My routine

Day revolves around my daughter. Waking up getting her ready for school or therapies or classes. Dropping her to school. Waiting till schools done. Getting her home. Meal times. Taking her for different classes. Going out for walks in the evening and finally having dinner and winding down for sleep at night. There are the days when she’s unwell or she has holidays and those have a different schedule. But essentially the routine depends on her needs. Apart from this taking care of any work or other personal commitments.

It’s not a choice it’s a necessity

Daughter had some medical conditions. Post diagnosis I was unable to focus on work at office and being away from here. There was a lot of running around places cities doctors. My wife was well placed in her career. We made a decision that I would spend more time with her at home while she focused on her career as well. Given that I could drive and do a lot of the running around initially added practicality to the decision. It was the most efficient arrangement to take care of my daughters needs growing up.

The societal perception about being a stay home Dad

Society does not accept this switch in role deeply. There is just a superficial acknowledgement. It has some positives for me where I get away with some sympathy for doing a different role. But largely there’s always the constant questioning of where’s the mother, how will he handle a daughters needs, especially once she hits puberty, how will he handle her toileting needs. There is a constant attribution of her problems to our arrangement. There are supportive parents and I tend to depend on them for any validation. It’s equally difficult for my wife as there’s always the judgement of what kind of mother would agree to this.

How to deal with the society

When you know it’s best for your child and keep that on focus societal impressions hardly feel important. I rely on a close set of families who extend their support. But largely we look at our daughter and believe this is the best arrangement. In the end society does not have an answer to our family situation so we take what’s good and ignore what doesn’t work for us.

Normalising stay-at-home dad is essential in today's time

Mothers are working hard, earning well and in many cases for families it’s a practical decision on who takes care of children. If we want to normalise women doing well in careers, we should also normalise men taking care of kids at home. Function of a father or a mother maybe played better by either gender depending on the situation, mental makeup of either spouse, career phases and other factors. Interest of the partners and children is at the centre of this decision.