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In the household of Joel and Megan Bittle and three-month-old Clara, Joel brings home the bacon—he says, tongue firmly planted in cheek. Since Joel does the grocery shopping, if bacon’s on the list it comes home with the diapers, wipes, formula and all the other necessities for keeping an infant—and her parents—healthy and happy.
Joel also does the cooking, cleaning, diaper-changing—Megan, vice president of sales and marketing at RSI Kitchen and Bath, is the breadwinner.
“Yeah, she wears the pants in the family,” says Joel, with a shrug. “What does that mean?”
 Left: Stay-at-Home Dad Joel Bittle with daughter Clara.
Above: Stay-at-Home Dad David Butler and son Jimmy. |
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This is not the lifestyle that either of them expected when they met, and courted, in San Francisco. After graduating from college at Santa Clara, Joel taught high-school English, and Megan was a sales manager with ADP. When they moved to St. Louis for Megan to join RSI, her family’s business, they settled in Brentwood, and Joel resumed his teaching career at Chaminade.
Finally, after several frustrating years trying to start a family, Megan became pregnant, so they took a hard look at where to go from there. They weren’t comfortable with the concept of dropping a newborn off at day care. Clara was born in August, just before the new school year began, and he opted to stay at home—perhaps only until classes resumed after the winter holiday.
“That was my ‘out’,” says Joel, with a chuckle. Neither knows when, or if, Joel will go back to work. Outside the home, that is. His plate is full with Clara, thank you very much.
“It’s easy to be on the outside looking in, saying, ‘What did you do all day?’” says Joel. Some guys comment, “I bet you get a lot of golf in.”
Bittle has only been putting up with comments like that for a few months. In another St. Louis family, it’s been more than 10 years for Tim Huber, husband of Jackie Miller, an orthodontist in Washington, Mo. Their nanny had moved out of the area, and at the time they had two young sons. Huber’s job as a bank examiner kept him away much of the time. Miller was trying to build her practice, and when it came down to someone forgoing profession for family, Huber volunteered.
Huber’s father, who’d worked for the same company 35 years and couldn’t conceive of his son leaving behind a good government job with all the trimmings, blurted out, “You’re gonna do what?”
Huber, today the proud papa of three boys and two girls, says he still gets funny looks now and then: “After you get to ‘What do you do for a living?’ people don’t know how to carry on a conversation.”
“It was a quality-of-life issue,” says Miller. “Did we want to raise our children, or have someone else do it?”
It was also practical.
“I can’t cancel 50 to 60 patients to stay home with a sick child,” Miller exclaims. Nor would she have been able to assume leadership roles with the American Association of Orthodontists.
Even so, for the first few years Huber took night classes to keep his “foot in the door, just in case it didn’t work out.”
It did. Huber and Miller had a daughter. They have since adopted two children from Guatemala, a boy and a girl.
Despite a booming practice and lively household, Miller and Huber have slowed down, somewhat. Back when she had a satellite office in Sullivan, he would make the 45-minute drive with an infant for breastfeeding.
Although it’s a new century, many remain uncomfortable with the reversal of so-called “traditional” roles. Some families contacted for this article declined to be interviewed, not so much from self-consciousness as going public with a lifestyle that so many people already just don’t “get.”
Well, maybe we haven’t evolved as much as some may have thought. It’s been 21 years since “Mr. Mom” was a slightly edgy comedy. Michael Keaton stars as a laid-off auto exec whose wife (Teri Garr) goes to work at an ad agency, leaving him home with the kids. Keaton can’t handle this sort of multitasking—washing clothes, changing diapers, cooking, cleaning, trying to figure out what kid needs to be dropped of or picked up where and when, shopping—whereupon he stops shaving, starts drinking and watching the soaps. The “happy ending,” if you will? Keaton regains his pride and goes back to work.
