“Hey, can you hop on a call?
I knew these things were best done in person. But my supervisor and I weren’t going to be in the office until Wednesday. And that afternoon, I was supposed to lead a meeting to plan the next few months of a project.
My wife and I had made the decision over the weekend, so stringing my entire department along seemed counterproductive and mildly cruel. Like a boyfriend who half-engages in his girlfriend's plans but is mentally preparing his breakup speech.
So from the comfort of our half-finished basement, I dropped the hammer.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this but…I’m officially giving notice.”
***
How does one become a stay at home dad? I have been thinking about it a lot lately. It requires a unique combination of extreme competence in some arenas, yet considerable incompetence in the traditionally masculine-coded pursuit of making money. Here’s my story.
My wife and I met when we were 21. This was back when I glibly assumed I had all the potential in the world as a writer and soon-to-be standup comic. As well as boatloads of early 20s manchild confidence and billowing hair to trick people my age into thinking the same thing. We dated throughout our 20s, marrying when we were 29. I was there for her during an unexpected family death early on, which buys you a certain credibility that is impossible to find on the open dating market.
Despite my flaws, I was someone who was reliable, trustworthy, and understood what she needed. She didn’t even seem to care when I lost my hair.
As such, the question of my earning potential wasn’t as crucial as it typically might be. Particularly given that she was on track to become a lawyer who, financially speaking, didn’t need no man. Fortunately for me, this cocktail of circumstances meant that doing something “different” made me somehow cool. Or at least not like some guy in finance who subsumed things like market cap and EBITDA into their entire identity, or another attorney who was always subtly competing with her.
We spent our 20s fully absorbed in building competency in our careers, yet since we were in entirely separate spheres, no one was threatened by the other. It worked great.
***
In 2023, we had our first child. Committed to playing the part of responsible husband and father, I ended up walking away from standup comedy.
This wasn’t so much a noble exercise in martyrdom as it was the only sensible option. My career, despite my ~10,000 hours committed to it, simply didn’t have enough juice to justify the all-encompassing squeeze. I was also at a stage where I could walk away. A few of my friends a little bit ahead of me were effectively stuck. Not yet successful enough at comedy to command the semblance of autonomy needed to be a real person with adult prospects (financial stability and the possibility of a family), but too far along that they already cut permanent holes in their fall-back netting.
Always ensuring that the basic maintenance of my own fall-back netting was attended to, I temporarily retreated back to my day job in higher education marketing and communications. But I wasn’t yet done.
***
Still needing to be interesting, I decided that I would next become a home inspector. Taking advantage of the boomer retiree void to corner the market on a “boring” business. I enrolled in a licensing course, bought a bunch of tools, and I immersed myself in the world of chimney flashing and form ties.
Ultimately, home inspection proved to be what I’ve described as possibly the right thing at defnitely the wrong time. An interlude that didn’t pan out. I found the work interesting and potentially very fulfilling, the two most important boxes in the millennial individualist credo I had been living by up until this point. But I didn’t fully appreciate that starting something from scratch during this period of my life rhymed with many of the reasons that I left standup comedy in the first place.
I didn’t yet realize that I found it much more rewarding pushing my daughter on the swings than burying myself in a career that was a reflection of my personality, but had questionable financial and time-wealth returns. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and that’s OK.
So I again retreated to my day job. And for the first time in the nearly 10 years I was there, I put 110% of my focus into my “career”. Which had turned out not to be a standup, or one of the other extensions of myself that I arrogantly assumed I could turn into a realistic living. It was instead your standard knowledge work fare. Corporate communications, project management, and a dash of witty, yet workplace-acceptable barbs on Microsoft teams.
I started logging into LinkedIn for the first time since I had a full head of hair. I noticed that many of my peers in high school and college were becoming director of This, vice president of That.
I’d see these titles and look at my own, annoyed at where I was as I hit my mid-30s.
It wasn’t so much the titles that bothered me as much as what those titles meant. Money to provide for their families, and/or career capital to improve autonomy.
I had work to do.
***
It was the end of August 2024, around the time of our daughter’s first birthday, when I effectively made the decision to fully dive into my higher education marketing and communications job.
In early September my wife walked out of the bathroom one morning and held out a plastic stick with two pink lines.
