So I’m 1, 2, 3, 4, 4-and-a-half months in and counting as a stay-at-home dad [though G- and I have been parents by adoption for almost a year now]. What have I learned in that time?
Here are my top tips [in no particular order]:
- Always have a Plan B. It’s no good turning up at the swimming pool and finding it closed due to the presence of some contagious disease or because the roof has fallen in [yes, this really happened to our local pool], and then just turning back for home. You need to think fast and on your feet. Usually retail therapy is not a good option – unless it’s the Early Learning Centre. Small kids love Early Learning Centres
- Develop a personality. One that doesn’t frighten people. It may have been ok in an earlier life to stand around in rooms looking like a bored adolescent, and maybe your friends even expect it of you now, but your child needs to see that you can at least pretend to be a normal person. The type of guy who can indulge in pleasant small talk while balancing a plate of half-eaten biscuits in one hand and using the other to prevent his daughter from devouring the contents of a pack of crayons, for example
- Put your child first in and above all things. This is much, much harder than it sounds. I cannot tell you anything about this: it must be experienced to be properly understood
- Learn to multitask, as best you can. Granted, it’s not easy for a dad to keep more than one train of thought on the tracks of reality, but if you don’t/can’t/won’t then you’ll need to be prepared for the consequences. These may include potentially expensive and embarrassing pratfalls such as filling your car’s petrol engine with diesel, or walking away from the cashpoint machine without the money that’s just popped out of the slot, because you’re thinking about whether you should have changed that juice-covered top she’s wearing after all
- Don’t use reins. Not because they’re dangerous, or politically incorrect or any other reason that you might have heard. Because your child will quickly learn that reins give them all sorts of opportunities for spectator sport, like sitting down on the floor in supermarkets and refusing to get up for ages, while a small crowd gathers round to comment on your pathetic efforts to persuade her otherwise
- Get out of the house for a meal/drink/film/run/shopping expedition/concert/squash game [tick the box that lights, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor, your candle,] as often as you can. Definitely more than once a year, anyway
March 26, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Oh yes, I would go along with all of that, although I must admit I never tried reins – although I do remember once grabbing my daughter by the hair to stop her slipping off the pavement into the road. She wasn’t too happy to be saved!!
My main advice for dealing with slightly older children is to retain your sense of humour at all times (even when you feel like throttling them or running away and crying) and to try to make disasters into adventures. Some of the most fun things we have done have been things that actually started out as things that went wrong – broken down cars, leaking roofs, delayed flights, forgetting to bring money on a day out! It works if you can do it – because in the end you can’t help cheering up yourself as well – if you pretend to be enjoying yourself you usually end up finding that you are!
March 27, 2008 at 8:48 pm
[...] I’ve alluded to this circle of gloom a couple of times previously – for eg, here and here. [...]
April 11, 2008 at 1:16 pm
[...] written before about the difficulty of remaining selfless when you are a stay-at-home dad [or mum] with a toddler. I had planned to say more. But I think [...]