Pro: Choice.

This NPR story about stay-at-home dads starts with a familiar framework for SAHD stories: Biff was a highly successful investment banker/neurosurgeon/forklift operator who didn't even know the names of his own children...until he lost his job.  Now, he's a happy stay-at-home dad.

That paragraph may have been stuck in cynical font, but there is a certain strain of SAHD stories that (while not quite that cartoonish) feature that premise.  Those stories make me deeply happy that I chose my part-time work arrangement and that I chose the role of primary parent for my kids.  For one, it makes me feel like I'm smart for making such a satisfying life decision without having to bumble into the enlightenment that it's really better for everyone involved to have one of us work less and earn less but be around more.  Secondly, though, on the hard days with this lifestyle, it's bracing to know that I chose this.  That this arrangement wasn't foisted on me by some outside force or circumstance.  When I want to blame someone else (because I'm frozen out of an important decision at the office because I work part time or because I'm facing menu planning fatigue at home), it's actually better that my bedrock is: I proposed and have executed my portion of this family work/life balance arrangement.  Whatever slings and arrows I face because of it come along with the stronger parenting and semblance of serenity that working less for pay affords.

It also helps me seize positive opportunities when they arise.  Today, when Teddy got off the bus and asked to go to the park and work on his fielding, I quickly did the math:

• Do you have any homework?  No
• Do I have intensive dinner prep work to do tonight?  No (Thanks, Peppi's!)
• Did I cut my salary in half so that when my kid wants to improve his fielding, I can say yes and grab a bat and some baseballs?  Why, yes.  Yes, I did.

Four-and-a-half years into it, I wouldn't change this decision.  If I regret it in moments, I regret it rarely for whole days and never for as long as a week.  As a veteran part-time working mom said when I was mulling the decision: "You won't look back in thirty years and say 'I wish I hadn't missed that meeting.'"

Part-time Poem

Water rings bounce out

from the tulips to the edge of the vase

as I type a little too hard

here at the dining room table

on a day when I am not supposed to be

working at home.

A gentle load whirs in the dryer

downstairs

Teddy calls out m-nah (banana) when Blue prompts him

electronically

upstairs.

Cookie dough chills in the fridge

“This dough is very soft,

so it’s imperative that it’s been chilled before

you roll it out.”

Charlie’s bus will be here before too long

bringing with it

for better and worse

a play date companion.

Despite the sun and rare warmth

the weeding and pruning will have to wait

amazingly

for yet another day.

I went part time in December.

First Day of a Transition

Yesterday was the first day of a transition for me from full-time worker who sees his two sons on evenings and weekends to a part-time worker with primary parenting responsibility. I won't be quite a stay-at-home because I'm still going to work 20 hours a week. Most likely, I'm going to be a not-so-great employee and a not-so-great dad. Hopefully, though, I and everyone else in my family will be more sane because a parent will be putting the first grader on the bus and taking the toddler to child care. Likewise, I'll be able to grocery shop and do laundry and pay bills during the weekdays, leaving more evening and weekend time for family togetherness, downtime and dates for me and my wife.

My goal is to post a few times a week. We'll see how that goes.