We were having another baby.
The decision to refocus my career suddenly took on more gravitas. With one child, the cost of childcare was exorbitant. With two, our family’s household economic setup would soon become illogical. What I mean is that after taxes, we’d be spending more money on childcare than I personally was bringing in. My wife’s income would pay both our mortgage and everything else.
As things stood, the act of me waking up and going to work would be a net loss.
For the next year, becoming a stay at home dad was something I constantly half-joked about. But we never really considered it the obvious option. Even with me being a Net Loss, leaving the workforce would completely decimate the long-term earning potential that I now was hyperfocused on fulfilling. We understood that if we wanted to reap huge financial rewards later, losing a little money now for a year or two as a result of me needing to do standup comedy in my 20s was the cost of doing business.
There was also the social and intra-relationship element of it all. Leaving the workforce would conclusively put the breadwinning onus squarely on my wife. It would permanently alter the dynamic of our family structure if not literally, certainly symbolically. And would being a stay at home dad be something that I would be OK with? Would my wife, even though she didn’t want to take too big of a step away from her hard-earned career, grow to resent me for getting to spend so much time with the girls?
We batted these ideas around constantly during the pregnancy and concluded that me staying home wasn’t the route we should pursue. At least initially.
***
We also began batting around other ideas as to what our ideal lifestyle could look like.
Already, we had taken some pivotal steps to setting up our medium- to long-term future. My wife spent the years before our first daughter was born working at a prestigious yet grueling big law firm environment. The type of job where you are compensated majorly, but are expected to answer your phone at all hours and work no matter the situation. So not so much a job as opposed to a force that consumes all time, space, and mental health.
The law firm, as well as living well below our means for many years, enabled us to build up a downpayment for our house plus a sizable safety net. But the cost of those giant paychecks would now be much greater. Before, it was our own time that was never really ours. Now, it meant never knowing if you’d have to leave your daughter’s birthday party just to satisfy the ego of a client.
This was no longer a price we were willing to pay
So while on maternity leave after the birth of our first daughter, my wife was able to pivot to a still demanding, but not as insane job at a financial services company. One that would enable her to work remotely to maximize spending time with our very young children while still “staying in the game” that is moving up the career ladder. The pay cut was considerable, but one we had been planning for all along.
***
With my wife’s job transition complete, we began thinking about what our various childcare scenarios may look like once baby number two arrived. Namely, what would happen if/when I began climbing up my own corporate ladder.
A new job would likely mean that I’d have to commute to the city a lot more. Despite the fact that we both wanted me to make more money, my current setup was ideal for childcare responsibilities. I had been at my job for 10 years, had a fantastic supervisor, and proved increasingly reliable. So nobody really cared where I was as long as I reasonably responded to the constant emails, pings, and toed the workplace acceptable line with my GIFs.
At a new role, I’d also have to spend the first year doing that thing where you try extra hard to solidify your long-term credibility. I’d feel compelled to always attend the after work drinks and arrive home well after bedtime. I’d buy extra boxes of a colleague’s girl scout cookies. I would need to demonstrate that I had devoured whatever Kool Aid the company culture was selling, occasionally at the expense of family time or personal values.
These misgivings were easy to rationalize. My primary goal was now to set our family up for success. By this definition, this meant me providing more financially while also being a very present father and partner. The work itself was now purely a means to an end. I was doing it for my family, and this was freeing.
Our second daughter had other plans.
***
The first two weeks home from the hospital were a basically rom-com-esque montage of continuous high-fiving. Our newborn was sleeping for 3 hour stretches—the most we could reasonably expect at this early juncture–and our confidence was sky high. The second time around, we had seemingly gotten the hang of things.
After those long but rewarding days, we’d unwind by watching the New York Knicks surprisingly outplay title favorites Boston Celtics in the NBA playoffs. The series felt like a microcosm of what was happening at home. Against all odds, both our daughters, only 20 months apart, were sleeping and behaving pretty well.
The Knicks proceeded to advance to the conference finals to play the Indiana Pacers. I had assumed this series would be a cakewalk compared to Boston and was already imagining the Knicks in the finals for the first time in 25 years.
But for whatever reason, the opposite happened. Things suddenly just fell apart. Both for the Knicks and at home.
