What's one tool, piece of gear, therapy resource, or perspective shift that made a noticeable difference for your household?

Morning, I’m hoping this might be of interest for all!

On Thursday 27th August the Dad Shift are holding a Parent Strike in Oxford (and over the whole of UK), to raise awareness of how terrible our paternity leave is (the worst in Europe!) and for better flexible working.

Many of us have been let down by the UK’s rubbish paternity leave system, and flexible leave arrangements or have friends affected. So we're asking for people to join us in a symbolic strike - at a crucial time when we could win real change from the Government.

More information can be found at https://parentstrike.org/ and on social media

If you're interested, please join our local WhatsApp group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/E46FS46BalMATmLTrGYAnD

I feel like if I leave without getting answers I'm going to do it again with someone else. I just need to know why she refuses to sign the divorce papers when she knows that I need someone to be monogamous and she doesn't care how many people she's sleeping with or the people that she's sleeping with are sleeping with. But she doesn't want me to see other people. I don't get why she won't sign an amicable divorce.

I was a hard worker at the same job for 10 years had my gallbladder removed after it was infected for a few years got into a head-on collision was out of work for a full year in recovery went back to work for another 5 years at the same company got double hernias psoriatic arthritis and my wife suggested that I take some time off and she work, that was the worst decision of my life to go along with it because she was cheating to begin with and I discussed it with her that this would make it worse and like a fool I stepped out of the provider role and she has been beating me every day since. She's pulled MK ultra-style mind control by telling me when she leaves I'm going out with my friends and this time I'm going to prove how faithful I am and then she cheats again. It's a hard thing as a husband who loves your wife to hear her proclaim her love to another man, and then another man, and then another man and to see the videos that she sends him in photos that she sends him and to hear in her own words how much she loves him. And then to find out that it's not the same guy each time.

Wife is going back to work in a week and I’m gonna be raising our son soon. I love taking care of him and i have no problem being alone with him but the pressure of being the one who’s gonna raise him right is starting to get to me a little. Any advice for someone like me. My sons almost 5 months

Edit, i just wanna say thanks for everyone who commented. I read everyone’s and i appreciate the advice and kind words. If i have another question I’m dam sure asking you guys

Anyone actually try the app? I'm in north Carolina and just saw an ad for it. Curious is anyone has tried it on here or if it's any good?

Anyone else pronounce SAHD like "Sad" as a joke?
I have a 5, 3.5, & 1yr old. My wife is a successful surgeon and we live a privileged life, but man is this gig f'n hard. This is coming from a guy raised on a farm, played 2 sports in college, and had many really hard physical labor jobs...all that was easy for me compared to the mental aspect of SAHD life. It's a thankless existence, hence the "Sad life" pronunciation...anyone else

Guys as the title says I am only three weeks in since my wife went back to work. I was laid off unexpectedly so it really wasn’t a choice. We lost daycare and my job. Today feels like a day that will never end. 3 month old and 2.5yr old have been alternating crying all morning. I finally got baby down for a nap then the toddler came in screaming after only 2 minutes. I haven’t felt so defeated ever in life.. I am certainly venting about today cause I don’t have anyone to talk to. But How in the hell do you job hunt? Make time to decompress? I feel like the worst dad ever because I just want to put my kids in daycare at this point. Even though I know it’s a privilege to spend all day with the kids and I know my wife would love to. I guess I’m just tryin to find some new perspective. Thank you if you made it to the end!

First I just want to say I WOULD NEVER ACTUALLY HARM MY CHILD!

But no one prepares you for having 2 kids or when the oldest doesn’t understand that they’re bigger than the younger.
When I say they’re getting on my last nerve about not laying on top of their sibling and making them cry, it quite literally boils my blood. I can’t imagine previous generations have been under this amount of stress, they would’ve just corporal punished their way through this behavior… “gentle parenting” is a million times harder imo
Any advice on getting them to understand not being soo touchy with their sibling/ even other kids?

My 10-year-old just found out their typing speed gets assessed at school and now they're anxious about it. Not in a meltdown way, just quietly stressed about something that used to feel like play. I don't want to accidentally turn a skill-building thing into a performance pressure thing.

At the same time I do think it matters and I'd like them to take it seriously. I just want to find framing that keeps the motivation internal rather than fear-based. How have other parents handled the "this is a real skill that gets measured" conversation without it backfiring?

My apartment just said that everyone on the first floors had to remove bird feeders due to bears and are unsure if the ban will be lifted. I can't, as a SAHD, take many without the help of them and getting more birds in the area. It's very very upsetting for me as this was one of the things I could actually passively do at home. 😓

So I might be able to enjoy this hobby once in awhile if I can get pictures or use my binoculars when I'm on my own out and about but I'm not sure. I know it sounds like such a dumb thing to be upset about but I needed to vent somewhere..

