Announcing My New Job: Stay-At-Home Dad. What Just Happened?

“How’s work going?”

“Oh, you know. It’s good. Just waiting for [wife’s name] to start killing it so I can quit and become a stay-at-home dad.”

I’ve had many conversations with my friends that sounded a lot like this. Did we hate our jobs? Not exactly. Were they our passions? Uh, no. There’s a reason my fictional hero is from a movie about the drudgery of office life: Peter Gibbons in Office Space. Maybe someday, like Peter, I could just decide… I’m not gonna go anymore.

Stay-at-home parenting, we thought. That’s the way out. The Dream.

And here I am today. A stay-at-home dad. The Dream has arrived.

Or has it?

Turns out, The Dream is… a lot like a Job. Only the hours are longer. You work weekends. And you never finish anything. Oh, also you don’t get paid. Sorry to break it to you, bros. It’s not what we thought it was.

Countless stay-at-home moms know this. They’ve confided it to many an unsympathetic ear. You can count me amongst the sympathetic.

More recently, the concept of “unpaid work” and “invisible labor” has been getting more press and appreciation. As a “new hire” in this world, I appreciate the attention. It will lead to changes in how society views and treats parents, both working and non-working. It gives stay-at-home moms a more public voice for what they’re all feeling. And while it’s typically described as a women’s issue, I hope to benefit by association.

So how am I feeling, six months into The Job?

It’s complicated. In a word: surprised.

I’m surprised I chose this path in the first place. I’m surprised at how much work there is (cue the eye roll from every stay-at-home mom ever)! Most unexpected of all, I’m surprised at how tough the transition has been, mentally and emotionally.

Given all that, I’m also surprised that I kinda like it.

My transition was jarring. Eight months ago my thoughts on career and family were heading in the opposite direction. I was ready to go all-in on my career again. I’d been working part-time for a year, gradually taking on more and more of the household and childcare responsibilities. But, I was girding myself to dive back into the working-parent lifestyle. I was ready to have it all.

One global pandemic later, and I’m a stay-at-home dad.

COVID-19 tipped the scale back towards an alternative path for me. Without the pandemic and its upending of our ideal childcare plans, I’d still be on track to join my friends in the ambitious, stressful, crazy, and increasingly common world of the double-income, working parents. Instead, I’m here at home, no job to report to tomorrow morning. Instead, I’m trying to sort through six months of jumbled thoughts, emotional journal entries, and intense moments of soul-searching and reflection.

To start things off, I’ll try to answer the biggest question I’ve been wrestling with, one that may help someone hoping to “Live the Dream” of the stay-at-home dad someday:

Why is this so hard?

An Identity Crisis

I’ll start with my biggest struggle: I don’t know who I am anymore.

While I was working, I always fancied myself as someone who would never derive my self-worth or identity from my work. I was unique and sufficient in the sight of God. I was a confident professional who could do whatever I wanted to, labels be damned. I wasn’t just an aerospace engineer. I’m me, and there’s no one exactly like me. But after spending 17 years pursuing my career, collecting education, skills, and experiences for that purpose, and talking about myself in a certain way , I became my resume, to some extent. When I stopped working, I wasn’t sure how to describe myself.

“So what do you do?”

I dread this question. Am I still an engineer, if I don’t work as an engineer? Am I taking a break from work? A sabbatical? That implies I’m coming back. Am I? Is this temporary? Should I call myself a stay-at-home dad? Will he think I got fired? That I can’t hold down a job? That I’m lazy?

I feel our society pushes us to identify with our professions. While we may not admit that we are what we do, it’s hard to define yourself otherwise. Here’s an example: what do I do with LinkedIn? Is “Stay-At-Home Dad” something you can enter as your profession? I checked. “Homemaker” appears to be the officially-accepted term. Not my favorite. After some Google searching, I’ve learned there is a widely-used, if unfortunate-sounding, acronym for what I do: SAHD. Also not my favorite. If you say it like you’re Super Mario, “I’m-a-SAHD” sounds like you just finished last on Rainbow Road. Maybe I’d feel better if I had a flashy title, something like “Senior Director of Family Lifestyle.” “Chief Homemaking Officer (CHO).” “Vice President of Child Development, Food Preparation and Corporate Butt Wiping.”

My wife (who I will affectionately call Beast Wife for her grit and success) anticipated an impending identity shift for one of us early on. Before we had kids, we discussed our future family life at length. She worried about how an identity that she loved would change once “mother” was added to her title. Feeling chivalrous, I volunteered to step back from my career when the time was right. She could maintain her pre-kids identity as much as possible. “The Dream… ” I thought. “I can almost taste it.” But I never considered what that would mean for my identity. Mine wouldn’t have to shift. After all, I was more than just my career. Right?

This summer, while I agonized over whether to pull the trigger on my sabbatical or quitting or whatever I’m going to call it, the reality of my identity change started to sink in. I frantically read Working Identity by Herminia Ibarra. It’s a book about career reinvention, and it was the closest thing I could find to guide my inner turmoil. I inhaled it in less than two days on the Kindle app on my phone during bottle feedings of K, our youngest kid.

