I was talking to a stay-at-home mom the other day and she was pissed. Her husband, who works full time, is on a business trip again. It was his third week-long trip that month, and she was over it. Their two children miss their father, and she doesn’t think all the traveling is really necessary, even for work.
After all, we’ve all been through COVID and everything went smoothly via video conferencing. She felt he chose to travel more than he needed to, mostly for fun and to take a break from his children.
That conversation made me think about the tensions that arise in families where one parent stays home and the other goes to work. I feel it too. Whenever I debate whether to attend a conference or spend a precious weekend with my wife and kids, the inner pull is real. With both my kids now in school full time, weekends are even more important.
The Challenges of Being a Stay-at-Home Dad
As a man, I will write this from a father’s perspective.
Men are trained from childhood to provide. Even if no one recognizes our work, we will continue to show up. We feed, protect, teach, empower, repair, support and problem solve at every stage of a child’s life.
Becoming a father requires inner motivation. You can’t expect, let alone crave, to be recognized for a job well done because no one cares. No one asks you to be a father, and society doesn’t appreciate the hard work a man puts into his family well.
Gus Flynn from breaking Bada version that sums up what it takes to be a man today. Is it any wonder why so many men are opting out of marriage and fatherhood?
The demands of being a stay-at-home parent can be so demanding that some parents actually crave work structure just to get a break from parenthood. There is no off switch for full-time parenting. A moment’s distraction can lead to disaster.
So, after years of picking up and dropping off, cooking, teaching skills, and spending weekends away from friends, how do you let go of the guilt when you finally take a break? How do you give yourself permission to leave your family and enjoy some personal leisure?
You start by comparing yourself to other parents and then follow the new framework I created in true American nerd fashion.
Step One: Compare Yourself to the Average Dad (or mom)
When you become a stay-at-home dad, you lose the rhythm of a normal working dad. This contrast will become apparent once your children enter school and you start meeting other parents.
Most fathers have full-time jobs. It is said that the average father spends 60 to 80 minutes a day with his children. I know, it’s hard to believe, but that’s what the data says.
In comparison, the cost of a stay-at-home father ranges from 8 to 24 hours a daydepending on the age of the children and the career of the partner.
Do the math:
If you spend 12 hours a day caring for your child during the first three years of his life, compared with about 2 hours for an above-average father, you’re investing six times more time each day. In terms of total time invested, these three years roughly equate to 18 years old Parenting time for an average father.
in other words:
You won’t fall behind because of breaks. You’re still many years ahead.
Allow yourself to rest. You’ve earned it.
Step 2: Ask other dads (or moms) about their travel arrangements
Now that you have an idea of how much time a dad (or mom) spends with his kids on an average day, it’s time to break it down. Just like real estate is local, father’s time also varies from region to region. You want to compare your efforts to your immediate peers.
So you have to ask as many dads (or moms) as you know about their work hours and travel schedules to see how you compare. Here are some examples I’ve encountered.
- One dad was away on the East Coast for two weeks, then the dad went golfing for four days and then went to Asia for a week. Within six weeks he was gone for nearly a month.
- Another travels for two weeks a month.
- Another travels to Europe, Asia and the Middle East for about a month each quarter to fundraise.
- Finally, another father said he flies to New York twice a year for a week to kiss the ring and hope for a promotion. On top of that, he meets with clients across the country once a month for three to four days.
If I were still working, my projected annual travel plans
If I were still working in finance, I might go to Asia two to four times a week for 10 to 40 days. I’ll probably also be traveling around the country five days a month to meet with clients in total 70 – 110 working days. Wow, that’s a lot if I want to give my all to my job and climb to the top.
After having kids, I have to imagine that I’ll limit my travels to Asia to twice a year for a maximum of 20 days. Then, maybe I’ll send my junior colleagues to visit clients every other month, reducing my total domestic travel time to 30 days. While 50 days a year away from your family may sound like a lot, it seems much more reasonable than 70-110 days away from your family!
Step 3: Accumulate travel or vacation points
Once you understand from the top down and bottom up how many other parents travel, you can start building “points” for each trip you skip and each day you stay home.
