Don't Forget Me!:How a FTF (full-time father) Handles a Pair of Threes and a Kindergartener

by Brian Black (1992)

I am a full-time father of my own free will. My job didn't disappear in the recession, my wife is healthy, and I am sane. In March 1990 I took over from my wife the daily daytime care of our 8-month-old fraternal twin boys and our almost three-year-old daughter. We are really normal people who wouldn't dream of appearing on any late afternoon talk show about different life styles. All we know is that this has worked for us. I am telling this story to encourage the men I meet who say, "Yeah, I thought about that, staying home with the kid," to let them know it is possible and rewarding, in ways you  can only imagine.

I remember the first couple of weeks. I find myself now almost writing that it was like starting a new job but I kick myself--it is  a new job. It is an unbelievably tiring job--like watching all the New Year's Day bowl games five times a week. My wife Margie went to work as a Social Worker at United Cerebral Palsy, coincidentally replacing another mother of twins. She suffered from many know-it-alls asking her,"How could you leave two eight month old babies?" She learned to appreciate the shocked look on the inquisitors face when she  told them that she was  home three years and that  Brigid, Matt, and Tom were  with a parent: their father. We live in Brooklyn, not in the sophisticated upscale section, and she works in Brooklyn, so some (not many) of the people we met  thought our arrangement was weird. I often wonder if Dan Quayle would approve of us.

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