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what?s a staddy? stay-at-
home
-dads by nick davis ?eww.? i look down. as i am writing a story about
men
who stay
home
to watch their offspring, i?ve stopped paying attention to my own child. he has just shoved his hand into a pile of chicken poop on the patio that i intended to clean up?but about which i promptly forgot. my son, ?eodore, looks at me with alarm. i sigh. ?we should show your mother.? parenting is more or less a series of trials and errors from which you hope that all parties emerge
men
tally unscathed, physically healthy, and sufficiently potty-trained. ?e roles that parents adopt in the process?mom, dad, butler, chauffeur, chef?are a combination of past experience (did your father mow the lawn? did your mother clean the house?) set against one?s social expectations (the gendered nature of parental roles within a society). for good or ill,
men
have not conventionally been
home
makers or ?staddys??a new term that joins ?stay-at-
home
? and ?dad? together in a way that those fond of parenting blogs may appreciate. ?e census bureau describes these
men
as married fathers with children younger than 15 who have remained out of the labor force for a minimum of a year so that they can care for their children while their wives work outside the
home
. as of 2014, estimates peg this population of
men
at roughly 200,000 to 1.4 million depending on who is counting. obviously, stay-at-
home
dads make up a fraction of the larger population of all fathers. yet, the pew research center?s survey work suggests that the number of fathers staying within the household as primary caregivers has more than doubled since the mid-1980s. baton rouge has a few of these
men
of our own.
jeff
ryan stepped into the role of a stay at
home
dad several years ago and hasn?t looked back. he is 45 and has four kids, the eldest of which is about to drive. ?little does he know he?s gonna be helpin? dad,?
jeff
shares and grins. a radiologist by trade, he pivoted to caring for his children full-time when the pressures of a needy and expensive daycare became too demanding. ?e time-honored reflection of working parents? ??is doesn?t make financial sense??gave way to him staying at
home
while his wife continued building her pediatric practice.
jeff
describes his experience matter of factly. it just is what it is. he already did most of the cooking and cleaning so ?it wasn?t a stretch? to add in a kid. when it comes to drawbacks,
jeff
is transparent, ??ere were days where i wouldn?t talk to any other 64 brparents.com | june 2017
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