Get a Job

I appreciate all your advise. I really do. But I am not unemployed. This is not a transitional period for me. This is my career. This is a choice I made. The choice I'm referring to is the choice I made to be my kids full time primary caregiver - an at-home dad.

There is something about this choice that doesn't sit well with some people, at least subconsciously. The reason I say this is because people are constantly giving me career advise. And by people I mean EVERYONE. Acquaintances will say, "So what do you plan on doing once your kids are all in school?" (As if once they're in school they don't need parents anymore.) Closer friends and family are more likely to be more forward and tell me what career path I should take. "Brett, you're so good at ______. You should totally do _______." Everything from going back to my previous career, to going back to school, to sales, academia - you name it - has all been recommended as a career choice for me.

I get so much of this advise that at the beginning I felt guilty. Should I really be finding something else to do? I stressed out about this until my sage of a wife told me to just concentrate on what I am doing now. You don't do your best at a job when you know that you'll be quitting soon. Now, I realize that most of the people that say stuff like this love me and it is out of love that they offer such advise. I recognize that. I also don't think it's a bad idea to plan for the future and have skills and training that will lead to a job out of the home. Someday, in the future, I'll be doing something else. But, when this advise comes so often and readily, though, I find it quite telling.

Since making this choice of being an at-home dad I have been much more aware of how people not only talk to me, but how they talk to moms as well. You don't ask a mom what she plans on doing after her kids are in school. Its almost taboo. She is a mother, and that is enough. With a man, though, it's almost as if, even in this day and age, the consensus is that no man in his right mind would consciously choose to be a full time parent. If they do, it must mean that they lost they're job, or that they decided to change careers, or are just plain lazy and therefore need help in finding direction. That's when the advice starts rolling in. And like I said before everyone seems to have this sort of advise for me. Ironically, moms are just as likely to do this as anyone else.

Let me be clear (and I think I share this sentiment with most at-home dad's out there). Being a full time parent IS my career. I chose this. I find more joy and fulfillment in doing this than anything I had ever done in my life previously (more perhaps than even you at your desk job). I am busy. In fact, now my kids are in school and I have not felt that, somehow, I have more free time. There is no void. I don't feel like I am missing or missing out on anything. My job is important. My family is in a better place because I am home. I am happy.

-Brother Brett