A little confession - from the time I decided to become a SAHD when my son was 3 months old until just recently, I kinda felt a little guilty about being a SAHD. It really wasn't that hard - change the baby, feed the baby, put baby down for naps and maybe a couple of hours of play time total throughout the day with him in the play pen or exersaucer. I could still have plently of alone time - you know - to jump on the computer and chat or research my family history. Being a SAHD was reletively easy. (we only have the one son for now) About two weeks ago my son started crawling/cruising/not standing still. His naps are down to two - one short one in the morning and one longer one in the afternoon. Now I feel like I'm earning the title SAHD. My time to jump on the computer or catch up with correspondance is now limited to the time after David goes to sleep. When He is awake, he is all over the place. He has a good case of the wiggles (and no - not the group of 40 something child stars) He is always looking for the next thing to hold onto - the next books to pull down from the shelf, the next toy box to dump out. Before this time, if someone asked what I did for a living, I felt guilty - like being a SAHD wasn't a legitimate job Needless to say all that has changed.
"Earning" the title Stay at Home Dad
My son will be six months on June 13th and I know in time I will experience what you are going through. I know the feeling of being guilty but it passes. I know I'm doing the best thing for my family. Anyways, it's always good to know there is someone else going through the same stuff.
I felt the same way when my son was born. I even managed to get some freelance work done during his first few months, but eventually he started getting too active for me to do that. My daughter is 11 months and is starting to crawl and scoot around and demand action, so my time of sitting and reading or web surfing while she plays quietly at my feet are just about at an end.
That's OK, because then we can get out to playground more, and to Gymboree or something like that and she can make friends and I can meet new parents. Have to reconfigure my schedule so I can do "me" stuff early in the morning or late at night.
Dave, full-time child roadie for Owen and Amelia
www.davebrigham.com
Family Guy
I'm with you on all of it. But...get ready because after the mobile stage it all changes! I have been a SAHD for almost 3 years and this job is brutal! I will challenge anyone's manhood against this job. I had less stress in the Army! Between the domestics and just keeping up with him, I'm constantly involved in an act of work and I only have 1 child. It is definitely a job and deserves praise that we're doing it. I now focus on all the positive factors of this job: a parent is raising him and not a daycare, we're saving $ on not doing daycare, He's learning first hand values... It's a great job to have, definitely.
Being a stay at home dad is one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs you can ever do. Just like the rest of you I had that nice little down time to myself when my daughter was younger. Unfortunately she was walking at 10 months old and there went my down time. She is now 3 years old and all over the place. My wife wants another child soon so I'm going to get to go through the whole experience again. At least this time around I'll be going into it with some experience.
I have an 18 month old girl who thinks she's a wild animal. I thought the same thing at first. All she did was eat, pee, poo, and roll around a little. Now, if I turn my back on her for 10 seconds she eats a crayon and jabs her thumb into the dog's eye. It's like having a tiny, mischievous drunk stumbling around the house. She is my little buddy.
At least they're not teenagers.... yet.
As I mentioned in a post in this thread 3 days ago, my time for sitting around comfortably while my 11-month-old daughter plays quietly at my feet is very short. In the two days my wife has been out of town on business our little girl has truly learned to crawl, and is trying to pull herself up on all sorts of things, including, as you can see in this picture, the stairs. Holy crap!
Dave, full-time child roadie for Owen and Amelia
www.davebrigham.com
Joined: 2008-04-02
Dad Points: 42