Publicity
Since its inception, Dad to Dad has been featured in the media over and over again. From spots on the Oprah Winfrey show to ABC News, the group has received national attention. Below are some of the first articles in print that help give a sense of who we are and how we've developed over the years.
The Alpharetta Neighbor 5/10/95
The Alpharetta Neighbor 6/12/96
Marietta Daily Journal 6/15/97
The Alpharetta Neighbor Wednesday May 10, 1995
|
Mothers' roles are changing to embrace variety
With her briefcase in hand, modern day mom, Wendy Doetsch of Alpharetta, prepares to depart form home for a day at the office, but that doesn't mean she does not make time to spend quality time with her children. Seeing her off are her children, Christian Doetsch, 4, and Kayla Doetsch, 2, and her husband, Andy who has been a stay-at-home dad for two years. He is a member of an Atlanta organization, Dad-to-Dad, and has started a Roswell-Alpharetta Dat-to-Dad chapter. The group has weekly meetings for the dads to "talk to adults" and for their children to play together. Dads get together once a week for a "Dad's Night Out" without the children as well. Many of the groups members have started businesses at home. |
MR. MOM HAS ALL THE WORK HE NEEDS
Cooking, cleaning, and changing diapers, Mark Brown, 38, is the quintessential house husband. When he got laid off, Brown took a hard look at his life and decided to stay home with his kids, Zachary and Sarah, now 5 and 3. "The pay is bad, but the benefits are great," he says. "I get to watch my kids grow up."
There was a time, though, when Brown had a much more conventional take on father hood. He worked at Instrument Repair Service, a small Atlanta company that fixes equipment for clients like BellSouth and Ameritech. The fatigue that came with toiling long hours was offset by great benefits, such as a generous profit-sharing plan. Brown started as a technician and over six years rose to the rank of purchasing manager, earning $40,000. But in spring 1991, he was told that his job was eliminated. "My immediate bosses had been let go, so I could see the writing on the wall," says Brown in his soft Southern drawl. "Still, it was one hell of a shock. I had a 6-month-old baby, and all of sudden no job."
 |
|
MARK BROWN took a long look at his life after being laid off by an Atlanta company. His decision was to stay home with his children. He even started a play group for other at-home dads. "We have the same problems," says Brown, "kids teething, wives who come home late from work." |
Brown set out to land a similar opportunity but found the competition fierce. He didn't want to "go back to the bench," that is, take a step backward and become a technician. Meanwhile, a babysitter was getting $6 an hour to care for the kids while he conducted his job search. Gradually the idea evolved that maybe he should stay home. That meant shrugging off a life that had become materially comfortable, bordering on rich by the standards of his childhood. His wife, Kathy, was earning $45,000 a year as a specialty nurse at an Emory University hospital, giving the Browns a family income of $85,000. They didn't hesitate to pay $50 for dinner for two at Longhorn Steaks. They pampered themselves with a pair of half-season tickets to Atlanta Hawks basketball games that set them back $1,600.
When Mark's unemployment ran out after a year, they cut away the frills and decided to live on Kathy's salary alone. Mark dived into domesticity. At the outset, he had trouble coming to grips with his decision. "I'm a consultant," he'd tell people sheepishly. Stay-at-home dad just didn't seem like a substantial identity, and some of his relatives and in-laws had a suspicion that he was merely loafing. Many of his friends weren't exactly paragons of understanding, either. "Some of those guys have to play the role of redneck fishing buddy," says Brown. "But I think secretly they might like to stay home if they could."
The worst part, though, was the isolation. Brown tried to join some play groups, a vital social life-line to anyone taking care of kids at home. But they tended to be women exclusively. "They'd all be talking about breast-feeding and the like," he says. "They were intimidated to have me there, and I was intimidated to be there."