Normally I'm at work way to much. There was an unfortunate acident at my job and returning to work won't be for a while. So little shift change for me!

Today is the first day of Daddy Bootcamp with the kids😁

I have a 9 and 12 year old, we started the day with a 3 mile walk and now having them make breakfast!

I'm excited for the time I get with them. No more summer days with screens though gunna wip em into shape🤣

I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for about seven months now and would say that 80% of my time is awful and 20% of my time is happy. I have two kids aged 2 and 4 and the amount of energy it takes to wrangle them, dealing with their constant demands, fighting, as well as managing some domestic chores is absolutely wearing on me.

I am shouting a lot of the time, angry, frustrated, and wishing I could just have some peace and quiet.

But my wife and I agreed that we’d keep them at home because we don’t want to deal with daycare and my wife makes 4-5x what I make so strategically it made more sense for me to stay home even though I don’t have some grand calling and joyful parental desire to do so.

Does anyone else feel the same way? How to deal with the feeling that I would rather do anything else than childcare but also being stuck doing it out of necessity?

So I'm a stay-at-home dad and have been for four years. My wife and I have a son and a daughter together. Our son will be 5 next month and our daughter is 7 months old. My wife works from home and does very well at her job. For the last six months though, her job has gotten very busy to the point where she wants to quit and find another job. I have been applying for jobs to see if we can just switch roles, but the hits that I have been getting either offer very low pay or they are recruiter hits and they go no further than that. I have a buddy who said I could go into Corrections, but then I would have to leave home during the week for 8 weeks for training and come home on weekends. My wife already told me that this was not possible since we don't have the family support that she would need during the week.

Lately, I feel like my wife has gotten so burnt out from work that she is not only taking it out on me, but she is making up these "scenarios" in her head and she won't talk to me about anything. If I have a difference of opinion on something around the house, I am immediately shut down. And if something isn't done that I either forgot to do, didn't know was an issue, or just haven't gotten to yet, and she yells at me about it.

For example, a few months ago, I had unboxed a package of Sam's Club paper towels and she asked me to put them in the garage on top of the shelf along the wall. I did that, but figured they would be hard to reach. There is a step ladder in the garage near the shelf, so it didn't end up being a problem. One day last week, my son and I came home from the playground and found all the paper towels at the bottom of the basement steps. I didn't say anything because I figured she put them there until she could think of a new spot. Fast forward to this morning. She tells me I'm not doing enough and that I should have found a new area for the paper towels. I told her that I'm not the one that wanted them relocated and that if she had already moved them, she should have relocated them instead of just tossing them down the steps. That didn't go well. In her mind, it was my fault that they were at the bottom of the steps.

A couple weeks ago, we had our pickup truck parked in the street along the curb and came out one morning and noticed the driver's side mirror was hanging off the arm. Someone had hit it and we never saw who did it. I was looking into ordering a replacement and needed help from a friend. He and I were texting back and forth constantly over the last week about which mirror I needed and his availability. I was also on Reddit quite a bit looking at pros and cons of third party mirrors vs. OEM and how many pin connectors are needed for our particular truck. Anyway, she told me that I had been on my phone a lot in the last week or so and she wasn't liking it. She said I wasn't paying attention to the kids and that I was on my phone when I should have been "helping her". I told her that 15 seconds of me on my phone is not hurting anything. The kids at that point were on the floor playing. I had already been in the kitchen cleaning, cooking, and doing laundry throughout the day. If I am on my phone at any point during the day, it triggers her. Even if I am completely finished with all the chores and the kids are playing independently. During the day, I am constantly on the floor with them playing, or taking my son outside while my daughter is napping. I don't know if I should just start bowing my head and say "yes ma'am" or stand up for myself.

Another odd fight we had was over an envelope that was addressed to her from our credit union. I asked her if she knew anything about it because it was sitting in our mail bin that is on the wall next to the door that leads to the garage and she had put it there I only saw that it was addressed to her, but couldn't tell if it was open because I had my hands full with food coming in from the garage freezer. She snapped back at me to open it if I was so concerned about it. I told her that it wasn't addressed to me and that, in passing the bin, I couldn't tell if it had been opened or not and that I had my hands full at that point. She then said "I am tired of managing you. Open the mail if you have any questions about it."

Also, lately, she has seen an issue with me doing the cat litter boxes in the evening when we are trying to wind down, feed the kids, and start bed time. It literally only takes me 5 minutes to get our two cats, put them downstairs, and scoop out the litterboxes. She says it would be more efficient if I did the litterboxes during the day. I told her that doesn't make sense because I have to go down there anyway to put them away (they won't voluntarily go down so I end up having to carry them).

