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I am becoming a soccer dad Jan 1st. I was laid off from my job, but fortunately, my wife was just hired by the state. Her bene's are way better, and now she's looking to move up to a fulltime position.

I am planning on starting a buisness of my own while I have the chance.

I've had the chance to spend just a few days home during the holidays with our two year old twins, and it's not as easy as it looked.

I don't know about everyone else, but I have had a very positive experience with this.

Recently my husband and I decided to take our children out of daycare because of the cost and because we were extremely dissatisfied with the care they were receiving. But, only one of us would be able to work. The question was, who?

It was ultimately decided that he would stay home and I would keep my job. I make far more money than he did, and my income would be enough to support us, even though we do have less money for "fun" things. But that doesn't matter, because our children are so much happier staying at home with Dad. And we can be sure that they are being well taken care of and aren't being taught anything that we would disagree with.

He had a hard time with it at first. My friends and other people we knew viewed this move as him deciding to be a "bum", but it was totally not like that. I asked the naysayers if it was the other way around, would they be calling me a bum? Of course not. It is just a double standard. He even felt like he was being a bum at first. The kids are really the ones that benefit the most. He benefits from it too, because he gets to spend a lot of valuable time with his children. And I benefit from it, because I don't have to clean the house anymore! LOL

In spring of 2000, I retired from college teaching so our newly-adopted daughter could have a full-time parent. My wife has a demanding job, but one that allows her to work mostly from home, so our little girl--now four years old--really has two parents with her most of the time. I love being a stay-at-home dad, and I'd like to say that men can "mother" children as well as women, but we haven't found that to be true. For some kinds of emotional needs, and for not a few practical ones as well, Daddy just doesn't do the trick. Mommy has to put work on hold to intervene. On the other hand, I think our time together has done our little girl a world of good: She is great at both athletics and academics, and she is very comfortable with even the roughest of the boys in her preschool group. I am really proud of Daddy's Girl!