Homemadedad

The Edmonton Journal is running a series about the changing family and this weekend’s installment is about women working and earning more than their male partners – More moms bring home the bacon – for dad to cook. (In our case, it’s chicken or turkey bacon and, in case you’re wondering, it’s best cooked on cookie sheets in the oven.)

Coincidentally, this weekend we also watched the film Everything’s Fine (see the trailer for Everything’s Fine) – an odd, sad little movie with a great cast, including Robert De Niro. De Niro plays a dad, recently widowed, who is trying to reconnect with his children after years of relationship neglect. Its not neglect that is intentional. This is a story about a  traditional dad who worked his whole life in a wire factory to provide for his family, who he loved deeply. Yet through that very process became distant from them. I found the film very sad – and a reference point for what my life will not become.

These two strands come together and offer a great opportunity to clarify the considerations – economic and emotional – that motivate me and increasing numbers of dads to stay at home. Or, at least, build our lives on the basis of our home life.

A lot of media coverage about dads’ changing role in the home starts from the premise that the recent (and still current, especially in the US) recession has ‘forced’ them into this role. And while there is truth to the assertion of underlying economic rationale, there is the insinuation in much media coverage that men would otherwise not choose to change their domestic roles. In the worst examples of this bias, the devaluation of domestic roles is manifest in jokes and outright scorn directed at men who choose to stay at home. (Watch how the CNN hosts make fun of stay-at-home dads.)

While it’s undeniably true that economics and earning power play a role in determining how domestic arrangements are structured, I can speak for myself (and I suspect many other men) in suggesting that perhaps the opposite is just as true: we’ve wanted to change our domestic roles in relation to our families and the economics have long prevented us. Now that our partners are earning as much or more than us, we can choose to be more involved at home.

This choice is often left out of the media’s reports of the domestic restructuring that is going on in our society. Working parents that care about family life are faced with a dilemma – how to bring in the most income while performing the necessary domestic duties to support the life of their family. I am being purposely vague here because each family has to strike their own balance between stay-at-home spouse and outsourced domestic services (nannies, household chores, etc.). However, my point is plain: I am choosing to stay at home and be the primary parent because a rich domestic family life is important to me and my spouse and because it makes the most rational economic sense.

This week, the Vanier Institute of the Family released Families Count, an encyclopedia of Canadian family trends and statistics that the institute publishes every five years. And this year’s report contains some interesting facts: