Stay-at-home dads connect in groups

It's a play group for kids with stay-at-home dads, but don't expect parenting angst. It's guy talk — as much as guys can when they're watching toddlers and preschoolers.

"Everybody's got to chase after the kids," said Bruce Reynolds, who helps organize the informal gatherings and connect fellow full-time dads with his Web site, Seattle Stay-At-Home Dads (SeattleDads.org). "You get snippets of conversation."

Often ostracized by stay-at-home moms, derided by working dads and viewed with skepticism by grandparents, many full-time dads feel isolated but lack the support of parent groups and friend networks that moms cultivate. Several dads, in fact, joined the Seattle group only at the urging of their wives.

Previously limited to national newsletters or online e-mail lists, local dads can now link up in person. "I wanted to give dads a place to hang out with other dads who know what it's like," Reynolds said. "For working men thinking about staying home, it might help if they realized there's an existing support group."

Even if they don't want to chat about it.

"When we get together, the last thing we want to talk about is our kids," said Frans Laulainen, a Renton father of three, ages 6, 2-½ and 1. "Now is our opportunity to talk about something else."

Brad Furlano, Renton dad to Ethan, 3, did get potty-training tips from others in the group. "I don't know if it's different advice than moms would give, but I know it was certainly helpful for me."

The small play groups, held in Seattle, the South End and on the Eastside, attract a handful of dads with a total of about 20 regulars. A Snohomish County group is trying to get started.

Some 60 or 70 men are signed up for Reynolds' e-mail list, many of them dads with kids too old for play dates. For several years, Reynolds coordinated an e-mail list for stay-at-home dads with Microsoft wives, which he folded into SeattleDads.org.

"It's important to meet other parents," said longtime stay-at-home dad Art Jury, who has 6- and 2-year-old sons, during a recent South End play group. "You can't do it by yourself, even though a lot of guys think they can. It was hard for me, since I'm used to doing things on my own. But you realize parenting is not a sprint — it's a marathon."

Less than 1 percent of married fathers with children under 15 said they stopped working to care for their family, according to 2003 U.S. Census Bureau figures, compared with a quarter of moms. That's 157,000 dads versus more than 6 million moms.

The number doesn't include parents who were home for health reasons or primarily care for children but also work part time. The census wouldn't count Reynolds, who teaches night community-college classes, as a full-time dad.

Local dads wonder if their numbers will spike next season, as one working father on the hit TV show "Desperate Housewives" announced on the show's finale last month that he plans to stay home. "If he actually does it," said one dad doubtfully.

The group tries to be inclusive and is open to any fathers who are primary caretakers. When moms worked, dads cared for nearly a fifth of children under age 5 in 1999, according to the most recent census figures.

Stay-at-home dads are "more common now, but it's still outside the norm," said Furlano. "You still get some raised eyebrows and have to deal with public perception."

Dads do many of the tasks required to care for kids — wash dishes, plan birthday parties, go shopping — but that doesn't make them moms. Or mean they approach things the same way as mothers do.

It can leave dads in a no-man's land where they don't have much in common with working dads but don't really fit in with stay-at-home moms, either.

"There's still a mindset that dads are not the ones who should be home," said Chris Conkling, dad of Gillian, 4, and Berkeley, 10 months. "Some dads say, 'Good for you,' but other dads kind of give you an odd stare like, 'Why isn't he out doing a man's work?' "

Dads who aren't as involved sometimes feel threatened by stay-at-home dads — who can, yes, change a diaper in 20 seconds — but full-time dads also feel looked down upon.

"Society judges men on their earning power," Reynolds said. "And we've given up our earning power in favor of our children."

With moms, "when you go to a play-group situation with your kids, a lot of women don't know what to do with you," said Ed Caldeira, dad to Jeremy, 5, and Daniel, 3. "It's not easy being the only one there."

Caldeira, who volunteered in a cooperative preschool and the school PTA, did befriend a few full-time moms and sometimes exchanges baby-sitting.

Some dads identify with stay-at-home moms — "the fact that you're a stay-at-home parent, you have more in common than what kind of shorts you put on," Jury said. Others concede that "the things women talk about are not things I'm interested in or know anything about," said Laulainen.

Conkling waited for his daughter's ballet class while moms around him complained about their husbands. "I was like, 'Hello, I'm sitting right here,' " he said. "They said, 'Men are just like that' and I wanted to say, 'No, we aren't all like that.' "

Like many stay-at-home moms, dads contend their current job is harder than their former professions. "If you see [full-time parenting] from a distance, you think it's easy," Reynolds said. "You plop down some 9-to-5 guys with three kids under 5 every day, and they'd run for the hills."

Stephanie Dunnewind: 206-464-2091 or sdunnewind@seattletimes.com