Trading Business Suits for Brownies

Some Stay-at-Home Dads Network, Work Part Time and Start Businesses

Russ Louch answered the phone a little breathlessly last week.

"I'm just putting brownies in the oven," he explained, and laughed just a little. Some banging and clanging started in the background. His children, Melanie, almost 4, and David, 2 1/2, were graciously lapping up the leftover brownie batter in the bowls.

This is a typical day in the life of Louch, who decided to become one of 105,000 stay-at-home dads with children under the age of 15, according to 2002 Census Bureau figures.

As women increasingly go back to work after a child is born and start to close the wage gap, alternative family arrangements of all sorts have been turning from alternative to the norm. The number of stay-at-home fathers is still nominal compared with the one in four mothers who drop out of the labor force, but Louch is one of a slightly growing number of men who stay at home while their wives head off to work each day.

"I think society and the workplace are changing to accommodate the economic realities of today's environment," said John A. Challenger, head of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago.

Although there is a long way to go in terms of gender-based pay equity, he said, "more women are breadwinners. . . . That creates more opportunity for couples to align their parental and work responsibilities and their personal and work lives in ways that work out best."

Louch gave up his life in the information technology industry, where he worked 65 to 70 hours each week, in February 2001, not long after Melanie was born. He and his wife, Maria Elena, an occupational therapist, had Melanie in day care at a neighbor's house for about six months. That neighbor had to leave the country for a month, so Louch took the month off under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

During that month, Louch and his wife saw a difference in their daughter's behavior. She was laughing and interacting more. After long discussions, the Louches, who live in Derwood, decided Russ should stay home. Maria Elena had a better salary and benefits and worked more normal hours than he did.

Louch, like the many other fathers dipping their toes into the waters typically inhabited by mothers, admitted his at-home life isn't all he had dreamed of. "I had grand visions. . . . When we decided I'd stay home, I immediately had a list of all these projects I'd get done," Louch said. "I was rather naive. It's a lot of work taking care of little kids."

Louch is just one kind of stay-at-home dad. The 105,000 stay-at-homes the census counted are those not in the labor force at all. Many other fathers have decided to put their job on the back burner, taking on short-term projects while spending most of the day watching their children. Others have started a business while staying home with the children -- at least when the kids are young enough to take several long naps during the day.