A Stay-at-Home Dad Speaks Up--Quietly
A national survey comes out suggesting that day-care children display more behavior problems when they enter school. The same goes for children spending most of their day with nannies or their fathers, according to the survey.
Reflexively, working mothers across America wring their hands and sprout a few more prematurely gray hairs.
And why not?
Society historically has laid the burden on them: Do you want to work or do you want to stay home with your preschooler? Make your choice and live with the consequences.
As a baby boomer without children--but one who has kept his eyes and ears open over the years--I’ve heard and sympathized with many a female friend’s lament on the subject. Those laments don’t just end at the time the work-or-don’t-work decision is made. The second-guessing can go on for years, regardless of which decision they make.
Can’t say that I’ve heard any men anguish over it.
Which is why I hooked up again with Hogan Hilling, an Irvine man I met 6 1/2 years ago for a column on stay-at-home dads. If the new national survey kicks off a new round of fretting for moms, why not for dads like Hilling?
Hilling, 46 and the father of three boys, is well aware of the survey and brushes it aside.
“In my 13 years as a parent,” he says, “it seems like we’re always seeing statistics on kids and if they’re in day care or if dad is taking care of them, and mom isn’t taking care of them, that they’re more aggressive. We need to stop with the statistics, because kids are not statistics. They’re human beings.”
The survey’s findings, which have been questioned since their release last week, tweak Hilling in a couple of places.
First is the reaction that only the mothers of America will be troubled by the survey. Second is the notion that men who stay at home with their children aren’t as competent as their wives.
Wrestling With Aggression
“I think some of this has to do with how we’re looking at aggressiveness,” Hilling says of the survey. “I’ve found that with my boys [and others], when they go out on the playground they want to be aggressive. They wrestle and roll around. The moms are supervising the recess most of the time because the dads can’t spend the time, and every time the boys are pushing and rolling around and wrestling, they stop them.
“I found that with my boys, one way to get rid of their energy is to go and be physical with the other boys. From the outside, I think moms have a tendency to say, ‘Look, they’re beating each other up,’ where from the dads’ perspective, they’re saying, ‘No, they’re just wrestling.’ ”
Hilling is the first to say that’s only one small part of parenting, but says it may skew findings about levels of aggression shown by kindergartners and first-graders.
Then, there’s the big issue--the one that sticks in the craw. . . .
“The survey bothers me a bit because it implies that if moms stay at home, we would see a totally different way of children being raised,” Hilling says. “The stay-at-home dads I know set boundaries. I’m a little stricter at home, but I’m just as loving and caring about kids as any mom would be.”
American society being what it is, it’s perfectly logical that women will always be seen as having more at stake when it comes to staying home to rear children.
But if the information on the Dads Online Web site is correct, 2 million men stay at home full time with their children.
“The idea of dads staying at home and getting involved is not a fad,” says Hilling, who has written articles and organized workshops on the subject. “We’re finding out that more and more guys are what we call ‘coming out of the pantry.’ ”
If Hilling is typical of at-home dads in America, the survey results will slide off their backs.
What working women wouldn’t give to get to that point.
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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.