In the midst of my existential crisis, I latched onto what Ibarra called the “Myth of the True Self.”

“For starters, we must reframe the questions, abandoning the conventional career-advice queries–‘Who am I?’–in favor of more open-ended alternatives–‘Among the many possible selves that I might become, which is most intriguing to me now? Which is easiest to test? Getting started depends on whether we are looking to find our one true self or whether, instead, we are trying to test and evaluate possible alternatives.”

Herminia Ibarra. Working Identity (Harvard Business School Press, 2002), 36.

I’ve tested the aerospace engineer self for 13 years. For the last three, I inherited the “stressed and frazzled working parent” self as well. I was testing two selves, and I wasn’t fired up about either of them!

Ibarra’s words freed me from thinking I had to spend more time looking inward before taking action. Even bold action. Instead of waiting for that “aha” moment when my true self is revealed, maybe I just need to try a couple other selves for awhile. Eventually, with enough testing, I’ll find the one that fits best with whatever self is hiding deep inside me.

So, here I go. I will test my stay-at-home dad self.

Even with a little more freedom and confidence under my belt, I was in identity shock. I felt a need for mourning. For putting my old self to death. For closure. Last month, two things happened that filled that need.

First, I mailed my ID badge back to my aerospace company. Though I’m on a leave of absence, and technically still have a foot in the door there, they requested my badge back in the interim. The sealed envelope with my badge inside sat on a shelf near my front door for a few days. I was waiting for a convenient time to head to the mailbox. Deep down, I knew I was still holding onto that old self, just in case. Finally, I followed my 3-year-old son, R, on his Strider bike to our nearest mailbox, envelope in-hand. It was heavier than a normal letter; my career was in there. I let my son slide the envelope into the mailbox. He did it quickly, with great interest and excitement. I imagined him telling me, “Hey Dad, I don’t care what you do. You’re my dad. That’s all I need.” It was a simple ceremony. I’ll remember it for a long time.

Second, I was applying for some financing for home improvements and a car purchase (a minivan, baby, I’m all in!). While filling out the paperwork, I cringed at the fields labeled “Occupation” and “Monthly Income.” Ouch. What do I write? I could imagine the bankers reading my application. “Stay-At-Home Dad? No income? Well, for our purposes, bro, you don’t exist.” It was a gut punch to my psyche. On paper, I didn’t seem to matter unless I was making money.

I got over it quickly (I wanted the loans to close, after all). I wrote something like “Homemaker” under Occupation (sure wish Director of Family Lifestyle was a thing). I zeroed out my income. I recorded Beast Wife’s income in her section. I carefully checked the box that said “Joint Application for Credit.” I took a deep breath.

I’m good with this.

Something about dropping my badge in the mail, where I couldn’t just pick it up and head back to work, made a difference in my mind. Something about writing a $0.00 income down on paper, declaring my new identity in public, made me more confident. Maybe I couldn’t handle juggling too many selves at once (I am, after-all, a terrible multi-tasker).

Bros, it took me six months to accept my new identity. If you’re considering becoming a SAHD, do not take the move lightly. Maybe it’s just me. My pride and vanity made this hard. But I don’t think I’m the only proud and vain dad out there.

14-Hour Days, 7-Days-a-Week

One of my most challenging, grueling, and rewarding roles as an aerospace engineer included stints where I was working 12-hour shifts, 7-days-a-week, sometimes overnight. It took some endurance, toughness, sacrifice. I earned some overtime pay. It was fun. What made those stints do-able, despite the challenges, was the promise of an end date. On the date we completed the project, life would go back to normal.

Enter parenting.

Any parent, and especially a full-time parent, “works” long hours. And weekends. Sometimes overnight. May I remind you that there’s no pay, let alone overtime. And the worst part: there is no end date. At least not for 18 years.

My day starts at 6:30 or 7am when our 3-year-old, R, wakes up. It ends at around 8:30pm, when both he and our baby, K, are in bed, after which there are the nightly chores and clean-up to get the household packed in for the night (steps that Beast Wife thankfully splits with me most nights). All told, that’s about a 14-hour day in which I’m “on.” Or at least I should be “on,” leaning in to my Homemaker identity.

As the full-time parent, I’m responsible for spending those hours engaging with my boys, teaching them life lessons, developing their minds and bodies, preparing and serving meals, cleaning the house, and many other tasks that I think embody a kick-ass homemaker. And that’s what I want to be: kick-ass. I get one break: the magical afternoon minutes when both boys’ naps overlap. My break can last 20 or 120 minutes, depending on how lucky I am that day. The boys are great sleepers, so I’m usually in luck. I could use that time to catch-up on household duties (meal prep, cleaning, tidying, researching child development topics). I could also use that time to scroll mindlessly through the news on my phone, slumped on the couch, shoving carbs into my mouth that I don’t want to share with R. I’m not a superhero parent (yet), so I usually choose the latter.

