Meera Atkinson
An Australian Bureau of Statistics study has shown there are 12,000 stay at home dads in Australia compared to around 230,000 mums.
Unpack the issues...
An Australian online child care resource says that there are many factors leading to the rise of the stay at home dad, including the cost of child care; technological advances that enable people to work from home; improved prospects for women in the workforce; divorce; and illness.
However, the website also makes clear the choice can come with a degree of stigma. Stay at home dads are sometimes viewed as 'henpecked wimps' and their partners 'heartless mothers'.
Given the fewer numbers of stay at home dads, compared to mums, it makes sense that networking opportunities are also fewer.
However, Chris Waugh, 36, from Sydney, says lack of support is not a problem for him and he enjoys the benefits of the social and support network in his community even if he is, literally, the odd man out.
“I know a lot of mums in the area. We help each other out with play dates, juggling parenting, giving kids lifts. I’ve never felt that I’m ostracised because I’m a guy," Chris says.
Chris is, or was, an events planner and father to Louis, 7, and Sarah, 5. He’s been married for ten years to an executive in the NSW Public Service.
Chris went part-time when his wife took maternity leave after the birth of their first child and they followed suit when the second child came along. He assumed full-time care of the children a year ago.
Sharing the hands-on duties of parenthood was part of the plan from the start. “I always wanted to be closely involved in my children’s upbringing,” he says. “My father was very much the full-time working father working five, six, seven days a week. I would have liked to have had my dad around more so in terms of my own kids that’s something I wanted to be able to give them."
“Culturally and socially these days we have more flexibility. In my dad’s generation he was the breadwinner and it was his responsibility and men didn’t have the level of choice we have now.”
Chris says he’s noticed an increase in stay at home dads in his area and he hasn’t copped too much flak from other men.
“Some find it curious and they’re not quite sure why I’d want to do it and what I do with my time. Some are a bit jealous and say they’d love to do it. Others guys just don’t know how to take it, but in my group of dads it’s fine. It’s what I do and it’s cool.”
Not surprisingly he says putting his career on the back burner is the most difficult part of being a stay at home dad.
“People ask me how I feel about my career. I just say that my career will still be there when I go back to it. I know professional colleagues whose careers have gone on to higher levels whereas mine has stopped dead and it took me a bit of time to come to terms with that, but you can’t have it all. You have to make choices and deal with it.”
A 2007 article in The Herald Sun claimed fathers who seek to take on greater than average parenting responsibilities face discrimination above and beyond those of their female colleagues. It reported the Victorian equal opportunities and human rights commissioner, Slavka Scott, as saying, “There isn’t a culture that accepts that men have parental and carer responsibilities."
Asked if he is concerned his decision to be a stay at home dad might count against him when he does return to work, Chris is philosophical.
“If an organisation had a problem with me looking after my kids they’re not people I’d want to work for anyway.”
He is quick to add that he works in the arts and non-profit sectors, which are known for being more liberal, supportive and family friendly, and concedes that others have it tougher. “I have friends that work in a more corporate environment whose workplaces are utterly inflexible and get freaked out by the mere suggestion.”
Chris also says that, while he finds the “quality time” with the children the biggest bonus of being a stay at home dad, every couple has to make their own choices about how to share parenting duties.
“I think it’s great that, as a society, we’re giving people increased options, that men and women are no longer so locked into specific, prescribed gender roles and you can figure out what works for you as a family.”
Unpack the issues...
- What are some of the predictable benefits of fathers being more involved in the care of the children?
- Is the right of fathers to be the primary carers of their children a social justice issue?
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written by Phillip , October 27, 2009
To answer the first question, the benefit of father's role in the family of course is enormous, and vital, as the father has, or at least should have, a great role to play in teaching their children proper patterns of behaviour, and, equally as important, ethics. Which, of course, leads into your second question, where this is, or should be, a huge social justice issue, in relation to how we treat one another, and about modesty in living.
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