Children need to spend lots of time with their Dad's too

In my last post on “Housewife Superstars” I shared my beliefs about mums being at home with their children – I am aware that not all share this belief – each to his (or her) own – whatever works for you. This is simply my belief based on what I have experienced in my life.

I also commented that I thought that dads should be at home too and today I came across an article called “What About Dad’s?” that discussed the role that dads play in their childrens’ lives.

What memories do you have of your Dad when you were growing up?

When I was a baby, my Dad was working full time during the day, and studying at night. My Mum has told me that when Dad was studying, he’d have the door shut to the room where he was studying in the evening & I would sit or lie next to the door because I wanted to be with him. I don’t consciously remember this, but there must be some unconscious memory of it and a belief about what it meant to me because the tears are welling up as I write this. As I think about how my relationship has been with my Dad over the years, there has been a constant yearning for approval from him that perhaps stems from him not spending as much time with me as I would have liked. As an adult, I know that he was doing the best that he knew how.

Now that I have my own children and I’m experiencing being a parent first hand, it seems sad that traditional parental/gender roles dictate that the father/husband leaves the house to go to work for in excess of 40 hours per week to support the family, and to add insult to injury, he misses out on spending precious time with this family he is supporting.

I see the struggle my husband has between this need to create an income for us to live and the desire to stay at home with our little boy (who just turned one and is an absolute treasure). It’s not that we don’t have the tools available to us to be able to create an income stream working from home – we have multiple opportunities available to us, I think it’s more that he doesn’t (& maybe I don’t either) fully believe that this is actually possible. There certainly aren’t any men in our immediate circle friends that have this lifestyle that we could model. So now we are keeping our eyes and ears open for families where the dad does “work from home” and has ample time to spend with his children. We are looking for some inspiration and in return, we would like to be the inspiration for others who think this way of life would suit them too.

I know this isn’t for everyone – there are jobs that require a persons’ physical presence away from home – all I’m saying is that if this is you and you want something different, perhaps it doesn’t need to be for the full-time work week – it’s time to start thinking outside the box and really take responsibility for your own life and create it the way you want it. And if your first reaction is “but this is the way I want it” – that’s fine, but before you dismiss the idea outright, probe a little deeper, it could be that you’ve convinced yourself you want it that way because you haven’t ever thought it could be different.

Imagine how amazing this would be for children to have both parents at home with them – little children love being with their parents – they thrive from the attention they receive from their parents. Imagine how great it would be to share the care and upbringing and all the amazing milestones with your partner. You would both be there to see the “firsts” and if you weren’t it would be because you consciously chose to be elsewhere (maybe having a much needed massage or exercise session) and not because you felt you had to be at work. There would be no crying when little children are dropped off in the early hours of the morning at daycare, no crying when daddy (or mommy) leaves home in the morning to go to work, not to be seen again until late in the evening, parent tired and stressed from a day at work, needing his/her own space for some mental downtime – a child doesn’t understand this, all they see is that their Dad (or Mum) doesn’t want to spend time with them.

I find it strange that if the years of 0-7 (the imprint period) in a childs’ life are the ones where they are “sucking” in all their experiences like a sponge, why are they left to be cared for by strangers at a daycare centre (in the case of both parents working) or missing out on the input from one parent (in the case of one parent working and one staying at home)? Shouldn’t it be the parents having the greatest influence over their children?

Currently my husband works from home one day a week and I see how much our little boy Daniel loves spending time with Warren on the days that he his home. On the days that it’s just Daniel and me, we have a great time together and he adapts to his environment – that’s the great thing about kids, in the early years they just accept it, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be thinking about how this may impact them in the future.

In my ideal world, Warren and I would both be at home with Daniel (or travelling or wherever, just all together), spending time with each other, teaching Daniel about the world and creating the income to support our desired lifestyle. Having said that, I am still happy to be in charge of doing most of the cooking and half of the cleaning and I would still like Warren to be in charge of the “heavy lifting” types of jobs around the home, but as for “having” to go to work in a job, I think we’ll be finding other ways of earning money.

What is your ideal family/working/home situation? If you could truly have it any way you wanted it, how would it be for you?

I’d really love to hear your thoughts.

Related posts:

1. Is being a "Housewife Superstar" all cupcakes and roses?

For a while now I’ve been wondering where I fit in the whole hierarchy of womanhood/motherhood. I’m not your traditional “Stay at Home Mum” or “Housewife” like my mum was (dinner isn’t on the table at 6pm and Daniel isn’t bathed and ready for bed when Warren comes home). I also don’t have what you would call a career either – the thought of working for someone else has never really been my cup of tea (and my favourite cup of tea is Twinings Earl Grey).

Instead, I’m a wife and a mother, I own D-Zyne Solutions with my husband Warren, I create websites, dabble in share trading and I have my own Neways distributorship. This is what I term a “New-Age Retro Mum” (hence the title of this blog) because I strongly believe that a mothers’ role is to stay at home and raise her children (I also think dads should stay at home too, but that’s a whole article in itself) and maintain a sense of her own identity through whatever means she prefers.

I feel sad for the women who feel they have to go back to work once their 12 months of maternity leave is finished. In the 60 minutes article, I think the percentage quoted was something like 75% of mums who were working would rather stay at home and be a housewife if they could.

Of course no article about traditional gender roles would be complete without an interview with Germaine Greer – it was interesting to hear that she doesn’t agree with a woman’s perception that she needs to be able to do it all – be a great mum and have a career. Her view was more about independence and being true to yourself (well that’s what I took from it anyway).

I wonder where this premise of being the perfect woman (domestic goddess and career woman) came from? I know in my home, Warren (my husband) has told me countless times that all he wants is for me to be happy and then he is happy. If that means making him breakfast, lunches and dinners then great, if not, then he’ll make his own breakfast, sometimes lunch and we’ll work out what we do for dinner when the time comes. To me that seems overly simplistic – perhaps men don’t have as high expectations of us as we have of ourselves and our lives.

I was about to write that for me, it’s not enough to be a wife and a mother – I need something more than that – but why would I say that? In fact, I feel almost guilty saying that because I feel that someone reading this might take it to mean that I’m not happy being a wife and a mother. It’s not that at all – I love having a partner to share my life with and I am in awe of my little boy – the amazing growth that has taken place in the last 12 months since he joined us. What it is, is that I have other interests that drive me in addition to my family and I want to be able to pursue those as well. This is where it can be frustrating at times though – I want to provide an environment for Daniel where he can truly fulfil his potential (and I believe the best people for him to do that with are his parents) and I also want to put time into my projects too – it’s all about finding the right balance. And right now that balance would be better achieved if Warren was a stay at home dad and we both shared our time between caring for Daniel and creating income to support our family.

Have we perhaps come full circle and just as in fashion, the retro notion of being a housewife is in vogue again but with a modern twist? Just like in fashion though, I think it’s time to take the bits that work best for you and toss out the rest.

What do you think? Are you a stay at home mum longing for more, or perhaps a career woman wishing she was at home with her children? What works best for you?

Related posts:

1. Should Both Parents be at Home?