From what I can tell, there are not a lot of men in my position.
I’m what you would call a work-from-home parent, or a work-from-home dad (WFHD) to be exact. According to Pew Research Studies, only 2 million men in the United States are stay-at-home dads. That’s just over 1% of the adult male population.
Assuming a fraction of these stay-at-home dads also work from home, we’re looking at a small sample size here.
Two and a half years ago I left my full-time career as a supply chain analyst to make it on my own in entrepreneur land.
Out of necessity, I sent my kid to daycare so I could focus and get work done during the day. After a few months, daycare costs became too much to justify. I pulled my kid from daycare and took on the bulk of child-rearing.
After my wife gave birth to our second kid, I now consider myself a full-time dad (with various freelancing projects on the side).
Since I’m in a unique position, bumping into other WFHDs at the park is a rarity. Nevertheless, once in and a while other curious dads will ask me what it’s like being a WFHD. Starved for adult interaction, I typically unload all the good, the bad, and the ugly about my situation.
Let’s unpack this, shall we?
The Good
- You set your own schedule
- You focus on your own goals
- You work at your own pace
- You spend more time with your family
Now, every work-from-home parent has their own situation, so the perks vary from person to person. Some parents watch their kids full-time (like me) while others utilize daycare, baby sitting, or school to get work done.
However, the obvious perk of being a WFHD is working from home. No commute, no annoying co-workers, and no drab cubicles. You get to wake up every day and set your own schedule of when and how long you’ll work.
If you have your own business you have the freedom to set meaningful goals for yourself instead of being handed a list of corporate objectives. And the best part of all: you get to spend more time with your kids instead of sitting in a stuffy office all day.
The Bad
- Kids, especially young kids, aren’t always keen to sticking with a schedule
- The ambiguous path forward
- The loneliness (dad’s aren’t great at this)
Working from home — especially when you have young kids — isn’t all it’s worked up to be. You deal with a lot of random distractions throughout the day. Surprise, surprise.
Having a routine is key for your mental health and productivity as a WFHD. Even if you have a set routine, sometimes you find yourself at its mercy. For example, I only have a small window of time while my youngest naps to work. I have to frantically squeeze in as much as I can into a 90 minute window instead of working at my own pace.
There’s no road map to refer to as a WFHD. It’s an ambiguous adventure. Juggling projects and clients, as well as children, means it’s harder to see the “long term” vision of your career. Some days feel like a guessing game of what your priorities should be. The unpredictability of being a WFHD is unbearable at times.
Finally, and this part is hard to admit: being a WFHD is lonely.
It’s hard to make new friends as you get older. It’s even harder when you’re the only dad at the park. If I do encounter other adults throughout the week, our conversations often revolve around our kids.
What else is there to talk about?
The Ugly
- Emotional labor is frustrating and hard
- Feelings of regret, embarrassment, and guilt — all at the same time
- What happens next?
Being a parent is fulfilling, but it’s a frustrating kind of fulfilling.
Raising kids takes a great deal of emotional labor (which I’m not good at). When you work on a project, and you see a direct and positive outcome from your efforts, that feels good. But when you spend 80 minutes cleaning up your kids’ room only to see it destroyed 5 minutes later, that feels kind of shitty.
It’s also sometimes embarrassing to admit you’re a WFHD. When someone asks me “What do you do?” I hesitate. I wonder for a second if I should tell them the truth or not. Let’s face it, being a WFHD isn’t as cool and interesting as other careers.
Finally, and this is the scariest part of being a WFHD: What comes next?
Our kids won’t always need us around. One day they will grow up and become self-sufficient. What happens then? As a WFHDs, we’re sacrificing the best years of our careers for our children. How do we make up for that lost time?
These thoughts scare me.
In the end, it’s still worth it
Being a WFHD is career suicide, I know. However, I trust in my abilities to learn, grow, and adapt over the next 18–25 years.
Managing work as well as parenting is not glorious, but at the end of the day when the kids go to bed, I pull out my phone and show my wife all the photos from our day. I share what our boys learned, how they played, and all the little things that make them unique and sweet. I’m left with the satisfaction of knowing I get to be a part of their formative years.
Besides, I can always rebuild a career.