For example, this year Dad traveled to another state. It ran from Thursday to Sunday and my wife was totally fine with me going. But I skipped it. We have a parent-teacher conference on Friday from 10am to 1:20pm and I would like to meet all eight teachers we have scheduled.
I also want to spend my weekends teaching my kids tennis through Dad Day Camp. Access to public courtrooms in San Francisco is difficult, so Friday afternoons after sessions are prime time for court appearances.
From that four-day trip, I accumulated enough credits to take a more meaningful six-day trip to Honolulu to surprise my dad for his 80th birthday. While I still didn’t feel good being away from them, it felt much better than being on one of my father’s wasted trips. During these four days, I earned these credits by spending extra time with the kids, even though I was a little sick. The more effort you put in up front, the less guilt you’ll feel afterwards.
No matter how much your partner insists on spending the weekend with friends or going on a business trip to New York City for steak dinners and late nights, some resentment will inevitably arise. That’s human nature, because raising children alone is hard work!
A simple formula to help you pass the time guilt-free
Now let’s set up a practical formula so you can take action and enjoy more personal time away from your family.
1. Ask five dads (or moms) how many days they spend away from their families each year.
Including work trips, meetings and fluff.
2. Calculate the average.
3. Divide that number by two.
This will be a guilt-free perk when you’re traveling as a stay-at-home parent or taking a break from parenting. For example, if you find that your father spends an average of 30 days a year away from home working, you can spend 15 days doing whatever you want with no guilt.
Why half? Because the father who works full time is providing the financial resources. Travel is often part of their job, although we all know that after 2-3 years of Zoom meetings during COVID-19, employees no longer need to travel to build relationships or close deals.
If you’re not the primary breadwinner, you can’t travel and enjoy the same number of days as the average working dad. Half of the average score is a fair share.
When to use divisor by 1 — When you are a FIRE parent
FIRE parents are people who retire earlier than normal so they can become stay-at-home parents while remaining the primary financial provider. This is unlike stay-at-home parents, who completely give up their careers while their partners continue to work.
If you are both primary financial providers and If you’re a stay-at-home parent, it’s only fair that you take as many breaks or trips as the average of the five parents you surveyed.
If you happen to know five stay-at-home dads, you can also divide by one instead of two. Their averages will usually be lower, but also more in line with the realities of your lifestyle.
That said, I still don’t believe a fire dad should accept more Although he is also the breadwinner of the family, he takes more days off than the average stay-at-home dad. Part of the FIRE mentality is maintaining high standards and exceeding the average in both areas.
Being a firefighter dad isn’t normal.
If you achieve financial independence so you can spend more time with your children, understand that your lifestyle is unusual. Fires are already rare, but fire parenting is even more so given the cost of raising a family.
- According to the Pew Research Center, only about 7% A father who lives with a child under 18 is a stay-at-home dad. Fathers now generally wear makeup 18% of all stay-at-home parents (another approximately 82% are mothers).
- At the same time, I estimate that of the 7% of stay-at-home dads, less than 30% are FIRE dads, who stay at home and are also responsible for most of the household finances. In other words, 70% of stay-at-home dads have work partners/spouses who bring sashimi home.
The self-discipline required to achieve financial independence is rare. The discipline to raise children full-time for the next 18 years was even rarer.
If you never take a break, resentment will eventually form. You can start comparing your arrangement to homes with more balanced setups. If a better balance is not found, marriages can easily fall apart.
You can’t sustain being a stay-at-home dad long-term without taking care of yourself.
There is no reward for being a martyr
If you work full time and still travel for several weeks or months each year, you have a very supportive partner at home. Appreciate them. It’s not easy to raise a child alone for weeks on end.
If you’re a stay-at-home parent or a “fire parent” who feels guilty even thinking about taking a weekend away, remember this:
You already spend more time with your children than many parents spend in their entire lives.
Your presence, persistence, and sacrifice are already changing the trajectory of your children’s lives.
But if you’re exhausted, none of that matters.
Well-rested parents are better parents. Resentful parents are dangerous.
Give yourself permission to leave. You deserve the rest. You deserve to be free. You deserve the same grace that is given to others.
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