Lansing stay-at-home dad Eric Vanden Bosch kisses his 2-year-old son, Sawyer, while visiting the Potter Park Zoo, 1301 S. Pennsylvania Ave., in Lansing, with his other sons, 4-year-old Brayden and 4-month-old Miles, in the stroller. Eric has a season pass to both Potter Park Zoo and Impression 5 Science Center, where he frequently takes the children.
When people see Lansing resident Eric Vanden Bosch spending time with his three sons during the week, they often say, “Oh, you’re hanging out with Dad today,” assuming Vanden Bosch has a day off from work.
What they don’t realize, is for Vanden Bosch, hanging out with his kids is part of his job as a full-time, stay-at-home dad.
“Then it’s like, ‘Oh, you get to stay home with your kids, you’re lucky,’” he said. “They say it’s a great opportunity; it’s a cool thing I get to do.”
Vanden Bosch is a prime example of fathers whose role within the family has blossomed from the traditional breadwinner and disciplinarian to nurturer, playmate and companion, said Jason Downer, a researcher at the University of Virginia who specializes in teaching and learning. The shift might stem from expansions in the labor force, which has offered more opportunities to women, he said.
Downer said a study showed fathers spend more time with their children when the mothers work rather than stay at home.
“Now, more parents are able to be working full time and split parenting,” Downer said. “Mothers still predominantly take on a lot of the primary care, but there’s a shift of fathers taking a greater part in that.”
A greater presence
When people ask 54-year-old East Lansing resident Michael Forman what he does, he could say he’s a student, former vice president at a credit union or substitute teacher. Instead, Forman, who returned to school to be a teacher, always surprises them by saying, “I’m a dad.”
“Most people define themselves by their jobs, and I’ve always answered, ‘I’m a dad,’ and they look at me and I say, ‘Oh, you mean job?’” he said. “My role in life is a dad. I do other things to pay the bills.”
Forman, the father of four daughters ranging from ages 10 to 24, said he took a cut in pay years ago to make each Tuesday a day to stay home and just be “Daddy.”
Fathers are able to be more involved in the lives of their children because women share the role of providing for the family, allowing fathers more time outside of work that they can choose to spend with their children, he said.
“I met other dads who were in the same situation — some who were completely stay-at-home, some who work part time,” he said. “I found there are an awful lot of us that are a lot more involved in our kids’ lives than our own fathers ever were. And it doesn’t mean they loved us any less — it meant they were more of a provider than a nurturer.”
Francisco Villarruel, an MSU professor of family and child ecology, said the entrance of women into the labor force has given fathers the opportunity to spend more time with their children, debunking myths about mothers being more capable of emotional support.
The more involved a parent is with his or her child, the smoother the transition from youth to adulthood, he said. There is no evidence that either a father or mother is better equipped to aid in that transition, he said. There also is no proof a male and female team of parents can more successfully raise a child than two males, he said.
“There’s a popular myth that there is a gene inherent in women to rear children and care for them, but in reality, social structures have not provided fathers that opportunity,” he said. “Fathers, just like mothers who give birth to their children, (now) have the opportunity to stay at home.”
Fathers today are more involved in their children’s lives, serving a role beyond the family’s financial provider, he said. The opportunity to be a large part of a child’s day-to-day life is one that was not as widespread 25 years ago, in a time when society didn’t recognize the importance of fathers as nurturers, Villarruel said.
To correspond with that change, the percentage of stay-at-home dads also has significantly increased, and more women are the dominant income generators, he said. It is now more socially acceptable for mothers to choose to be the primary provider in a family, he said.
Being there
Vanden Bosch said one of the best parts of being a stay-at-home dad is seeing the world unfold in front of his children.
“I think you would (otherwise) miss out on the mundane part of life: the daily experience of the world on a daily basis,” he said. “I have more quality time to actually go through some of those things. You don’t know when the question is going to come from them.”
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The amount of time fathers spend interacting with their children — being involved in their daily lives beyond simply offering advice or discipline — has increased, Downer said. And studies show this
can benefit a child’s social and academic success, he said.
The opportunity to be a part of a child’s life allows a father to see the world from the perspective of a child who is experiencing the world for the first time, Vanden Bosch said.
“I think it also makes you think about things you take for granted too: everyday knowledge you don’t think about anymore, that you realize that they’re exploring for the first time, things that you take for granted eventually,” he said.
