wouldn’t be texting his wife 25 times a day with to-dos: Can you do this? Can you do that? Questions, updates, etc.

It would be a way more clear-cut line if our roles weren’t reversed. And this is what’s killing me.
My wife should be sleeping. She has work in the morning. She has an intense job. Instead, she comes upstairs to the kids’ room, where I’ve just read one of the kids to bed because she was finishing up work after reading one of the other kids to bed.

And she’s going on and on and on about how the kids’ room is a mess, and this needs to be cleaned up, and I need to do it, and I need to get the kids to do it, and this needs to be done tomorrow, and it shouldn’t be like this.

And I just feel that, yes, of course she can have a say in stuff. It’s her home as well. But I feel that with a stay-at-home parent, it’s like the stay-at-home parent takes care of all of that. The working parent, if it was the dad, would not be, at midnight, having a conference with the wife saying, “You need to clean up this room.” I just feel like that doesn’t happen. A working dad would never say this or even devote his energy to it.

Can any other SAHDs weigh in on this in any way?

I need to think of what to do. Maybe to communicate better with her , 7 months

Fellow SAHDs, wish me luck! I completed my AS in Engineering this past summer and got a good job in field service last month. I was the SAHD while I was taking classes (and working PT as a math tutor), but that time's over now. Our youngest is getting into preschool, and I got offered good money for this new position. It requires travel, but it's a 2 week on/2 week off schedule so it's not too bad.

The last few years have been tough. Lots of penny pinching and stressing about money, but it's all been worth it. I got to spend lots of time with the boys while studying in order to advance my career. And I was rewarded at the end of it with a job good enough to be the primary breadwinner if my wife wants to take a break (she's still deciding on that one).

I just wanted to share the good news with y'all. Not a whole lot of people understand how hard it is for us to get back into the workforce successfully, but I know y'all can appreciate it.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

So my wife and I are considering having me be a stay at home dad. She's definitely the breadwinner. I make $56,000 as a banker and she makes $550,000 as an executive at a pharmaceutical company. I also have 2 other sources of income - I have a rental property I own outright free and clear that I had before the wedding. I get $1395/mo in rent. I also get an inherited pension from my deceased mother that's $747/mo. So I have about $2000/mo in residual income.

What I am struggling with is just the idea that culturally, as a white upper middle class couple in suburbia South Florida, I should be working as the man of the house. How do you reconcile your pride with a duty to family?

Also, I am struggling with the idea of losing out on a 401k and company match. How do you reconcile with that?

Our marriage is a good one. There has never been mine or her income. It goes into a joint account. Everything we have is ours, not his or hers. Bills all come out of the same account in auto pay.

I think I am just struggling and feeling like a shitty man that I am the one staying home and not my wife.

Any advice fellas?

Hey fellow SAHDs! I’m 8 months into being home with my LO. We found out pretty quickly that a daily outing/activity is really great for both of us. I’ve compiled a bunch of local activities for us but right now it’s just a jumbled mess in my notes app. I want to organize it into some sort of spreadsheet/calendar format so that I can 1) be more organized myself and 2) share with other parents in my area (if you’re in Portland, ME area, happy to share with you too once I finish it!)

Problem is I’m getting stuck on how to structure or format it. Has anyone done something like this before? And ideas on how to start or do you maybe have a template you’d be willing to share? TIYA!

Edit: thanks for all the responses! We’ll be going with a Google cal to start. Appreciate all the help!

My question is about like at school drop-off/pick-up but isn’t limited? My four year old twins are both in preschool this year. Last year, just one went as he’s behind in several areas and needs extra help. There was a Mom, who had a daughter the same age as my other twin, who wasn’t attending preschool. We didn’t really know each other personally, but was a familiar face because we all had gone to Story Time at the library together.

How parking at the school works, you can’t park in the school lot, but there’s a lot about…seems like a mile, but probably a couple hundred yards away. We would park there, and our children became friends, so we would walk together at pickup and drop off every day. Through the course of the year the Mom and I talked some too. Nothing weird or anything.
We even had a few play dates during the summer and with our spouses, attended birthday parties for our children. Ended up being the day after one another.

This year has been different though. She has made it into a group with three or four other Mom’s, who pay me no attention. She walks with them instead. Maybe it’s just my perception, but I feel like the other mom’s, especially like the leader of the group, look down on me. They were all there last year too, but didn’t really associate with us.

There’s been a couple times when the Mom has had me walk with them, but I didn’t feel included with the others. I feel like it’s the stereotypical Moms group…no guys allowed.

All that to ask, in similar situations, what’s your experience with Mom’s? Make any friends? Feel welcome or ignored?

Hello all,

I am back to conducting interviews with SAHDs again. Big thanks to all of you who have participated already, but I am going to make one more push to interview At-home dads before I begin interviewing the partners of SAHDs in the spring. If you have the time, please consider signing up for an interview on my booking page, linked below.

Book time with Mark Walker: SAHD Interviews 

Full recruitment message and additional information below:

Calling all Stay-at-home dads! 

I am conducting a research study on the experiences, challenges, and self-views of stay-at-home dads. If you are a current or former SAHD, I want to hear from you!

