Stay At Home Dad Struggles with Empathy

Stay-at-Home Dads (SAHD) do it  tough.  Their social support network,  compared to their partner’s, is thin and weak.   Their working peers don’t understand what they do all day.  They make statements like, “I so wish I was  like you.  You can spend the day surfing  the ‘net, playing in the shed or watching TV.”   Their fathers, fathers-in-law and uncles do not understand why a bloke wants  to do “women’s work.”  Younger male  friends and acquaintances think that the SAHD has given up all ambition and  thus can be pitied or ignored.

And what about women’s  reactions?  These are more complex.  Some of them understand but others exhibit  thinly veiled hostility.  “Home and children  are our domain and our responsibility.   Get out!” is the message some exude.   Others are amazed that a man can do it.   “How do you cope?” they ask, forgetting that men fought in the trenches  in World War I, showing that men can actually cope with anything!

But aren’t these reactions similar  to when women fought their way into the workforce in 1914?  And just as women have demonstrated that  their involvement in the paid-work domain is just as competent and just as  valuable as the men they work alongside, men too will show that they can work  on the home front.  However, there is a  difference in the two groups — working women and men at home — and that’s the  time they and society have had time to get used to the idea.  Women have been in the workforce in large  numbers since World War I — a period of nearly ninety years.  As of August 2007, women make up 45% of the  Australian paid workforce.

Men have been at home providing  domestic services, in any discernible number, since the mid-1970s and even  these numbers are tiny.  I spent some  time in 2006 talking to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) about how  many men were SAHDs.  The ABS doesn’t  directly measure men’s domestic contributions and the best it could do was to  come up with the bland statement that “less than one percent of the Australian  labour force are male carers.”   This means that ninety-nine percent of  Australian men are either working, retired, studying or bludging.  Is it any wonder that SAHDs feel like a  minority?

So not only does society not have  an understanding of the SAHD experience, but at-home Dads have no model to  follow when they are taking on the domestic role.  The famous American sociologist, Robert  Merton, was the first to coin the phrase ‘role model’ and he recognised how  important it was for people to model their behaviours on the behaviour of  others.  Women, when adopting the  parenting role, have their own mother as a role model.  Men, when adopting a parenting role, have  their father as a role model, but for many SAHDs, the paramount reason they  have taken on the domestic role is to explicitly reject the role that their  father took.  I acknowledge that there  are other reasons too, such as financial or disability, but for many SAHDs they  do it because they wish to parent differently from their father. 

I am unaware of any quantitative  research that shows this, but anecdotally all the men that I know who have taken on the domestic role have deliberately  chosen not to follow their father’s example of fathering.  My own experience highlights this well.  My father was a loving man and a dependable  bread-winner.  He did his best to be a  good father to me, but oh how I longed for some of his time.  When he wasn’t doing paid work, he was  working for non-profit organisations to improve the welfare of others.  He took me camping only once in my life.  Most weekends he was attending meetings or  conferences.  My father was very much  absent from my life.  My happiest memories  of him were when we were doing ‘something’ (anything really!) together.  Other SAHDs I have spoken to have had violent  fathers or fathers who abandoned them when they were young.  Others had fathers like mine — good men but  uninvolved — traditional fathers who would be somewhat surprised at such  criticism.  They thought they were doing  the right thing.  Obviously, consciously  or unconsciously, we Stay-at-Home Dads want to give our kids something that we  never had.  A father figure who is  present — not absent.

So whom do we model our behaviours  on?  The obvious role model for us is our  mothers — if they were present and engaged.   But men don’t work like that.  As  Steve Biddulph points out in his book “Manhood,” at the age of six or seven  years, boys’ primary identification point switches from the mother to the  father.  “He will love and relate  intensely to his mother but he is not ‘hers’ anymore.  He actively wants to be with, and like his  father.”

