Surprising things to have a husband who is a home father

Having a household husband was a novelty for me, but after almost a year, we settled in a routine where mom works, and Dad takes care of children when they are not at school and daycare. While for the most part, we are happy in our roles, there were times when I was surprised by reactions to our situation – from our peer and myself network.

While my husband has never been so interested in children until we have ours, he has since flowered as a father, insisting on the fact that he is prosperous even with short time because he likes to spend time with our two boys. Admittedly, there is no better sound than to hear their eruptions of laughter in still daddy’s silly games.

This means that when my husband ended up feeling dissatisfied in his last full -time role, it did not take him long to decide that he would feel more satisfied to take care of our children. This opened the space for me to open up to full work – work as an independent journalist, of my previous part -time capacity, and for both of us to look into the environment where we are the happiest. Although we are now installed in our roles, there are certain things that really surprised me in our situation.

My husband knows things about our children that I don’t do

One of the greatest revelations for me is that my husband has learned certain things about our children more intimately than me. For example, their food preferences and when they need new clothes and shoes. When I take the preparation of meals on weekends, it will often intervene when I am about to put something on their plates that they no longer like, but which is a new one for me. I should not be surprised that it happens, but it makes me feel a little out of the loop, and as if I had lost my advantage as a mom.

I still contribute a lot to the family

I also feel forced to “help” as far as possible, even if I work full time. We also separated and resumed, and I help with tasks like laundry when it came out with our youngest during the week. On Friday afternoon, I stop the work to be able to take our elder to his weekly swimming lesson, and on Saturday morning, I take our youngest. I see it as our weekly connection time. While I work at home most of the time, it is generally easy for me to intervene.

I do not think it stems from mom’s guilt or do not feel like you can completely control my husband. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. I am fully aware of everything on his task list and how to be a hearth parent is hardly the easiest option, after having taken 13 months of maternity with our eldest son, now 6 years old, when our roles were reversed.

Whether it is laundry, cooking, shopping, gardening, financial administrator and life, as well as providing a silver butler service to our boys, he has barely a free moment all day. I know certain mothers that I know who do not do a paid work or work part -time, while their partners work full time, focusing only on their work during the day and being largely unavailable. I can only imagine how not they should be taken care of.

I always feel fomo from time to time

It is also difficult not to let FOMO (fear of missing) slip, especially when it seems that everyone has a lot of fun in the other room while I work. Or worse, when the boys come to blow and need an adult intervention, and I should help but enter.

It can be distracting, but I like to hear what they do, because I miss they, even if we are in the same house at the same time.

Other people will have opinions on our arrangement

The reactions of others were also strange – perhaps not completely without surprise, but a little disappointing and frustrating. We are sometimes asked how we allow ourselves to live with a single income, even if there are many moms of stay at home in our group of school peers and that no one asks them the same thing. Likewise, no one asks when the moms of the stay at home plan to get a job, but I am asked regularly questions about my husband.

Our situation may not be permanent, because we are happy to bend as different opportunities arise, but I can bet that if I came back to be the main caregiver, fewer people would ask questions about my career prospects.

The elderly also seem to assume that my husband works and I am at home with the children. For example, in a recent family that brings together an old family friend was with us while looking at our boys ran into the room. We were talking about what they are a handful, and the friend said to my husband: “But your wife does all the work, right?”

The friend also asked if I was a terrible cook because my husband seemed to have lost the weighing. They did not know, he is the cook in our house, and has always been, even before we have children. These types of preconceived ideas of older generations are useless, but I try not to take it too personally and I remember that things were different.

Mom’s guilt does not disappear

The mom’s guilt rises, however, when I see how fast our youngest in particular is growing. When our elder was the same age, about 2 years, I worked four days a week and Friday was our day together. I do not have that with our youngest at the moment, because it is logical for me to work as much as possible, so sometimes I feel a regret of what I could miss with him.

But I have to remember that he is with his father, and when I got linked to our older on Friday adventures, Dad was at work. At that time, there were things that I experienced and he missed, so we have the impression that we completed the loop. What I like the most, however, this is how our boys see that no matter what parent works and which parent is at home.