Topic: Stats
Like
the New England Patriot's Defensive End Richard
Seymour (pictured at left with his son by the Globes' Stan Grossfeld),
working at-home dads have quietly taken the spotlight in the media in the last
several years. Also like the Pats they don't have a real spokesman
either. Sure the reluctant
Tom Brady gets the GQ treatment but that's it. (Remember, Terrell Owens
got more attention then the entire New England Team combined in one Ad.).
In any case the media seems to be enjoying putting together the
terms "working dad" and the "at-home dad" qualifier
in the same breath. Reading through some "working dad" articles
just in the past week I kept noticing sentences like... "As
the co-owner and chef of Three Oaks Chocolatier in Torrington, and a
stay-at-home dad to three young boys....." or "He
gets to schedule his work to spend as much time as possible with Joey, now 4 ?.
He calls himself a stay-at-home dad" or "Being
a stay-at-home dad three days a week, I've deep-six diapers, cut the crust off
PB&J's, and made the ultimate sacrifice: sing along with Barney".
These dads seem to be emphasizing that, yes we do work, but we are still caring
for their kids and we're proud of it. The media isn't the only ones
noticing, The Families and Work Institute
note in
a 2004 report that Gen-X daddies (working dads between the ages of 23-37)
spend nearly an extra hour (or 3.4 hours/day) with their kids as compared to 25
years ago. What I found even more encouraging is that that the early returns
(their samples were are too small to give out numbers) are showing Gen-Y dads
(18-22 years old) are trumping the X-ers. Look for this new generation of
dynasty dads to be making more noise in the coming years.
Updated: Thursday, 10 February 2005 4:41 PM EST
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