House Husbands Are the Future
Men and women will be happier for it.
My husband used to wake up in the morning like a cat being shoved off a table: a sudden explosion of limbs and irritation.
He was anxious about work. Sitting in a cubicle sapped him dry, and he worried constantly about whether he was making enough money, but also whether he was worth the money he did make.
After the birth of our first child (a traumatic labor) we decided that he would take FMLA leave for the first six weeks of our daughter’s life to help me recover.
We both looked forward to this time together as a new family, but neither one of us predicted how blissful it would be. Not because we were in love with our new daughter—she was cute, but hardly a full person yet—but because we were in love with having him home.
It was the first time I had ever seen him fully relaxed. The baby delighted him, he delighted me. He took incredible care of both of us. The work of fatherhood made him happy, proud, and fulfilled.
Then he left to go back to work while I finished my maternity leave. I went slowly insane, stuck in the house all day, and he went back to fits of anxiety. When it was time for me to go back to work, I knew who the best person to care for our daughter was.
