Becoming A Full-Time Father

Normal. According to Merriam-Webster, normal is conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern.

Unlike most relationships, Abby and I had a long-distance relationship for four years. The closest we lived to each other while dating was one hour. We didn't even live in the same town until a year before we got married. Not normal.

One year before we got married, I ended up renting a room from my soon to be brother-in-law and his family. Abby and I now only lived ten minutes from each other. Today, it seems normal for people to live with each other before they get married. We never did that, even when we lived in the same town. Not normal.

Abby had known since she was little that she wanted to be a pharmacist when she grew up. After she graduated high school, that became her focus. 

For me, math has always been a subject that I liked. I even got my associate degree in accounting, but I didn't want to be a CPA. Accounting, for me, makes sense. Numbers have to add up and can't be off. If they are off, I have to put on my detective hat and find where the mistake is. For some reason, that is fun for me. I enjoy trying to discover where the problem is. At work, I would always get a great sense of accomplishment when I would have to put on my detective hat and find the problem.  

Once married, we both wanted a family, but we would wait until Abby was close to finishing pharmacy school. We would do what we needed for Abby to get her doctorate in pharmacy. We also talked about how Abby would make more money than I would and that at some point, I might be able to be a stay-at-home dad. Not normal.

Being a stay at home dad, aka a full-time father, was something that I never gave much thought. We were talking about what could happen. First, we needed to get her through pharmacy school so we could start to focus on starting a family. 

Getting through pharmacy school ended up being easier said than done, but we got through it. Finding a job as a pharmacist took a little longer than I thought it would and ended up taking several months. I remember wondering if Abby was even applying for jobs because she didn't hear from any of the jobs she was applying for. 

During this time, we were also trying to start our family. Christians will say, "if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." We planned to have our first kid before she started her first job. And as you can probably guess, that didn't happen. It took us a couple of years and two miscarriages before we had our son.

Finally, after several months, the stars aligned. Abby received three job offers in one week, and one was for a full-time pharmacist job with the company she wanted to work for. Time to move to a new city.

Before we moved, I was lucky to line up several job interviews for the week after we moved. I ended up receiving a job offer with the first company I interviewed with.  Going into that interview, I told Abby that if they offered me the job, I would take it. I had done my research on the company, and they seemed like an excellent company. 

The job was perfect in my eyes. This company cared about the business they were in but also cared about the employees and the employee's family. You weren't just an employee or number; you were family. Would you like to know the best part? You could bring your baby to work. Yep, you read that right. If you had a baby, you could bring them to work. Not normal.

After I had been with the company for about a year, Abby became pregnant. We were excited, but we had already had one miscarriage and were extremely nervous about this new pregnancy. When we went in for our very first doctor's appointment, we found out that we had a miscarriage (I might go into this more in a future post). We had not told anyone yet, but when I called the office, they told me to take as much time off as I/we needed. Later that same day, my boss and a co-worker went to a restaurant and bought us enough food to last several days. They didn't want us to have to worry about anything at the moment. They just wanted us to focus on ourselves. As I said, at this company, you aren't a number. They cared for their employees. Not normal.

To our surprise, a couple of months later, we were pregnant again. When we told my boss and co-workers, they were so excited. There was going to be a baby in the office. My boss bought everything I could need in my office: pack-n-play, diaper bag, high chair, diaper pail, etc. Once I started bringing my son, Asher, to work, she would spoil him. Anytime she went out of town, Asher would get new outfits, toys, or stuffed animals. 

But as we all know, I am a Full-Time Father. What happened? One day my boss came back from a trip and started having one on one meetings with each employee. I had my office door shut, so I didn't know this was happening. I kept the door to my office closed because it would help Asher sleep, or when he was awake, it would keep him from disturbing others. 

At this point, Asher is about seven or eight months old and has been coming to the office for six months. My boss comes into my office, and I ask her how the trip went. That is when she told me something that I wasn't expecting. She told me that she was looking to relocate the company and that the point of the trip was to check out this town in Vermont. She said that everything went great and that they were going to move the company to Vermont in the next four to six months. If we decided that we wanted to move, our moving expenses would be covered. She knew this had the biggest impact on me since we had moved here for Abby's job, and we now had Asher. 

I looked to see if Abby's company was near there, and they weren't. For our family, the move didn't make sense. Abby would end up taking a pay cut, and we would be so far away from any family. I informed my boss that we wouldn't be moving with the company. I asked my boss if there would be anything I could do for the company remotely, even if it was part-time and not in my current position. She said she would have to think about it, but we might be able to work that out. At this time, the company did have one employee that worked remotely. 

Fast forward about a month and the Coronavirus started to affect how places of business operated. The company I worked for decided that they wanted as few people in the office as possible. My boss wanted me to work from home. I got a call the following Monday morning from my boss asking me to come in that morning so we could talk. Something had happened over the weekend, and we needed to talk.

I got Asher ready, and we start our drive to the office. I knew something was going on and that this wasn't good. My suspicions were correct. When I got to the office and turned down the hall towards the offices, all of my stuff was in boxes lining the hallway. My boss was laying me off. She said that this was going to happen anyway when the company moved, and they decided to go ahead and do it now. She told me that they consider me family and that I should stop by the office or their house anytime. They wanted to keep in contact with us and also see Asher. As you can probably imagine, this was a surprise to me because we had talked about several things I could do remotely. 

When my boss had first told me about the move, Abby and I started to look into daycare. We were trying to figure out what would be the best option for us if my boss wouldn't/couldn't keep me on part-time. We sat down with our budget and looked at everything. With the cost of daycare, it just didn't make sense for me to have half or more than half of my take-home pay go to someone else to watch our kid. What did make sense was for me to stay at home with Asher, becoming a Full-Time Father, aka, a Stay-At-Home Dad. Not normal. 

The first month or two was the hardest for me. I felt like a failure. Yes, Abby and I had talked about me being a full-time father, but I had always heard that the man should be the breadwinner and the woman should stay at home. I felt like I wasn't contributing to our family, even though I was watching Asher. I knew Abby made more money than I did, and I knew that we had talked about this years ago, but I still felt like a failure. I don't know many stay-at-home dads, so it felt weird being home.

Then I had my ah-ha moment after about four months of being a full-time father. I can't honestly remember what Asher did, but it was the way he interacted with me. I remember thinking, this interaction could have happened with a stranger and that was weird to me. The most important thing is that we are currently in a financial situation where we can afford to have one of us stay home with Asher. 

That is how I became a full-time father. It has been a weird five months because of the Coronavirus. Would I change anything with my last company? No. I was able to take my kid to work. I was able to help him grow and also do my job. Now I have a more important job, Full-Time Father. Sure, my new boss can be demanding, but I love my new boss more than life itself. I would do anything for my new boss. And when my new boss starts yelling, I can put him down for a nap.

Normal - conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern. Maybe being a full-time father isn't normal, but that's ok. It's our normal.