I became a stay-at-home dad when my son was born 3.5 years ago, by choice, because parenting is what I want to do with my life. My wife wanted a technical career, and went back to work as soon as she was able. More recently, my sister (a single mom) and her little boy moved in with us. My sister works at the school down the street, and has a lot of other out-of-the-home commitments. Both my son and my nephew were in school for half of the day this last year, which meant I watched both of them every afternoon and many evenings, and was on call whenever there was a problem at school (both are special needs kids.)
Some of the challenges I've seen:
- I dress like a stay-at-home dad, complete with scraggly beard and sweatpants (no sense in getting peanut butter, pee, and play-doh on nice clothes!) When I'm out at the store without the kids, people look at me like I'm a predator. When I take a kid or two with me, they look at me like I'm a saint, much moreso than the moms who have kids with them. [EDIT: when I lived in small-town Utah for a while, taking a kid to the store got mixed reactions, with some thinking I was a saint and others thinking there was something wrong with me. In other areas, the reaction was almost uniformly "saint".]
- My grandfather grew up in an era of man works - woman does childcare. He's constantly asking me when I'm getting a job, and doesn't understand when I say "this is my job".
- I actually will be working outside the home, in a school, during the coming school year. A number of people have expressed sentiments along the lines of "good for you, glad you're finally doing something with your life", as if my son raised himself and I had nothing to do with it.
- I'm constantly hearing about support groups for parents, and they almost always have "mom" somewhere in the name. Some of them will say that dads are welcome too, but it's still awkward. The only real support group I have was accidental - a bunch of people from church were all getting together, and then everyone quit except for me and a few moms and our preschoolers.