So where do men get their  nurturing and fathering skills from, if their father was absent or too busy, or  too tired, to demonstrate nurturing and fathering, to demonstrate cooking and  cleaning, game-playing and discipline, and sympathy and empathy?  Men have to make it up, talk to their mates  and partners, or read about it.  These are  all acceptable ways of learning, but all take time compared to simple role-modelling.  A point which was driven home to me last  month.

I’ve been a SAHD (on and off) for  over six years now and I thought I was pretty good on the nurturing front —  until a really nasty ‘flu struck.  First  my youngest son had it.  He’s a rather  robust little fella so it didn’t hit him hard.   It was slightly worse for my older boy, but not too bad.  I did the fetching and carrying and ensured  that they were clean, fed, comfortable and not too bored.  Then my dear wife came down with it and it  hit her hard.  I dutifully ensured that  she was clean, fed and comfortable.   However, she told me that something was missing about the care I gave  her.  I wracked my brains.  What could it be?  I changed the sheets.  I washed the handbasins.  I did the clothes washing.  I fed her.   What was missing according to my wife?   Empathy.

I thought that that was asking a  bit too much from a bloke!  “Just get  over it,” I thought. “No need to feel sorry for yourself too.”  Then I got sick.   Oh woe!   Oh lamentation!  Oh misery!  My wife looked after me.  She ensured that I was clean, fed and  comfortable.  She changed the linen and  washed the hand basins.  And she gave me  empathy.  What a difference that made to  how I felt.  But I shouldn’t have been  surprised.  There is no lack of research  evidence showing that empathy from a caregiver leads to a more rapid recovery  of the ‘patient’ than one that is given little or no empathy.

When I had stopped feeling sorry  for myself and was in a position to think a bit more clearly, I asked her,  “Where did you learn to empathise?”  Her  answer was simple.   “I copied my Mum.”

Of course when I think back to my  childhood, my Mum was also good at expressing empathy.  But as a boy I didn’t absorb those lessons  from my maternal role-model particularly well.   I remember my father’s care though.   He was very good on the practical front.   Clean, fed and comfortable.  That  was his motto.  Why should I wonder where  my approach comes from?

So where does that leave us SAHDs  who are marginalised by society, don’t have role models to follow and have sick  kids (or a sick partner)?  Regretfully,  popping down to the pub isn’t the answer.   But there is hope.  It’s worth  recognising that not having a role model isn’t all bad.  There are also some great advantages in not  having role models.  Without a role-model  you can cut your own path through the bush.   You can be an individual and choose your own route.  This can be incredibly liberating.  And what to use as your compass?  Perhaps there is nothing better than to  follow “The Golden Rule” which the Greek philosopher Plato explained as: “May I  do to others as I would that they should do unto me.”

SAHDs may do it tough, but we  don’t travel without a compass, and we know just how greatly rewarding our job  is, whether we follow someone else’s path or cut our own.

 

1 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Labour Force, 6 Sept 2007.

2 “Is Staying  at Home Ruining My Career”, David Vernon, Sunday Life Magazine, 21 Jan 2007.   See: http://web.mac.com/david.vernon/>

3 Manhood – an action plan for changing men’s  lives, Steve Biddulph, Finch Books, 2002, p103

4 For example  see: “Therapeutic Empathy and Recovery from Depression in Cognitive-Behavioral  Therapy: A Structural Equation Model.” Burns, D in Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, v60 n3 p441-49 Jun  1992

5 Nearly all  the world’s religions have a version of “The Golden Rule.”  It isn’t simply the domain of  philosophers.  Religious.tolerance.org  has a wonderful list of Golden Rule variants.   See: http://www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm accessed 24 Sept  2007. 

Author - David Vernon
David is a father of two boys aged nine and six. He has been their fulltime carer since his youngest was three. He has qualifications in economics, science, politics and law and this explains why he prefers growing boys, pumpkins and chooks to being a merchant banker. David is the editor of three great books:
“Having a Great Birth in Australia” (2005)
“Men at Birth” (2006)
“With Women — midwives experiences: from shiftwork to caseload” (2007)

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