The stigma of the stay-at-home-dad

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.