Dads Stay at Home With Kids
Nov. 24 -- Once a week, in playgrounds, a bookstore and similar kid-friendly places around the bedroom community of Huntington, N.Y., a playgroup meets regularly.
The children are infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Their parents come equipped with strollers, bottles, sippy cups and diapers. Their conversation is about children and marriage.
Yet, there might be a little more talk about sports and a little less about fashion than in other playgroups because this is a group of stay-at-home dads.
The Huntington area of Long Island is classic suburbia, where mothers tended to stay home while fathers took the train into New York City to work. But this group of about 10 guys opted to stay home with the kiddies while their wives go to the office.
They're at home because they and their wives didn't want to turn over their kids to daycare centers, babysitters or nannies. And for one reason or another — usually economic — it made more sense for them to be Mr. Dads (at-home dads cringe at the "Mr. Mom" title).
Wife Had Better Future, Options
Bill White, one the dads in the Long Island playgroup, says that he and his wife had both been commuting to the city to demanding jobs with lots of travel when his wife got pregnant.
"We decided us both having a career wasn't sensible," says White. "We didn't want a nanny raising our child."
White says that his wife had the better future (as well as what at the time were valuable stock options), so he stayed home. How long will this last? Could be for a while — they're contemplating child number two.
Dad, the Nurturer
Over and over again, interviews with at-homes produce the same kind of story.
Jay Massey, executive director of www.slowlane.com, an online resource forat-home dads, had just sold one business and was starting another when his wife, Joann, got pregnant. She had just finished graduate school and started a new job, making it a bad time for her to take a break.
