Many moms admit that they would never drop their child for a playdate, even with close family friends, unless the mom was home.
By Joseph C. McGowan
If you considered buying a Lego City set for one of your children this past season, you may have found a new figure inside: a stay-at-home Dad dressed in blue jeans and a red flannel shirt along with a baby stroller and office-ready Mom. Lego released the figure earlier this year to reflect the rising number of dads who serve as primary caretakers (around two million nationwide).
Yet despite the increased prominence of the stay-at-home dad in popular culture, stereotypes persist such as laziness, disorganization, and the belief that dad's only stay home because they can't find work. Such beliefs may be especially prevalent in areas that ascribe to more traditional gender roles.
Being a stay-at-home dad in my town has its challenges. Conversations change when I bring my daughters to ballet or show up for story hour at the library. Moms tend to clam up in the way that students do when a teacher walks into the classroom.
Moms move in groups. At the playground, moms usually talk (they all seem to know each other) while their children play together. But I usually play tag or hide-and-seek with my kids. And sometimes theirs too.
Introductions and phone numbers are easily exchanged among moms. Before kids can play together, the parents first need to develop a rapport. Because playdates are not just a chance for children to spend time together but mothers as well. What are me and a mom supposed to talk about for two hours while the kids play dress up in my basement? And how many mothers would feel comfortable setting up a playdate with a dad in the first place?
Motherhood provides a unique shared experience of challenges and hardships that starts at conception, winds through gestation, child birth, nursing, and on into later stages of development. There's nothing else like it. And the attachment that mothers build with their child during gestation and the shared experience of childbirth translates into an implicit bond among mothers as their kids grow up.
Evolution has honed this process both biologically and socially. After a child is born, mothers not only support the child's immediate physical needs, they also establish social connections that will be advantageous for their family in the future. Even mothers who have just met seem to operate as a symbiotic unit, sharing resources (i.e., snacks) and easily adopting a cooperative approach to child care where all moms look out for all kids not just their own.
But one of the consequences of this process is to reinforce traditional gender roles of caregiving. When I braid my daughter's hair in the waiting room before ballet class, I am quietly challenging thousands of years of evolution which has wired us to think: this is not his job. Many moms admit that they would never drop their child for a playdate, even with close family friends, unless the mom was home.
It's no wonder I often feel compelled to prove myself. To show how attentive I am to my three daughters and how loved they are. And to explain that I could work if wanted to. I chose to stay home.
It's no coincidence that my family has gravitated toward others that also have less traditional setups: a mixed-race family, a gay couple with two adopted children, and a mother working full-time as a psychologist. It's not often that a White male like me feels different. But when it comes to caregiving, moms are still privileged over dads.
Stay-at-home parenthood has its pleasant surprises. From cooking, to crafts, to dress up, stay-at-home parents are jacks of all trades. For instance, I know a pancake recipe by heart, I can identify the front of a leotard that doesn't have a tag in it, I know where to buy socks without seams (Kohl's in Paramus), and I sewed my first stuffed animal last summer.
How long will stay I home? Maybe until my youngest is in school full time.
Or maybe longer.
Last year, as I carried my then 3-year-old daughter into church, she said, "You're my good Daddy. You do the dishes, you change my clothes, you do the laundry..."
Joseph C. McGowan, a clinical psychologist, is a stay-at-home dad living in Wyckoff. Follow him on Twitter @josephcmcgowan
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