Stay-at-Home Fathers, Parenting, and Masculinity

This paper provides a look into the lives of 13 stay-at-home fathers. This qualitative, exploratory study conducted in-depth interviews with 13 men who defined themselves as stay-at-home fathers. Respondents were obtained through convenience sampling. Fathers were from several major metropolitan U.S. cities, from New York, Los Angeles, Boston, to Washington, D.C. All respondents were white, middle- to upper-middle class males. This study aims to analyze gender through the theories of “doing gender ” (West and Zimmerman, 1987) and structuralism (Risman, 1998). This paper argues that what dictates an individual to become a successful parent is not sex or a biological desire, but structural and situational demands. Due to financial reasons and time availability, these men were able to commit the time and energy needed to become a full-time parent. This paper also analyzes the different ways in which men construct masculinity when taking on an untraditional role. Stay-at-home fathers emphasize physical activity, sports, and a lack of emotional connection as a way of maintaining and constructing masculinity. This paper concludes that gender is not only sociall