At-Home Dads Get Some Needed Support

When Peter Baylies became an at-home dad, minding the kids while Mom worked, it was like going to another planet.

“I was pretty isolated,” the North Andover, Mass., father of two said. At-home fathers face the same problems and isolation as mothers, but “dads don’t seem to reach out for support the way the moms do,” he says.

That’s why Baylies started the At-Home Dad newsletter, reaching out to the thousands of fathers who watch the children while Mom is at work.

“A lot of guys find themselves going from the good-old-boys network to the good-old-girls network. They find themselves standing in a playground full of women and have no idea what to do. It’s a whole new set of rules, and that can be very intimidating,” said Baylies, who oversees John, 5, and David, 2, while wife Susan teaches elementary school.

Curtis Cooper of St. Paul, Minn., became an at-home dad four years ago. “It’s been great,” says Cooper, who watches Brett, 4, and Brooke, 2 1/2, while mom Pam works in marketing at Ecolab.

A new Census Bureau report says that 1.9 million dads were their children’s primary caregiver in 1993, down a bit from the 2 million counted in 1991 as the economy improved and more fathers found jobs.

Indeed, economics is a major factor in deciding who stays home, observes Robert Frank of Loyola University in Chicago, who studied stay-at-home fathers last year.

Having the parent who made more money keep working was a leading factor in deciding who would mind the children, Frank found, along with a desire not to put the kids in day care.

“The majority of dads I talked to are dads who are really wanting to be an important part of their child’s life and are sacrificing career opportunities to be with their kids,” Frank said.

Cooper founded the Dad-to-Dad support group in 1995, now numbering about 1,000 at-home fathers across the country who share problems and solutions.

The Census report, called “My Daddy Takes Care of Me: Fathers as Care Providers,” found that in 1993, 18.5% of fathers whose wives worked were the primary caregivers for youngsters under age 5.

That was down from 22.4% in 1991, a peak that Census demographer Lynne M. Casper speculated was due to the recession that began in 1990. The declines since then appear to be “driven by changing economic conditions rather than fathers becoming less interested in taking part in their children’s lives,” she said.

In addition, Casper said, “In tough economic times, families tend to have less income and parents may have been more motivated to find a way for the father to provide care, saving the money they otherwise would have spent on a child-care provider.”

For older children, ages 5 through 14, 9.1% of fathers with working wives were the primary caregivers, about the same as the 9% in 1991.

The fact that preschool children are more likely to receive supervision from their father is largely because older kids are more likely to be in school.

Other findings included:

* Hispanic fathers were most likely to be primary care providers for preschoolers, at 21.2% of dads with working wives, followed by 18.6% of whites and 16.1% of blacks.

* The region with the most dads caring for kids under 5 was the Northeast at 27.3%, followed by 19.8% in the West, 18.6% in the Midwest and 13.1% in the South.

* Central cities had the most dads giving preschoolers primary care, 23.1%, with rural areas at 18.3% and suburbs at 16.4%.

* 36.6% of fathers with working wives living in poverty were the primary child-care providers for preschoolers, compared to 17.7% above the poverty level.