Column: Riley Worth, Paths to Peace

I just completed my second day back in my day job after five weeks in the biggest pressure cooker I may ever experience.

I was a stay-at-home father.

Amazingly, I not only lived to tell about it, but even managed to temporarily fool my wife into thinking I am a suitable father to these two miniature versions of us. I am constantly wondering when the curtain will drop and my across-the-board ineptitude will be revealed. That fear of the curtain dropping has been a longtime motivator in my life.

Yet now as I reflect on the past five weeks of paternity leave, I wonder one thing above all others: Why do so few men take advantage of this special opportunity? I was shocked by how many times I received the questioning response “You can do that?” when telling people I was on parental leave.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor website: “FMLA applies to all public agencies, all public and private elementary and secondary schools, and companies with 50-or-more employees. These employers must provide an eligible employee with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year for” four different reasons, among them “for the birth and care of the newborn child of an employee.”

Nowhere does it say mothers only.

I was fortunate enough to be home with my children for the first seven weeks of their lives, as they were born July 1, and I’m a teacher. I realized how lucky I was just to have that. We didn’t plan a summer birth. There was no planning involved. Heck, we didn’t plan to have children. I’ve repeatedly heard the stories of new fathers who were back at work the week after their child was born.

Come September, my wife stayed home with the boys for seven weeks, and I’d come home to two children who clearly saw me as “backup parent.” There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s natural for newborns to feel a closer bond with the mother for obvious reasons. That didn’t change the way playing back up made me feel.

Then came my turn to stay home. I agreed to five weeks, with agreed being the key word. I was doing it mostly to appease my wife and hold off the cost of day care for a little longer. I was scared. Before July 1, I’d never held a newborn. Those darn newborn necks. I was certain I was going to forget to support the neck and watch in horror as one of them morphed into a pouty-lipped, loudly crying, real-life bobblehead.

As a stay-at-home parent, how was I going to keep the curtain from dropping, revealing my numerous ineptitudes. I remember thinking “Maybe if I don’t leave the house all five weeks I can hide my fatherly insecurities.”

But then, like a flash of lightning, the first day home flew by. Noon came and went that first day and I hadn’t found time to change them out of their pajamas.

But then something happened. No, I didn’t get any more efficient. In the coming weeks many noontimes came and went with Beckett and Ike still in their sleeping attire. No, I remembered something I had read on a “mommy blog” website, written by a friend of mine from high school. She said one of the defining moments of her early days as a parent came in realizing she didn’t have to be perfect. That her children loved her just the same, and she loved them just the same. That perfection did not equate to love.

I decided to make an effort to leave the house as often as I could, Beckett, Ike and dad about town. To not only be proud of my stay-at-home-dad status, but to make mistakes galore in front of other people — strangers, friends and neighbors — the majority of whom were once parents to newborns and made many of the same mistakes I was making.

That’s when the fun started. I loved showing them off to people, loved answering the same five or six questions:

“What are their names?”

“How much did they weigh when they were born?”

“Oh, good size for twins!”

“Are you getting enough sleep?”

“Were you using fertility treatments?”

OK, that last question felt a bit personal, but the answer is no. I loved being a dad nearly every moment. It taught me so much about time management and about the things I most cherish in this world.

Which brings me back to my original question: Why don’t more fathers take some time to stay home with their newborn children? So much bonding can be done in these first days. I no longer feel like the back-up parent. Of course, we may both feel like back up soon, as our day care person started this week and she is amazing.

Seriously, though, men, I urge you to explore your options when it comes to taking short-time leave from your job and staying home with your children. It has given me a level of inner peace I didn’t know I was capable of attaining.

A few days before starting my parenting leave a male co-worker told me a story. He said he took a brief leave with his first child. With his second born he didn’t make the same mistake, taking a more extended leave.

He and I both love our jobs with District 241 and fully realized what a great place it is to work. Yet he – and now I – have reached the same realization I’m sure many fathers reach: Being a father is the most important work we’ll ever do.

 

Riley Worth and his wife, Amanda Lester, reside in Albert Lea and are teachers in the Albert Lea School District. He can be reached at rileyworth@gmail.com.