Book Description

The socioeconomics of parenting are changing. The number of stay-at-home fathers in the past decade has doubled since the 1970s to about 550,000 men, and that figure is expected to grow, especially as more wives take on the breadwinning role in their marriages and the cost of childcare holds intolerable for many families. This book is a collection of stories by Canadian humour writer, describing his experiences as a temporary, year-long, stay-at-home Dad. Even as a man with a deep, abiding love for his young son and daughter, the writer found his days to be demanding and often stressful, unprepared as he obviously was for the many intense challenges of homebound fatherhood. In spite of all the tension created by cooking meals, visiting doctors and averting a multitude of daily dangers, the writer ended up grateful for his time with his children when it came time to reverse roles and their mother returned home to take over. One day, in the middle of a meltdown the details of which are forgotten, Hagarty's little girl looked up sadly at him and pronounced, "Poor Daddy." That expression fit Dad's feeling about himself exactly as he often whispered those very words too himself during crisis after crisis.