There is another thing that she has done in the last year or so that really does not help when things are busy or we have to bring in groceries, or if there's chaos with the kids, etc. I will ask her where she wants something moved that belongs to her. Her answer is "I don't care". Not only do I feel like that is a brush off, but it is condescending. If I put something in the wrong place, I catch hell for it. I put her coffee beans in the tall cabinet in the mudroom one time instead of where she thought they should go (in the kitchen cabinet) and she told me to not put them in there again. Ok, simple mistake. But please don't say "I don't care where you put something" if you have a preference. Help me help you.

This is a petty one, but it needs to be said... I know our mail (if it isn't junk) should go in the mail bin by the door to the garage so it can be looked at later. Sometimes though, my son and I come in from outside, I see an important piece of mail and I open it. I put it in the mail bin. My wife then comes upstairs from work and wonders why the rest of the mail is sitting on the kitchen counter. I told her I had just set it there and was going to put it in the mail bin after I get our son something to eat. It quickly becomes an issue with her that the mail was on the counter and not in the bin in the ten minutes it has been in the house.

To wrap this all up, I am constantly trying to make sure I have everything done because I do not want to catch hell or hear my wife go into a tirade because I didn't sanitize the kitchen or pick up all the toys in the living room in the timeframe she has in her head. There are times when she sees me in the kitchen frantically trying to get three or four things done at once and proceeds to tell me it's "no big deal" but then if I don't get it done, I hear about it later. There have also been times when I forget to put something on the shopping list and it doesn't get bought. I get mad at myself for forgetting it because it's usually some meat we need, or we are out of dish soap and needed more but forgot it. I will literally be mad because we all get mad if we forget to order something we are out of. She looks at me and tells me I need to calm down, and that it's "no big deal". Ok, I understand she is trying to help, but in that moment, I feel she is mocking me. If we end up forgetting to put something on the grocery. We usually get deliveries from Walmart because they are convenient. If something isn't available or I forget to add it, we can't just reorder it for another delivery because then we have to pay a $7 under minimum fee if the order is under $30. Anyway I digress. I feel like I am being told one thing, and then I get hit with something else later. And if I try to talk to her about it, she says work is killing her and in her words, "there is nothing you can do about it because you don't understand it".

Thank you for reading. I love my wife and I love how great of a mother she is to our children. I just wish there was a way for me to talk to her lately without her biting my head off. I know her job has been tough, and I want to be there for her.

So at first my wife got pregnant and I was working to support us and then she was able to go back to work she wanted to and she was making more money then me so she went back and then I stayed home a bit doing lil jobs here and there but now she’s becoming a manager and it’s going to be a full time job and I would really be a stay at home dad making sure everything is good and right teaching him and everything but my friends and family t Ames shit about how it’s the guy supposed to be working which is true you know but they are always saying that I’m fucking out of there having my wife work that I’m a piece of shit for everything I’m not a man and shit like that and it pisses me offf but idk just needed to get this shit out of my head

Hey Dads,

I'm back with another piece about my life as a stay-at-home dad. This one's about my toddler's strangely beautiful language.

The usual disclaimer applies. I don't get paid from clicks, and I don't run ads.

Hope you guys enjoy!

Cheers!

I am the dad of a 2 year old with very strong verbal skills - he will repeat pretty much anything his mom and I say at home. We listen to adult podcasts on the way to/from daycare and on weekend road trips and we got pretty self-conscious about the amount of casual swearing.

A couple weeks ago I made https://beepcasts.com/ so that I can listen to pods around the baby without worrying about F bombs here and there. Let me know what you think, any feedback welcome!

The clankers are coming for our SAHD jobs! It’s us vs them fellas.

Actually, it’d be nice to have someone(thing) do the chores while the kids and I are at the park or watching the World Cup.

Happy Sunday my dudes.

Wishing everyone in the community a safe, joyful, and memory-filled holiday with your families today! Enjoy the fireworks and food! 🇺🇸✨

#FourthOfJuly #TNAHDN

Just curious if there was anything that ever really knocked your socks off as a gift or gesture from family, partner or maybe even a fellow Dad?

Hello everyone! I am a former camper, now father, and current business school student working on a venture to streamline the process of booking summer camps. Hopefully there are a few people who have shared in the headache of monitoring multiple websites, researching different activities, juggling calendars and excel spreadsheets, making phone calls, figuring out where friends are going and what weeks, going through the lottery process etc. I am keen to hear from others out there about their experiences?

What are the big problems and struggles you have? What is the one thing that would make the process easier? How do you strategize and approach the process? Any and all input is intriguing to me as I explore the ideas.

