Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Number Of Stay-At-Home Dads Is Increasing

Sometimes it's hard to remember that this a stay-at-home dad oriented blog. A lot of my posts are about other things, like temper tantrums, or talking about the sleeping habits of my son.

However, those are the things stay-at-home parents (mom or dad) deal with daily. So I think I'm still in the loop. I just don't emphasize that I'm a dad.

Yesterday there was an article on Yahoo! News that caught my eye. It's called Is Dad The New Mom? The Rise of Stay-At-Home Fathers.

I don't want to rehash the entire article, I'll let you read it for yourself. But there are a few things worth highlighting. Like:

According to the most recent Census, the number of stay-at-home fathers in the United States has tripled in the past 10 years up to 154,000. Yet, these at-home dads are still the exception to the traditional household and many treading in unchartered parenting waters.
I've known about the incredibly low number of stay-at-home dads there are out there because of the research I'm doing for a secret project I'm working on. As a percentage of the US population, us dads are a rare breed. That means sticking together.

Which brings me to my next point:

Many at-home dads across the country have turned to the Internet for guidance and support from each other, and now there is a growing online community. Some at-home dads set up get-togethers.
 "They talk about sports and politics, but if you go in there right now they will be talking about diaper changes, sleeping challenges, so we're really talking about a lot of the stuff that moms are talking about," said Matt Schneider of "NYC Dads Group."
I've mentioned in a previous post that I joined a dad's group when my DS was about 2 months. The other dads were great. The only problem was that their kids were toddlers. So why they were playing with their kids on the playground, I was stuck sitting on the bench giving my son a bottle.

If you're a dad reading this, which I hope you are, you should embrace your job and wear it as a badge of pride.

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