Stay At Home Dad - My journey with shame, anxiety and eventual triumph

My wife and I took the plunge into single income territory about 2.5 years ago when we decided that I would stay home with our 3 children. These 2.5 years have certainly afforded me way more time with our kids than if I were in the office all day. I have been extremely fortunate to see them grow and have major influence on their development. At the same time, however, I've struggled to find a place and identity as a man without a traditional occupation.

My biggest struggle as a stay-at-home-dad is anxiety. I am continuously anxious about what I’ve done, what I’m doing, what I should be doing, who I am and who I should be. Since becoming a stay-at-home-dad, this anxiety has been a viscous and sometimes destructive backdrop for my life. I’ve interwoven the insecurity and worry into my daily activities and endeavors. When I’m in the kitchen making breakfast for the kids, you can bet that I’m thinking about the things I “need” to do. I am very seldom focusing on the present moment. As I sit and write this post, there’s an oh-so-familiar tightness in my chest. Despite my effort, I can neither identify its root cause or its remedy.

My efforts to address it include meditation, writing and exercise. I get adequate sleep, practice deep breathing and drink a little beer. Unfortunately, the formula does not work. More unfortunately, however, is how the anxiety affects the people around me. I am annoyingly critical, impatient and prone to outbursts. It drives my wife crazy, keeps my kids on edge and cowers the family dog. It’s obviously not healthy. It obviously needs to stop before it grows worse and before it destroys something valuable. In order to stop it, I have to understand where it comes from and why it’s there.

Anxiety runs in my family. My Dad’s mother and sisters very publically deal with what they often call “worry”. It keeps them up at night and contributes negatively to their health. This could factor into my own anxiety, but there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s more likely that I’ve made decisions (conscious or otherwise) that contribute to my current state. To uncover the perpetrating string of decisions and circumstances, I’ll employ the “5 Whys” method for identifying a root cause. I’ll start with the simple question, “Why am I anxious”, and go from there.

Why am I anxious? – I’m anxious because I feel pressure.

Why do I feel pressure? – I feel pressure because no matter how hard it is to admit, I care about people’s expectations. Being a stay-at-home-dad is not the most traditionally manly profession. It doesn’t align with my upbringing or the career visions I had as a young man (i.e. soldier, Secret Service agent, baseball player, etc.). So, I’ve resisted the title of “stay-at-home-dad”. I am not a full time dad and I’m certainly not a homemaker. I am a “real estate investor”, “business owner”, “consultant” and “coach” who just happens to be home most of the day with the kids. I’ve felt (or contrived) and given into the pressure to do “manly” things, to be industrious, to be useful, to earn income and provide for my family.

Why do I care so much about the expectations? - I care because I like when people respect me, are impressed with me and are proud of me. I hate the thought of not being able to relate to my Dad (a great family man, but absolute careerist). I don’t enjoy social gatherings and dread the prying, “What do you do?” question. It’s not my favorite to be lumped in with the Mommies and unable to relate to the Men. I enjoy being “one of the guys” sharing stories about adventures, leadership, work follies, money, athletic accomplishments, tobacco and booze. Without a traditional profession, I feel like less of a man.

Why do I need people to respect/be impressed with me? – It’s what I’m used to. My identity is wrapped in my athletic success, career and other random abilities and accomplishments. I’m the oldest sibling, the best athlete, the best in school, the most talented and historically the most successful. I’ve always had the best experiences, stories and life. My family was over-the-top proud of me. I always got the most attention. Things are quite different now. I have what seems like a very mundane life as a stay-at-home-dad. The attention and praise have waned. The interest in my life and endeavors is significantly depleted. I can hear the awkwardness with which people (including my own family) contrive questions about “What I’ve been up to”. The old familiar, “How’s work going” doesn’t exactly fit. So here I am, floating in a lonely purgatory as a man starving for praise, but not able to eat from familiar places.

Why is my identity and self-worth tied to my accomplishments and skills? - My self-worth is tied to my accomplishments (especially as an athlete and employee) because I lack confidence in my true self. I suffer from a feeling of intrinsic inadequacy. I have been a phony and a fake. I have been dishonest with myself and other people. That comes with the profession of constant impression, right? Just yesterday I stretched the numbers as I told an acquaintance about a recent home purchase. Why? That’s simple. I had an automatic response to make the story sound more impressive because I automatically and without intention thought that he may be less impressed if I told him the real numbers. This calculation happened in a split second and was on my lips immediately. That is how interwoven the dishonesty and constant approval seeking is within the fabric of my being, my thought processes and conversations. For the last 2 years, I’ve told prying partygoers that I am a “real estate investor”, “coach”, “consultant” or some other odd and misleading explanation of what I do on a daily basis. I have honestly told maybe 3-5 people what I actually am and do since I started this journey. I am embarrassed to be a stay-at-home-dad because I’m scared of what it says about me.

Why do I feel inadequate? (The 6th and final “why”) – I feel inadequate because my internal dialogue is not positive. I am negative with myself. I am ferociously self-critical. A quick journey back through my journal reveals continuous berating, weakness identification, goal setting and self-improvement language. Goals are great. Improvement can be useful, but what if I’m good enough as I am. What if who I really am is good enough to be whatever I want and do whatever I want? I think that it is. I am adequate. I am good enough. The evidence is around me. My wife is the most beautiful, thoughtful, intelligent, caring, composed and confident person I know and she is drawn to me. I have accomplished a great deal of cool and exciting things in my life. While the accomplishment itself says little about who I am, the work and action it took say a great deal about my character. I am adequate. I am good enough.

So what? – The first and most important step is to identify and embrace the traits and skills that make me a good man, solid husband and reliable father. The second step, I have found, is to choose a subject or profession and make it a passion. Until a recent (and life changing) episode on The Knowledge Project podcast, I had been trying to turn existing passions into income streams. I since decided to choose a field of which I was already familiar, had some relevant skills and could see myself succeeding and sell out to it. For me, that is real estate (a field that is as powerful in its wealth generation as it is in its flexibility for dads like me). The third step is to toil. I put my head down into my work and move things forward. I set aside dedicated time every morning (thanks to The Miracle Morning) to self-reflect and improve myself. I try to spend every waking minute of the rest of the day making progress in my new passion through unceasing effort. Work and progress feel awesome and continually validate the adequacy of my true self. Though I still feel anxious, I feel it less and with less intensity. I realize that this is not a miracle or a silver bullet. It's a process. Like any process, it needs revisited and evaluated constantly. For now, it's time to go to work.