When 9:00pm rolls around, I am drained. Emotionally, physically, and mentally. I’ve felt like that before: after my most challenging days in the office. Those days were full of meetings. Heavy on personal interaction, strong personalities, tough technical issues. I’d drive home feeling like I didn’t get anything done. Sometimes I’d stay late, just to do a little focused, individual work. When I did get home, after my cherished, solitary commute, I was toast. Not much energy left for engaging with the family, talking to Beast Wife, or playing creatively with the boys. I’d power through. It was only about an hour until bedtime, after all. Same feeling now. Only now, I don’t get to have the commute. And my back hurts from the reps of 20 and 30lb toddler deadlifts I’ve been doing all day with horrendous form and no warm-up.

It’s hard to be present for 14 hours a day. For me, an introvert, it may be impossible. After a typical SAHD day, I crave alone time. More so than during my toughest working days. Some days I wish I had my precious commute back. In my car after one of those days, I’d sing along to “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)” by P!nk (Yes, that’s the how you spell P!nk) while (discreetly) flipping off the world. By the time I got to our house, I felt better. Nowadays, I don’t have that opportunity to blow off steam before bedtime. And when the clock finally strikes 9:00, the kids are in bed, and the house is ready for the next day, what do I do? Self care? (Nope, not enough energy or focus). Prep for tomorrow? (Nope, you already spent 14 hours doing housework today). Sit here on the couch and think about nothing? (Bingo!)

Not working adds some pressure to get all of this right. If this is my full-time job, I should stay late at the “office,” researching the latest and greatest parenting tips and techniques. I should grind it out and prep for the next day, even if I don’t feel like it. Maybe I lack the willpower and discipline to be awesome at this. If I’m taking this seriously, if I treat it like the Job that it is, I should be all-in.

The problem is, with no end date in sight, with no rubric for how much research and knowledge is enough, and with no sense for how much time spent is enough, it’s impossible to know when you’re done, or to compare this work to another job. The schedule can be grueling and exhausting, yet you don’t have much to show for it at the end of each day. As your kids grow, there’s a sense of accomplishment, sure. But any feedback on how you’re doing feels like parent-shaming.

Bros, beware. The SAHD life is a working life. You won’t be sipping beers at the pool at 3pm (most days, at least). The hours are long, the recognition is limited, and the task list is endless. You won’t feel productive, even though you were busy all day. The feeling of freedom is real. But be prepared to work, and in different ways than in your current profession.

Again, The Dream is a Job. If you want it, and you’re fortunate enough to get it, treat it like one.

The Dream Job? We’ll see….

Impostor Syndrome- Am I Really Cut Out For This?

Impostor syndrome is common among new parents. See this piece by Virgina Pelley on Fatherly.com if you’re unfamiliar. While it’s common, it’s not comfortable. In the workplace, impostor syndrome can erode your confidence. However, at work, someone did select you for that job. Someone else felt you were worthy. And it’s up to you to meet those expectations, to believe in yourself like your boss believed in you when she hired you.

For a new parent, and especially a stay-at-home parent, expectations are especially tough to define, and even tougher to meet. You’re on your own. If you’re like me, you chose this path. You could work, and outsource childcare and most household management tasks (at least pre-COVID, you could). But you’ve chosen a new path. The path of a SAHM or a SAHD. Your success in this new Job will not be measured by any clear, Human Resources-vetted standard or rubric. You can’t quantify household harmony, child development progress, or how your kid feels about you as a parent. And you’re constantly trying to impress the toughest boss on the planet: the voice inside your head.

Looking back at my six months as a SAHD, I recognize how tough I was on myself. I’ve been striving for some idealized, SAHD vision for my life. In my mind, that person is a combination of my mom and my mother-in-law, the two real-life examples (and great ones) available to follow and get advice from. Also Jason Momoa in this Saturday Night Live skit. And don’t forget every blogger or writer I’ve ever encountered while googling random parenting topics! The influences and comparisons we have as modern parents are astounding. And so is the pressure to get it perfect.

No wonder I feel like a SAHD impostor.

So What Now

There are lots of resources out there that describe what type of parent you should be. What I’ve realized is that, while you can always improve your parenting, any style or approach will work. Your kids will grow up, with or without your hovering. They’re unique individuals, and there’s only so much impact you can have on their eventual trajectory. What kinds of crafts they do on the weekends and that extra hour of screen time you gave them will probably not move the needle enough on their outcomes to worry about it. Do the best you can, read and research as much as you want, and most importantly, be yourself.

Your parenting journey is uniquely you. I’m hoping that writing out and publishing my thoughts and experiences helps me to better accept my own unique spin on parenting that is authentically and fully me. My former employer would always emphasize “Bringing Your Full Self to Work.” You should bring your full, flawed self to parenting too.

I may still struggle with my new identity as I test my SAHD self. I may still feel overwhelmed by the amount of work on my plate in The Dream Job. And I may still struggle with Imposter Syndrome while I battle the temptation to compare myself to other parents or, worse, the perfect parent in my head.

My only shot at making this work, passing the identity test, is to bring my full self; flaws, career background, idiosyncrasies, taste in pop music, and insecurities included. If nothing else, being myself will be more fun. The Dream looks a little different than I imagined. But I always imagined it would be fun.

Also, I’ll be writing about it right here. I think that’ll be fun too.