***
Out of nowhere, our newborn daughter developed colic and seemed to be noticeably uncomfortable. She’d no longer sleep lying down. We started taking turns holding her throughout the night, for the entire night. Whoever wasn’t holding her was responsible for caring for our older daughter who was now often waking up too.
We went from getting decent sleep considering the circumstances,to virtually none at all.
During those early newborn stages, we had hired a postpartum doula to help us out a few days a week. Our 20 month old daughter was also now home, and we (correctly) realized we might need to have an extra set of hands if we wanted to take a shower.
Experienced with newborn and infant issues, she theorized that her sudden discomfort was possibly some version of acid reflux; an affliction somewhat common in newborns due to an underdeveloped digestive system.
For purposes of this non-medical newsletter piece, she proved to be essentially correct. I won’t get into the details here. But having two children under two with a newborn with significant digestive issues has been…quite challenging.
***
I went back to work. While I was out on leave, my supervisor called me. A new need that had developed in the department yielded a salary bump and a title change. The raise was very welcome news, although it wasn’t significant enough for me to stop being a Net Loss to our family.
I was more excited about the title change, which I had been angling for quite some time. With LinkedIn the way it was, I knew that having “Assistant Director of Internal Communications” would get me through doors that AI bots previously kept shut. And for me to start making real money, I knew that I probably needed to take my talents out of the higher education/nonprofit world.
The first day back I wore a new button down, put on my $30 watch that I had recently bought, and dove into work.
Now working frequently with the head of our department, I was getting into much higher level rooms and conversations. I approached my work methodically and diligently, knowing that I was building worthwhile experience that would prove incredibly helpful later on. The job I was being tasked to do was easily something that might pay nearly double my current salary at a bloated corporation. I started getting messages on LinkedIn from recruiters. Things seemed to be building toward something positive.
At home, it was a different story.
I’d often be interrupted at work by giant walls of text from my wife. Anyone who has a wife will be familiar with Giant Walls of Text, but these were different. We had a rotating cast of characters (family primarily) helping us out, but our newborn daughter was not getting any better. Doctors assured us she was OK and that the discomfort would eventually resolve. But she now appeared to be physically in pain virtually all the time. It was very clear something was not quite right.
It also became clear that our childcare plans might need to be put on hold.
With our younger daughter needing to be held at nearly all times, daycare was not a legitimate option. Going the full-time caretaker direction, we’d need to hire two, at least temporarily. We quickly realized that expecting one hired person to take care of both our children given the circumstances was unfair and nearly impossible. But hiring two, in addition to being financially non-workable in the long-term, would add a burdensome layer of constant administrative management and all sorts of interpersonal permutations that would dramatically affect the dynamics of our family. Even if we only did this for a short time, it would possibly create even more stress on top of the Looney Tunes anvil we felt we were being crushed by.
***
We considered our options. My wife would stack her vacation on top of her maternity leave to give us some extra time. But if things didn’t significantly improve at that point, what should we do?
Should I take further leave from the state? Should my wife take unpaid leave, and then once the dust settled, pivot back into a higher paying job if necessary? Once things stabilized, should we find a less expensive childcare option? Should we sell our house and/or move to a less expensive area?
Should we, despite this major and emotionally draining challenge, get over ourselves and thankfully recognize the fact that we had these options represented a luxury that many people are unable to choose from? Probably.
***
Sometime during this period, I found myself at the grocery store alone. This was a rare occasion. I was constantly bringing my older daughter everywhere, particularly the grocery store. We had a new Sunday morning tradition of going to Trader Joe’s and a local grocery store called Deciccos. (Or as she currently calls it, “Muh-Ciccos”.)
Even in those few short months, observing her evolution from slightly scared companion to curious participant had been one of the great joys of fatherhood thus far. I was delighted when she eagerly pointed to some of her favorite foods in the produce section, telling me that we must get strawberries or avocado.
As her awareness of the world has exploded, I’ve delighted in explaining more about food. Where it comes from. What lunches or dinners we might make with what we bought. And no, we can’t get the chocolate covered pretzels. It is 8:30 a.m., so they are still sleeping.