Well, what do the pundits say? Plenty. Google “stay-at-home dad,” press “I’m feeling lucky” and you arrive at www.slowlane.com, where a stay-at-home dad is an SAHD. To some, that acronym sounds like a synonym for unhappy, or looks like the abbreviation for an emotional disorder. Or, that’s what you might come across on many of the numerous Blogs dedicated to this subject.
One, www.rebeldad.com, appears to be updated regularly, if not daily. Click on “statistics” to find figures from the U.S. Census Bureau: In 2003, there were 98,000 stay-at-home dads in this country, a figure that may seem extraordinarily low until you realize that earning $1 of income disqualifies the individual as an SAHD.
Acronyms notwithstanding, “stay-at-home” devalues anyone who devotes their time to raising children, according to the manifesto at www.fulltimefather.com. An excerpt:
“If you are a ‘stay at home’ parent because you can’t hold a job, this site is not for you. If you are a reluctant ‘at home’ parent who simply does it because your spouse can make more money than you, this site is not for you.
“But if you have put your children ahead of your career because you think it will benefit your children, and if you have actually come to ENJOY it, then you have found a home on the web.
“It is time for ‘stay at home’ fathers (and mothers) to go on offense. And it starts by renaming ourselves.
“Say it with me: ‘I am a full-time father’.”
Orthodontist Jackie Miller, at least when it comes to labels and what they imply for self-image, is on the same web page. On her new-patient cards, countless mothers have described their occupation thusly: “I’m just a stay-at-home mom.”
Miller, barely containing her irritation, says, “That bugs the bejeebers out of me!”
Sarcasm has been effective for Joel Bittle. When a car salesman turned from Megan to ask him what he did for a living, Joel responded, “Not a damn thing.”
Usually, however, the full-time father hasn’t time for the clueless. He’s too busy.
In 1995, David Butler apprehensively resigned as service manager for an auto dealership to stay home with his two sons, so that his wife Kathy could continue her career as an attorney with Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale downtown.
| In 1995, David Butler apprehensively resigned as service manager for an auto dealership to stay home with his two sons (left to right): Chris and Jimmy. |
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The Butlers, who reside in Webster Groves had been informed by their in-home daycare provider that she was only going to take babies from then on, forcing Kathy and David to decide where to go with Jimmy, then four.
Their decision? Nowhere.
“We seemed to always be dropping our kids off with someone else,” David recalls. “It would have been nice to have the extra salary, but we decided this was more important.
“You get to grow up with your kids.”
David volunteered for years as a playground monitor, and he’s been on practically every field trip. Plus, neither parent has had to race from work to pick up a child from daycare before 6 p.m.
With their activities in and out of school, Jimmy, now 13 and Chris, 16, still keep everyone in the Butler clan skating fast—literally. Both compete in the Affton hockey program; Kathy’s the only Butler who’s not a referee. Meanwhile, David and Chris just about have a vintage Ford Mustang up and running.
“It was so hectic before,” says Kathy, now a partner of the firm. “My days may be long; 7 to 7, that’s the down side. I think I feel like a lot of dads have felt for a long time.
“People have preconceived notions, but I would challenge anyone. Dave is up every day when we’re up, and he gets more done in a day than I do. Men make stupid comments, but they’re jealous.”
Adds David: “A lot of people, in their next lives, want to be me.”
It may be that, in this life, they’re too intent on preparing for the future at the expense of the here and now. It took a surprise baby to get the attention of Jeff Faucher, new to the ranks of fulltime fathers.
It’s important to note that Faucher’s bride, Cici, is not in the same income bracket as a company VP, orthodontist or lawyer—she teaches physics at Webster Groves High School. Plus, all the Faucher children are seven and under; the last two only 11 months apart.
Jeff, formerly a chemist for the city’s water division, is as comfortable crunching numbers as Cici. Until last June, the family lived in
St. Louis city, spending a large portion of their income on daycare and private school. Now they live in O’Fallon, in a larger house in a neighborhood full of kids, their oldest daughter is in public school, and Jeff is home with the younger three all day.
“We roll around on the floor—you can’t beat it. It’s eight straight hours of face time.” |
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