Gender roles surrounding parenthood have changed substantially over the past few decades. Fathers are increasingly choosing to stay at home and care for their children, and more men are embracing the role of the primary caretaker of their children in recent years. At the same time, fathers often face substantial cultural, social, and interpersonal challenges to being the primary caretaker for their children. Although SAHDs are at the forefront of changing cultural images of fatherhood, surprisingly little is known about the lived experiences, struggles, joys, and concerns of SAHDs. I would like to take a step toward changing that, and I need your help to make your voices heard. 

How you can help: Participate in an interview to discuss your experiences as a SAHD. Interviews take around 90 minutes and will be conducted via Zoom or phone, scheduled at your convenience. 

Eligibility: Any current or former stay-at-home dad (age 18+) residing in the US can participate. I am also interested in speaking with you if you are the spouse or partner of a SAHD. 

If you are interested, you can sign up for an available interview slot directly on my booking page (Book time with Mark Walker: SAHD Interviews ) or email me at [mwalk67@lsu.edu](mailto:mwalk67@lsu.edu) for more information. 

Thank you for helping us better understand the experiences, joys, and struggles of being a SAHD, and, more importantly, for doing what you do by showing up for your kids every day! 

Mark H. Walker, Ph.D. 

Associate Professor

Department of Sociology 

Louisiana State University 

You are at the paediatrician. Or the park. Or the school pickup line. You are one of the few single dads standing there, waiting for your kids to come out. They run over and wrap you in a tight hug. Other parents have seen you at every visit, and still they don't really see you.

You know the look. It asks, "Where is their mom?" or "Are you just babysitting?"

If you spend time on r/SingleDads and read the threads, you'll know exactly what I mean. Single dads get questions and whispers. People treat us as temporary help in our own children's lives.

Most folks still assume caregiving belongs to mothers, whether the parents are married, co-parenting, or divorced.

If you don't fit that picture, people often decide you're less capable. Some of my friends laughed at me after the breakup. I don't owe anyone an explanation now. Recently, someone called me a lunatic for arguing that older kids can help with housework. I said it anyway.

I spent 25 years as a high school headteacher, and four years as admin manager at an engineering company. I know institutional bias when I see it. Getting angry doesn't make it go away. What I can control is making it hard for anyone to doubt that I can parent.

When I first started doing school runs and doctor visits alone, I felt the friction. The dentist asked about Kennedy's chipped tooth. "Where is his mother?" he said, while he checked for decay.

He found none. He had assumed I couldn't look after six children on my own. So I stopped giving people room to assume.

Soon after the divorce, Kevin, who was 9, came down with a high fever and started vomiting. We had no paracetamol and no oral rehydration salts at home. I pressed a cold cloth to his forehead, and then we walked to the dispensary near our home. It was 1 AM. The dispensary had closed hours before.

I knocked several times. Eventually a female attendant opened a small window and looked out, then opened the door. I didn't go into detail. She gave me paracetamol and ORS for Kevin.

As she handed them over, she looked at him and asked, "Where is the mother?"

I told her I was his only parent. She smiled and said, "You are doing both jobs". Her last question was why I didn't have medicine for my kids. It was a question that stayed with me.

Since then I've restocked the medicine cabinet and started keeping our records in one folder. All six kids have their health records in it. I know their vaccination dates, their allergies, and their teachers' names. This is just how I run our home. When a kind stranger asks whether I'm "just babysitting this weekend," I don't get defensive. I smile and say, "No, I'm their father. We live together."

You don't have to win arguments with people who have already decided what they think. You just have to be the one who knows the details.

Whether you are a stay at home dad, keeping tabs on your kids or single dads, what's the most ridiculous "babysitter" assumption anyone has made about you, in public or in private? How did you handle it? Share your stories below.

Every post on social media about parenting is for moms, especially the ones about being a stay at home parent. If a parenting post mentions dads, it’s under the assumption that they aren’t the primary parent.

Things like “moms, what’s the hardest part of staying at home with the kids?” Or “dads would never understand the victory of getting all the kids to school on time.” Real examples of posts I’ve seen lately.

And don’t get me wrong, I understand why. We’re the outliers. And SAHMs absolutely deserve recognition. And they are the default, so I understand why it’s like this. But sometimes, I really wish someone would use “SAHPs” instead of “SAHMs” when speaking about staying home with the kids. Just something that acknowledges the possibility of a man doing the majority of the childcare.

I have a 2 year old and a 6 month old. I put my baby in a carrier (wear them) often. They love it and I can use my hands, win/win.

The problem arrives when I have to pee. When I just had one, I would set them down if I really had to use the bathroom. That’s just not realistic this time—you know, because of the toddler.

I can’t really see what’s going on downstairs. This leads to significantly more messes around the bathroom.

Bit of a silly question, but would peeing into the shower instead of the toilet make me a grub? If yes, should I do it anyway?

Note: Sitting doesn’t work for me.

Hi everyone. I’m a new parent this year and currently being a stay at home dad. It has its challenges but I also love it at the same time. I had a decent career in a stable industry I put on hold for the time being. My wife has a much better career going for herself and easily doubles my salary. We both did not want our kid going to daycare so young so that’s how I ended up staying home. I somewhat enjoyed my career and feel I could easily step back into it in the next 5-10 years (depending on more kids). I’m just curious how many dads still stay at home once the kids are in school? Any regrets or thoughts about going back to work?

Sticker monster attack!