I began to think of the many afternoons I spent with my mom as a young child. Going to the grocery store, running errands. The “this is water” minutiae of daily life where you really learn how to be a person. Sure, I’d have the mornings, evenings, and weekends with the girls. But the constant learning by osmosis would be limited if we outsourced our childcare. And it wouldn’t just be in this age 0-5 period.
It’d continue when they were 6, and neither of us were able to be home when school ended. Or when they were 11, and we needed to hire someone to drive them to soccer practice because I had to present a whitepaper to the board. During every summer, and during the many school vacations.
**
Waiting for some sliced turkey, I then saw another small child around my older daughter’s age exploring the snack aisle with their parents. And for whatever reason, it just clicked.
What were we doing? Was the best option for me to lose our family money so I can one day get a higher paying job changing words around in a google doc? All while we outsourced raising our children–the thing we valued more than anything–to someone who would never do it as well as us?
The idea of a father as a “provider” had been so stamped into me that I had lost sight of what I should even be providing. Money, thanks to my wife’s intelligence and good decisions, was not the thing that was most demanded from me. Rather, it was engaging in the highly mentally and physically demanding job of taking care of our children. Which given our younger daughter’s digestive issues, had required holding her for nearly the entire day (and much of the night), a task more physically taxing than anything I’ve ever done.
It was anticipating and doing much of the unseen work, adding a masculine inflection to what has long been traditionally women’s work. It was abandoning my ego and what society at large expected of me. It was to dive headfirst into the situation that I was particularly best suited for.
***
So I gave notice and left my job. Our younger daughter’s health issues gave a couched legitimacy to the whole thing. That we couldn’t do anything else. That all roads led to one of staying home. And given the financial realities in our marriage, it was me who had to stay home.
This is all true. But in the story above, there is some lying by omission.
Crises have their special way of making the right solution stare at you straight in the face, to the point where the only way you could avoid it is to continually lie to yourself. That, more accurately, is the full story.
***
The loose plan is for me to take care of the girls for a few years, then go back to school to become a high school teacher. Already, I’m excited about this prospect. While I found some of the work at my old job to be intellectually interesting, it was ultimately a job that I took to keep the lights on while pursuing standup comedy. Being a teacher and having the opportunity to literally change students' lives will be something else entirely.
There will be sacrifice involved, namely in regards to money. My one fear is that this series of decisions could eventually push my wife into the sort of role that men are more traditionally forced into; take a job that is completely miserable but pays well to support the family’s ever-expanded needs and/or wants. I think we have placed enough checks and balances upon our lifestyle and decision making processes to prevent this from happening, but only time will tell.
I officially left my job in October, and have been “on the job” taking care of our two girls for a few months now. By most measures, it’s far and away the hardest job I’ve ever had. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that many days I dream of doing something else; sipping coffee in peace, diving into spreadsheets, or even sitting on a train watching the person in front of me watch TikTok.
Mentally, it’s hard to disengage when there’s pretty much no break from childcare. I’ve questioned the decision many times over.
***
I’m constantly coming up with diversions to keep my older daughter engaged and my younger daughter placated. Occasionally, we end up at the grocery store. Sometimes out of necessity. Dometimes just as something to do.
Nowadays, my older daughter wields her “shopper in training” cart with gleeful abandon, utterly thrilled to be a person participating in the world. My younger daughter is fastened to me in the baby carrier; soaking in all the aggressively fluorescent lighting, probably thinking her big sister is nuts.
During the 15ish minutes we’re at the grocery store, we vacillate between two states of being. Sometimes, we’re an utter disaster. My older daughter is crashing into shelves and people. My youngest is vocally unhappy or uncomfortable. People who see us will think that I’m clearly in over my head and well out of my depth. They look away, probably embarrassed for me.
A few minutes later my youngest will be hooting in delight at a bunch of yogurt, and my oldest will be placing that yogurt into her cart in exemplary fashion, happily milling the cart around and following my lead. People who see us think I am a superhero who merits a parade.
The truth, like everything, lies somewhere in between.
Ultimately, I know this is where I’m supposed to be. That at this stage of life, this is what fate, destiny, the inertia of life, or whatever you believe, has uniquely called out for me to do. The fact that my wife is such an amazing partner to trust me to do this, while still also taking up more of the parenting mental load than me by virtue of being a mom (and an amazing one at that) is a privilege I don’t take lightly.
It’s more than enough to keep me going.
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