Two years into his experiment, Brown finally found a way to reach out to other fathers in the same predicament. He contacted DAD-to-DAD, which now has 17 chapters nationwide, and it helped him set up a play group. It now numbers eight hard core members, among them fathers who work out of their homes as well as bona fide househubbies. They trade off babysitting duties and also go on weekly outings to parks, the zoo, and a local library that offers story hour. "We all have the same problems," says Brown, "kids teething, potty training, wives who come home from work late."
Brown's experience has been a life changer. When his kids are both of school age, he plans to obtain accreditation and become an elementary school teacher. In the meantime, he's enjoying his stint as Mr. Mom. "I'm one of the lucky ones," he says. "If it wasn't for being laid off, I'd still be muddling along in the corporate world, and my kids would be raised by strangers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Alpharetta Neighbor Wednesday June 12, 1996
Families to honor dads on Father's Day
With Father's Day coming up Sunday, June 16, many dads in the North Fulton area will be honored by their families. Playing with his daughter Camille, 2, is Zane Westfall, who with wife Amy lives in Lillburn. He is a member of Dad-to-Dad, a group that brings stay-at-home fathers together at scheduled meetings. For information about Dad-to-Dad, call Curtis Cooper at (770) 643-5964.
|
Marietta Daily Journal Sunday June 15, 1997 A Dad's Work is never done Bucky Vaughan of Kennesaw discovered he wasn't alonewhen he decided to stay home with his son Joey while his wife works. A support group of like-minded dads has helped Vaughan develop new friendships, receive positive reinforcement and find acceptance.
If you thought Michael Keaton was the only Mr. Mom, think again. Bucky Vaughan of Kennesaw is a real-life version of Keaton's on-screen character, and he's loving every minute of it. The 33-year-old dad splits the work week with wife Lisa -- he works Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays at S&L while she clocks in at Express Data on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. While his wife is working, Vaughan stays home to take care of their 3-year-old son, Joey. Come November, he'll add a second bundle of joy to his list of responsibilities. "After my son was born, my wife, after a while, decided to go back to work," the Lynchburg, Va., native said, adding Mrs. Vaughan worked full time until then. "She's home on Wednesdays and Fridays [and Sundays], and I'm home Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, so both of us don't feel guilty. We both enjoy spending time with him." During his days as stay-at-home dad, Vaughan said the mornings are spent "kind of getting up, usually watching 'Barney' and making breakfast.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he and Joey get together with members of Dad to Dad, a group for stay-at-home fathers and their children that offers weekly play groups, outings and family socials. The coordinator of group activities, Vaughan joined the organization when his son was 1. His wife "ran across" the founder, Curtis Cooper of Roswell, in an America Online chat room, and Cooper sent him some information. "I started going to the play groups to get [Joey] involved with other kids without putting him in day care and so he's not all the time around adults," said Vaughan, who's lived in Kennesaw since 1984. But the group also has helped Vaughan develop new friendships, receive positive reinforcement and find acceptance. "We all get together, and if somebody has a project around the house, we all come over and help," he said. "Some will watch the kids while the others do the work." And once a month, usually a Monday night, the Mr. Moms meet at a restaurant for Dad's Night Out -- a time to socialize without the kids and to plan future events. Vaughan said he thinks most men who are not stay-at-home dads admire the ones who are "once they find out about it." "A lot of people don't know about [at-home dads]," he said, adding the local Dad to Dad chapter has 20 to 25 members. "There are a lot more out there. Sometimes it's hard to approach people, but it's something you can see. Normally you can pick out that that's a stay-at-home dad." Contrary to the stereotypical view of homemakers who lounge around the house all day in their bathrobes, watching soap operas and "Oprah," most stay-at-home dads are "out and about," Vaughan said. 'They do a little bit here and there,' he said. "Everybody who comes into the group is always doing something to get out and keep the kids active." Before Joey was born, staying at home to care for a baby was something Vaughan said he "never thought I would want to do." "But I enjoy it, and he enjoys it, and I wouldn't take anything for it," he said. "At times, it gets stressful, but we go through it.'' And being an at-home dad is "a little bit harder than I thought it would be," Vaughan added. "It's just the daily routines, getting him down for naps &emdash; something my little boy doesn't like to do," he said. "One guy in the group [who has three children, two of whom are at home all day] is strictly by routine, and he doesn't go outside that routine." Due to become a father for the second time on Nov. 23, Vaughan said he and his wife will find out the sex of their unborn child sometime next month. "I expect it will be a boy," he said. "There our very few girls in our family."
