My Daddy Works in His Underwear

What’s Dad worth?

Salary.com, Inc., the compensation expert, posted a dad version of its popular Mom’s Salary Wizard. Among its top-line findings:

* Dads don’t earn as much overtime as moms for their stay-at-home jobs.

* The typical working dad earned no overtime in his 39.6-hour dad’s work week, while working moms earned, on average, 27% of their “mom salary” in overtime.

* Although their hours differed, all parents had eight jobs in common: Day Care Center Teacher, Laundry Machine Operator, Computer Operator, CEO, Facilities Manager, Psychologist, Van Driver, and Cook.

* Dads had two jobs in their top 10 which moms did not have: General Maintenance Worker and Groundskeeper.

* Moms had two unique counterpart jobs: Janitor and Housekeeper.

* By working long hours in a high-wage area, stay-at-home dads near Silicon Valley in California, clocked in at an annual value greater than $149,000.

* Working fewer “dad hours” in a low wage area, working dads on the rural Texas-New Mexico border rated about $83,500 in dad pay.

What else did the survey discover…?
Read More »

The Washington Post published “Odd Man Out: A Stay-at-Home Dad Wonders What Comes Next.” The article explored writer Mark Trainer’s adventures in home-based non-employment. He’d left his day job to raise his kids — while his wife continued working her day job.

Both were real jobs, as any stay-at-home mom would insist. And both apparently were happy in the arrangement. But when a guy does it, he’s looked on with disdain like some loathesome drop-out looking for the path of least resistance, the easy way out.

Even Trainer’s dentist couldn’t hide his disapproval, “inscrutable behind his sanitary mask,” Trainer wrote. As he left the office, the dentist said, “Good luck with the job search.”

Work-at-home is not a euphemism for “consultant.” Stay-at-home is not synonymous with drop-out. Sure, some get pink-slipped and are merely at waypoints in their professional careers. The endgame is another brass nameplate on the desk, a return to the corporate office. Some would be thrilled to ditch those $10-for-1,000 business cards they not-so-gleefully carry with them as they go to Starbucks and chamber meetings and business networking sessions in hopes of finding The Next Gig.

But some — like me and Trainer and millions of other dads and childless men –  work or stay home because we want to, because we seek balance, enjoyment, satisfaction or the compatibility that can only come from being there. Fully there — for the kids, the family, the self.

Said Trainer: “If you left a perfectly good job to look after your kid, all the business-speak in the world isn’t going to disguise the fact that you made your priorities pretty clear when you left.” And apparently, companies are looking for that decision, that dedication, that focus-upon-return that corporate lifers may not possess.

As for me, I don’t really care what corporate execs and head-hunters may think about home officers and stay-at-homers. With one kid each in high, middle and elementary school, the endgame for me is already here.