Parents who stay home to raise their kids are often told they have “the most important job in the world.” But who are these stay-at-home parents? For the past two years, on behalf of the think tank Capita, we have been talking to and conducting research on moms and dads at home who take care of small children. As part of this research, we have conducted focus groups and interviews and solicited surveys. Recently, we released a new report on our findings. And what we’ve discovered is that there is no simple answer to that question.
Sometimes, a stay-at-home parent is a married mother with six kids who is keeping a small family budget on track, dinner on the table, and getting all the kids to school, dentist appointments, and baseball practice. Or a military spouse who has chosen to step back from her career to support her family through moves and deployments. Or a mom of three trying to balance caring for all her children, one of whom has profound autism and is non-verbal, requiring round-the-clock care, numerous weekly and monthly medical appointments, and all the associated paperwork. Or a dad, who is taking care of little kids while his wife tackles a demanding full-time job outside the home. As one proud stay-at-home dad told us, he and his wife sat on the porch one evening coming to the realization that they wanted their kids to have a parent at home when they got back from school—“not me!” his police officer wife laughed.
Read in the Institute for Family Studies’ blog
Elise Anderson is a Manager at Capita’s Family Policy Lab.
Ivana Greco and Elliot Haspel are Senior Fellows at Capita.