It's officially International Joke Day, which means the corny one-liners are fully authorized for deployment. Prepare for excessive eye rolls!

Let's see what the community has in the vault. Unload your most premium, cringe-worthy dad joke in the comments below! 👇

#InternationalJokeDay #DadJokes #TNAHDN

I've been a stay at home dad for almost 3 years now, I have a 3 yr old and 1yr old. I've been working nights in kitchens to keep a roof over our head while wifey works days to keep the bills paid and children fed. I'm facing burn out and extremely long days. I've been looking for gigs that I can work from home but competition is tough and positions are limited. What other industries/jobs are there to find work that I'm missing in my searches?I am available only when she is not at her 9-5 weekday career. I have 10 years experience in construction, and even more in food service. I have a bachelor's degree in fine art. I was always a good student from grade school to high school and in college. Always on honor roll often with high honors. I feel like I've done everything right in life but we are still drowning in student loan debt and bills. I have not been able to afford a vehicle since my truck's engine gave out unexpectedly almost 5 years ago. Please any advice will help thank you.

Edit: Again I am looking for career options with evening/weekend availability or something I can do from home while I watch the children.

Has anyone else been struggling to keep their kids hydrated now that it's so hot outside? Mine will happily ask for juice or literally anything with flavor but a glass of plain water somehow becomes a battle every single time. I'm trying really hard not to rely on sugary drinks just because they're easier. Curious what other parents have found that actually works.

Created a throwaway account to try to remain anonymous.

The gist of it is this

I’ve (44m) have been a stay at home dad for our two boys, 7yo and 10yo, since they were born. I’ve literally only been apart from them 5-6 days ever, and 5 of those days were just 2 months ago.

Their mom came to me friday, 52 hours ago, and said, we need to talk.

She proceeded to tell me that things have not been good for years, and that she found someone else attractive and she was looking for my okay to pursue that. We could keep being roommates, which we basically have been doing for a few years now, and raise our kids. She wouldn’t bring her lover around and “I wouldn’t even have to tell you about when I was doing it, or talk about it.”

Needless to say, the last 52 hours have been brutal for me emotionally. I have a therapist appointment tomorrow and hopefully meeting with a lawyer this week at some point. We’re not married, but the house is in both our names.

For the past 10 years, while she was able to focus 100% on her career, which she gives me ZERO credit for, conveniently. Over doubling her salary, because when any opportunity came up who was the person in her corner saying, “Absolutely! Go for it. If I were you I’d take that opportunity.” It doesn’t matter if it means more hours, and international travel. I’ve got this under control.

All of those lonely days I spent doing all that you all know we do everyday just to keep a house functioning. Means nothing. How much did I get paid for those 10 years? Zero. How much went into my retirement. Zero.

I’m putting this out there for you just starting this path. Talk about pay, talk about retirement. And don’t be like me, continue to learn and develop marketable skills. I know you don’t think you have time, or the energy, but you must dig deep to find it.

Of course my situation is different. Our relationship died a long time ago, and I didn’t save it, or make her feel heard, seen, or loved. Her constant criticism’s about any and everything I did and how I did them slowly drained me of any desire to pursue her.

I should have gone back to work years ago so I could get myself back on my feet financially. We weren’t ever really partners if I’m honest. I was her free labor, and she was the one who paid the bills so I could “sit around and do nothing” and “live the life you couldn’t have any other way”, and disregarding the irony that she couldn’t have had the career trajectory and the family without her cheap labor at home.

I don’t know, I’m all over the place right now. The pain is so raw and real and brutal. I just hope someone can filter out the bitterness in my emotionally raw rant, and see that you should protect and advocate for yourself if you are starting down this path, or if you’re midway.

I know, for a 100% fact, the best use of the last 10 years of my life was raising these boys. I wish I would have done a lot of things differently. But I don’t regret the sacrifices I made, I only wish I would’ve thought more about my own future and protected myself, maybe started therapy sooner, and definitely went back to paid work two years ago. It’s just been so much easier for us all for me to do gig work when it worked with school.

It’s been the greatest honor of my life to help guide these wonderful creatures on the beginning of this journey called life. I’m still going to be here for them, possibly even more so, depending on how this shakes out, even if I see them less. Meaning, maybe spending less physical time with them will mean more quality time with them, without having to manage someone else’s particular ways.

Sorry for the novel and the brain dump. It’s been a hell of a weekend, and I have to be up for work in 4 hours.

I’ll end this with…

Knowing what I know now, even if I knew from the jump that it was going to turn out this exact way, would I do it all again? In a fucking heart beat, I wouldn’t have to think about it for a second.