Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls,” and in this day and age, I couldn’t agree more. Being a 28-year-old, stay-at-home dad and a full time student is no easy task. I am happily married and love my family with all of my heart. However, sometimes I get an uneasy feeling in my stomach when reflecting on the fact that my wife is the bread winner in our home.
I quit my job in spring of 2009 because my wife and I were expecting a child. Child care costs more than my job paid, and my wife made twice as much as I did. Our decision seemed simple. I can go back to school, take on the burden of student loans and further my education while taking care of my daughters at home — until I graduate and establish a professional career.
Mind you going back to school is no easy task. Neither is taking care of two kids or, re-entering the job market after graduation. I have recently learned to slow down and take things one moment at a time. I do this to reduce the amount of potentially overwhelming stress and insanity caused by two beautiful, back-talking toddlers in their “terrible twos.” Not to mention I have a beautiful wife who at times I feel takes pieces of my manhood by putting tampons on the grocery list without telling me.
Lord knows, times are changing, and according to an article released in early 2010 written by the Pew research center, “a larger share of men living today, in comparison to their counterparts in the 1970s, are married to women whose education and income exceed their own.”
I love the fact that women have more career power and through decades of fighting for women’s suffrage, now, have advancing opportunities to pursue profit in nearly any career field, compared to the 1970s. Forty years ago, the typical man did not gain another breadwinner in his household when he married. Today the typical married man has to swallow his pride when depositing his wife’s checks. My conflict is not with women and their fight to break the “glass ceiling;” it is with my manly ego being in jeopardy due in part of the fading, or should I say, reversal of certain spousal traditions.
My father has been working for the U.S. Post Office for 28 years and had another job on the side. My mother worked as a transcriptionist — bouncing from local hospitals for over 25 years. My father never did the dishes or the laundry; he made us kids do it. My father made more money than my mom, and he took pride in that. He raised us boys to work hard and be the provider for our family just as he did.
Well, sorry dad. Maybe one day I will get a job where I make more than my wife, and maybe then she will give me my testicles back. Until then, I’ll be doing the dishes, laundry, shooting videos of the kids and cooking Hamburger Helper like the rest of the “stay at home dads” living the “dad life.” Women are moving toward a new milestone in which they will constitute half of all the employed in America by 2013.
But what does this mean for the future of the stay-at-home dad? Will women continue their march to takeover this capitalistic system ruled by incumbent white men? According to statistics, yes they will. Does this mean the public will see a rise in men owning and operating day care centers and teaching sewing classes? According to statistics, probably so.
Girl power is in full affect; don’t doubt it for a minute. All joking aside, I love being in a position where I can hang out with my daughters on a daily basis. My mother and father only wish they could have stayed at home and played with us kids all day. Sure, being married with children takes a whole lot of patience and restraint at times. But stopping to give thanks for the opportunity to spend time with your loved ones is bigger than any manly ego on earth and something one shouldn’t complain about.
Jonathan Gray lives in Aurora.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column.
