The stigma of the stay-at-home-dad

While the role of a mum as full-time carer for children is widely accepted, fathers who take the same decision can be judged and isolated.

Ask Steven Lange what he does, and he'll tell you he's involved in start-ups. Or that he works from home. Or that he's semi-retired, though he might go back to work full-time once his youngest child graduates high school next year.

What he's less likely to say is what he actually feels is most accurate.

"I'm a stay-at-home dad," says the Ohio, US-based 52-year-old, who worked in branding and product development for 30 years before he began staying home with his children in 2020. "But I don't think I would ever tell anybody that, or introduce myself that way," he adds. "I find myself feeling like I need to explain to you that I'm not just folding laundry and cooking dinner and going grocery shopping. I've got other stuff I'm doing."

That self-consciousness persists despite knowing just how beneficial his set-up has been: he's forged a closer relationship with his teenaged son; he's been around to help with his new grandchild; and the arrangement has enabled his wife to pursue a master's degree.

Stay-at-home dads like Lange are becoming more common. In the US, for example, the number nearly doubled from 1989 to 2012. But they're still relatively unusual. Of US families with opposite-sex, married parents, 5.6% have working mothers and non-working fathers, compared to the 28.6% with working fathers and non-working mothers. (It's worth noting that this includes people who are unemployed but may be seeking work, so it's an imperfect estimate). In the EU, it's even rarer: about one in 100 men pause their careers for at least six months for childcare, compared to one in three women.

That relative rarity means that men who make this choice can feel like the odd ones out – and sometimes are judged harshly. Even in cultures where fathers are expected to be more involved than in the past, they are still expected to be the breadwinners of the family and are frequently stereotyped as less nurturing or domestically adept than mothers. 

All of this means that, for fathers like Lange, staying at home with the kids can feel unusual and ostracising – even if they wouldn't want it any other way.

'I feel like sometimes I'm being watched'

In countries like the US and Australia, the ideal father is expected to be more engaged in his children's day-to-day lives than in the past, says Brendan Churchill, a senior lecturer in sociology at Australia's University of Melbourne, who researches fatherhood.

Even so, "the male breadwinner model lingers. It is reinforced daily in our culture. Think about the ments on television or in the newspaper that reinforce the nuclear family of four," he says. "It also persists in our social policy frameworks, even though there's been lots of change – our reference point is still that family of four with a male breadwinner." Maternity leave, for example, remains far more generous in most countries than paternity leave.

This cultural belief that fathers should 'protect and provide' can plant an insidious narrative in the heads of stay-at-home dads, even those who feel that they're best suited to contributing to their families in their role as the primary caregiver.

"In high school, I never pictured myself going to college and having some fancy career. I was just so excited, always, to be a dad," says Spencer Bouwhuis, 25, in Utah, US. "It's always been a dream of mine to be a stay-at-home dad."

But growing up, he never felt comfortable sharing that with anyone, he says. The traditional model he'd been raised with in his community – he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – normally emphasised that fathers should provide for their families, while mothers should look after the home. When he was asked what he wanted to do as an adult, he'd say he wasn't sure. "I just didn't think I'd get a positive response" by telling the truth, he says.