Mr. Mom - Stay at home dad raising two kids

Hey Guys and Gals,

I work from home behind a computer (which is why I am here). I have a 4 year old son and a 7 month old daughter that I raise while working. My boy attends daycare 3 days a week and is home with me and his sister Mondays and Fridays. I did the same thing for my boy when he was born. The goal is to work from home and keep them home for the first 15 months then place them in daycare full-time till they are 3 then scale down to 3 days a week all to keep costs down.

Now I don't have to tell you what a task it is to work from home and care for your kids all by yourself. I now know how a lot of moms feel...When I did this for my son he was easy. He is a laid back kind of kid, although full of energy, and he loved his naps. He would do a 4 hour nap from 12pm to 4pm which I loved. my daughter on the other hand, she hates her naps and hates to sleep. She will do a 20 mins at the most and will only do at the most 3 a day and boy does she love to eat and scream!

Like I said with my son it was easy but now that he is older and she doesn't like her naps its become a task that I question myself about everyday. Can I do this and keep doing this? My work, even though requires a lot of brain power, is rather simple. I sit on my big ol rump and answer computer questions that span the spectrum of end user issues. Been doing this for 7 years now so it has become second nature to me. What complicates my day is when my little man is home. I see he gets bored and he wants me to play with him and I feel terrible that I cannot. Between tending after my daughter, who needs constant attention to stop screaming, and my calls I have no time for him. It really make s me feel terrible. And because of that I get frustrated and stressed. And it doesn't help that my wife works 40 mins away and is required to put in 9 to 10 hour days. SO that leaves me with the kids 90% of the day. I often joke with her telling her that she has weekend custody of the kids.

My wife feels terrible because she feels she should be the one home with the kids. But because of the fields of profession we chose our roles are reverse, reversed to the point that when my son was able to mutter his first words he used to call his mommy "Daddy-mom". I feel bad because I don't want her to miss out on their lives as much as she is but on the other hand I wouldn't want to change it for the world. As much of a pain in the arse it is I do love it. I can deal with it, I do have my moments that when she gets home I wish I was Cheech or Chong.....(cough cough)....that ain't gonna happen....responsibility over recreation. lol.

Now I do wish she could be the stay at home mom while I still work from home, that would be ideal. I would be able to see my kids grow up and get help raising them throughout the day and also know that my entire family is safe here at home, but that is a perfect world. I am currently trying to start my own business so that perfect world can become a reality. My wife is a little less than supportive and encouraging, she calls being realistic. I call it being afraid of taking a risk. I would love to quit my full time job and go hit the pavements and drum up business but she lacks confidence in my salesman skills, shame on her, I did get her to marry me, right? So my salesman skills cant be that bad. She is a full blooded sales person and boy does she argue like one too, I call her spin doctor...

My days have their ups and downs, ins and outs and I wish I could make things perfect here.

I want to hear from other stay at home dads and hear how they cope with life's daily pressures and also hear from work at home moms. Now if you have a nanny or an au pair then you have it easy and don't qualify as i see that as cheating! LOL. I'm kidding, I want to hear from anyone and everyone as I will seek advice and can also give advice if needed..

Thanks for listening, or reading in this case, and may your chosen god bless you and all that good stuff!

I met my husband in the military, unfortunately for medical reasons he had to get out so now he is the stay at home father of our 9 month old and I am a pregnant Senior Airman who as soon as I have this child I will have to deploy, so our roles are definitely reversed. It drives him crazy because we are stationed in Italy so he can't have a stay at home job here, he has to work on base or not at all. With a 3 person family and one more on the way he will have to get a job, I just don't make enough to support our family of four. Mu husband can definitely sympathize with you. He would love to hand our son off to me at the end of the day but I am so tired between the pregnancy and work that I am pretty much useless when I get home.

My wife would sympathize with you, she is exhausted by the time she gets home and feels i am punishing her by handign her the kids as soon as she gets home. But I work 8 to 9 hours a day and then have to make dinner for the kids, her and myself and my little guy always wants to go play at the playground and that means "DADDY!!!! PUSH ME!!!!!" on the swings, lol. and then he wants me to chase him and then my wife gets a little crazy if she starts feeling teh hunger pains, right now she is border line diabetic and i am sure that has a lot to do with it. But when she gets hungry she gets angry and crazy and ...I'd better stop there, lol.

So, I feel that she is the "man" and im the dainty little stepford wife- well maybe not so dainty... But its tough just dealing with the kids in general and when you gotta work and do it. Im just waiting for those nice guys in their clean white suits to come and take me away!!!!!!!, lol

But, its nothing I cannot handle. I did it before with my little guy I can do it again with my daughter and just need to learn how to utilize a 4 year old properly...

 

I know you wanted to hear from dads, but I'm a stay at home mom.  I totally understand how difficult it is to get anything done when you're the only one at home!  My husband works 24 hour shifts about 9 days a month, so he is home a lot with our son as well.  Even with two adults, it's amazing how hard it is to get anything done!  Your daughter sounds just like my son.  He's suddenly become anti-sleep.

I just had to giggle at Mommy-Dad.  My son calls both of us MamaDaddy.  This usually happens when he wants either or both of us to come to his aid.  LOL!

I think its funny how opposite my kids are. My 4 year old son will sleep, its hard to get him to bed and its hard to wake him up. Our 7 month old daughter however, screams when you put her down and 20 mins later screams when she wakes up. They always say if the first one is easy the second one is a bear, i don't even want to think about #3, well we are actually done after 2, we are getting a little too old to go for #3. 10 years ago we may have had 4 to 6 kids, no we wouldn't, lol.

It is amazing how much less time you have to get things done when you have a new born on your hands. in my case my wife doesn't get home till around 7pm and even after she gets home I'm still doing most of the parenting, she needs time to change and wind down, I understand that but it prevents me from winding down some days. and then with two of them we take one a piece to get them ready for bed, I don't get to tend to myself till 9 or 10 pm most nights and by that time I'm way too tired to work out anymore. And being this exhausted its impossible for me to get up at 5 or 6 to exercise.

I also don't get much time to work on the house or do house work and then my wonderful understanding wife gets on me because things don't get done and when we talk about those kid of things it almost always turns into an argument.

I understand we both feel pressure, I know her career is demanding of her and exhausts her both physically and mentally, my career exhausts me mentally, the kids exhaust me physically but i don't think she understands that completely.

And I want to hear from everyone, it would be nice to find some comradery with some stay at home - work at home dads, see how they deal with it.