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I'm a stay at home dad in my early 30s. My wife and I had our first child two years after moving to Eugene, Oregon. She's been working full time as an ER physician since we moved, and I spent the first several years here in school working on a paramedic degree. I was planning on getting a firefighting job, but decided against it after our second son was born in early 2007. My wife's schedule changes from week to week and her shifts can be any time during the day, so trying to find daycare when while we were both working would have been a nightmare. Also it seemed pointless for me to be working and spending a big chunk of income on daycare for the kids. So I just stayed home.

I've been doing this for four years or so now, and it's pretty fantastic. 95% of the time I can't imagine wanting to do anything else. The other 5% I wish I had a job that I could escape to. I'll admit that most men I talk to that hear my situation are pretty jealous, and would take my job in a second.

Though my wife's schedule is all over the map, it does enable her to be around the house more than I think a standard 9-5 M-F job would. I think this probably helps combat some of those emotional feelings like your caller Elizabeth has. Every now and then she'll have a shift that gets her home right as the kids are going to bed, and she'll have to decide between not seeing them at all for that day, or popping in to say goodnight and then having to deal with getting them all riled up for another hour or so. I know it probably pains her a little bit when that happens, but I think all the good outweighs the bad.

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
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