|
Topside Loaf July 26, 1997
By Anthony Heffernan
|
|
|
|
He had quit his job as a merchandiser for The Sports Authority, thus suddenly trading the hurly-burly world of retailing for the more settled domestic atmosphere. Settled, and lonely, even with the company of his baby son. "I definitely needed an outlet to deal with the isolation," he says.
So -- as if acting out some bad comedy film -- Cooper joined the neighborhood mom's club, a support group for stay-at-home mothers who met to discuss the tribulations and joys of raising small children. But he quit after a couple of meetings. "I felt out of place," Cooper says.
All of the husbands Cooper knew worked outside the home. His was the only family in which the wife was the sole means of support. Still, he thought, there might be others.
Curtis placed a small ad in the classified section of a weekly newspaper. The ad sought "full-time fathers." Although it drew only two responses, they were enough to get Curtis' plan for comradeship off the ground.
Thus, two years ago, was born the Dad-to-Dad club, which has grown to become a national support organization for full-time fathers with chapters in about 30 cities and about 600 members, of which the Atlanta chapter has 40. "It's a great way to meet other guys who stay home with their kids, get out of the house and socialize, and not feel like 'Mr. Mom,'" Cooper says.
Although the local chapter's membership does not make up a huge segment of the national group, the tendency of fathers to drop out of the rat race is growing here and around the country.
"This is a real trend," says Emory Mulling of The Mulling Group, an Atlanta-based outplacement firm for executives. In the past few years, he says, his clients have included several stay-at-home dads who wanted to return to work only when their kids reached a certain age. Typically, they have succeeded in finding suitable jobs, a sign their idea -- once thought absurd -- may be embraced by corporate America.
Is it a societal shift? Grace Galliano, professor of psychology at Kennesaw State University, specializes in gender roles. She says men who stayed home felt, at least when the phenomenon began, "loss of manhood, because even though child care is a demanding job, you don't get paid for it." Social pressures called for men to work for money. "It was all right for Mom to stay home but it was different if you flipped the coin," Galliano says.
Things are changing. Nowadays, in most instances where parents of young children decide the father should stay home while the mother toils as the sole breadwinner, the arrangement is reached only after reasoned discussion in which couples weigh all options. If they decide to do it, they generally do it for two key reasons.
Such parents tend to believe that child care must be kept out of the hands of strangers at day-care centers. And, of course, the wife usually has a better-paying job than the husband. Zane Westfall, 34, of Lilburn fits the mold.
"We believed day care was not an option," Westfall says. He and his wife Amy, 36, agreed that he should quit his job as a scenic artist shortly after the birth of his daughter Camille, who is now 3 years old. Amy, self-employed creator of corporate training materials, was making much more money at her job.
Another full-time dad, Scott Berlyoung of Alpharetta, said that shortly after the first of his two daughters was born five years ago, he and his wife, Kathy, had a "very logical discussion" over a week's period about their careers. They reached, he says, "a logical decision."
Kathy's "earnings potential was just so much greater than mine," Berlyoung says. He quit his job as a self-employed corporate meetings planner. His wife is a developer of billing programs for cellular telephone systems at Alltel Corp., the Arkansas-based telecommunications and information services company.
Better salaries for women have made it all possible, Galliano notes. Until recently, women's wages were by custom so inferior to men's that it was automatic for the new mother to stay home. Women -- those who nail down the more rewarding jobs, anyway -- may rejoice in the change, but kids benefit, too. "Paying women better helps families to decide what is best for the child," Galliano says.
But what's so bad about day care? Berlyoung insists that parents can do a better job than others of raising preschool children. His older daughter, 5-year-old April, is quite spontaneous, sociable and unafraid; Berlyoung believes she would not have developed such pleasing traits by spending hours at a day-care center.
"She makes friends quickly," he says. "She has no problem saying to other kids, 'Hi, I'm April; would you like to play?'"
Dad-to-Dad has made the transition to househusband much easier for stay-at-home fathers than it might otherwise have been, according to several club members, although the group is not designed so men can cry on each other's shoulders. Members exchange views on child-rearing. They set up special events. They just have fun -- with their kids.
 |
|
|
Recently the group met at the Sue Kellogg Public Library in Stone Mountain to see a balloon show and familiarize themselves with the place. Another recent field trip was to Hartsfield International Airport, where they watched air traffic. Other events may be as simple as visits to members' home swimming pools.
Mothers attend some outings. Among them are camping trips, boating adventures and dinners out. "The main focus is on the entire family," says Kathy Berlyoung.
|
|
|
|
The chapter's schedule of events is mailed out monthly and posted on the group's Internet website, which is maintained by member Paul Marquardt of Stone Mountain (http://www.mindspring.com/~ardt/D2D). A big deal among the fathers is the monthly "dads' night out" when the fathers leave their wives and kids at home. "We have dinner at a restaurant and down a few beers," Berlyoung says. The topic of conversation is not hard to guess. "What do you think?" he says. "Kids."
It's always worth debating who's got the pool most liked by the kids. Nor would it be uncommon for the guys to knock back brews and debate the fine points of potty training. Westfall says they pick apart disciplinary rules, too, such as "when you call time-out and for how long."
The untraditional family arrangement has led to another reversal of gender roles. Stay-at-home dads have become the "trailing spouses." Cooper, founder of Dad-to-Dad, this week packs up Brett, 3, and Brooke, 2, to follow his wife, Pam to her new job in St. Paul, Minn. She quit as a middle-management marketing executive with United Parcel Service of America Inc. (UPS) and took a more lucrative position with Ecolab Inc., the manufacturer of soaps and toilet goods for institutional markets.
Is trailing his wife humiliating for Cooper? He says it doesn't bother him a bit. For one thing, he says, there's a strong Dad-to-Dad chapter in the Twin Cities with about 75 members.
He was raised in a "traditional" family, he says, but more important than keeping tradition is keeping family members safe, happy and secure. "I put my kids first," he says. From that premise, any doubts about staying home were "easy to overcome."
Berlyoung, like other stay-at-home fathers, plans to return to the workforce when all the kids are in school. Meanwhile, the outplacement expert Mulling suggests that Berlyoung and others keep current in their fields by reading professional journals and networking with former colleagues.
To ease the re-entry, Mulling suggests that Berlyoung and his homebound peers keep current in their fields by reading professional journals. Networking among former colleagues is also a good idea, he says. Mulling advises those who dropped out of the workforce completely to begin catching up a year before they intend to jump on the treadmill again.
They should also begin shoring up their self-confidence. Lack of pluck, brought on by the sheltered domestic environment, can show in a job interview in which some shrewd evaluator is judging the job candidate's hunger for success. And the weakness can be fatal.
Society's attitude about the low value of child-rearing may take its toll. And stay-at-home fathers' underlying adherence to societal beliefs may be revealed, Mulling says. "They don't think there's much value in what they have been doing," -- not much recognized value, that is.
Mothers often undergo the same turmoil when they rejoin the workforce. Because the world at large often denigrates the importance of parenting, job candidates who happen to have raised children tend to look down on themselves. Here, as in the realm of child-rearing itself, male or female may not greatly matter.
"It's not a gender-specific issue," Mulling says.
 |
|
[Photograph:]
|
