"How are you going to do that while you are in a Ph.D. program?" Grandma challenged. "You don't have either the time nor the money," she asserted.
As usual, I refused to be pinned down with serial thinking. "There is so much you can do with symphonic thinking--you don't always need time or money." "For example," I explained, "what if I started a co-op with 7 like minded families who have children my daughter's age who all bring different linguistic resources to the table?" "I could take all the children one day a week to play with them and teach them Spanish or English while each of the other parents did the same one of each of the other days of the week." "So there is at least one example of how I can raise my daughter the successful polyglot I want to raise her as without a lot of time or money!"
I never had that thought before this morning, but I am incredibly pleased with the idea now that Grandma forced me to spit in out to defend the feasibility of my ambitions. Moreover, to add to the thrill of this idea, I stumbled across a magical coincidence just now reading the news. In the corner of a completely unrelated CNN article on the new construction milestones at the World Trade Center site, I encountered a link to another article about stay at home dad's in America. And this is the shocking and immensely pleasing statistic I encountered:
"Among fathers with a wife in the workforce, 32% took care of their kids at least one day a week in 2010." (see http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/30/pf/stay-at-home-dad/index.htm?iid=GM).
Wow! Isn't that great! I think this idea I've had this morning just might work and happen. And the 7 languages Mariem will practice on the 7 different days of each week look like they will be: 1-English, 2-German, 3-French, 4-Spanish, 5-Persian, 6-Arabic, and 7-Hebrew. That's what I see ample community support around me in Harrisonburg for. Here's the full news article about this growing trend with Dads--who I hope to involve equally with mothers in the project of a polyglot co-op with me:
Stay-at-home dads: More men choosing kids over career
@CNNMoney April 30, 2012: 10:58 AM ETWith wages at a standstill and child care costs skyrocketing, Somerfeld is just one of a growing number of dads who are staying home with the kids.
Among fathers with a wife in the workforce, 32% took care of their kids at least one day a week in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which looked at families with children under 15 years old. That's up from 26% in 2002.
Of those with kids under the age of 5, 20% of dads in 2010 were the primary caretaker.
Not only has it become more necessary for men to pitch in at home, but fathers have also become more available to do so. "It's a combination of mothers going to work and fathers being out of work as a result of the recession," said Lynda Laughlin, a family demographer at the Census Bureau.
Men were particularly hard hit by the steep job losses during that time, losing 4 million jobs since 2007, while women lost just over 2 million during the same time period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While men have since gained back a majority of those jobs during the recovery, their unemployment rate -- at 8.3% in March -- is still above the national average of 8.2%.
Many find that having one parent at home does have its advantages, especially as child care costs continue to climb.
Couples do the math and realize that it makes more financial sense for one spouse to stay home with the kids. And while it's often the woman who decides to drop out of the workforce, more men are taking on the responsibility of child care as well.
A lot of that has to do with who makes the most money in the household. Even though the wage gap between the sexes persist, a growing number of women are out-earning their husbands. In 2008, 26% of women living in dual-income households had annual earnings that were at least 10 percentage points higher than their spouse, up from 15% in 1997, according to the Families and Work Institute's latest data.
As a New York City school teacher, Somerfeld said he made a fraction of his wife's salary. "She was probably making 80% of our household income and I was 20%," he said. Her career as a corporate actuary for an insurance company "was on a really good track and it made more sense for me to stay home."
But the decision they made wasn't strictly a financial one. "Too often, we hear that it's the economy that forces dads into these roles and that's certainly a part of it, but I would love to shatter that stereotype," Somerfeld said. "Being my son's primary caregiver is something I have truly cherished and embraced and never looked back."
Three years ago, Somerfeld started the NYC Dads group to connect with other fathers in a similar position. The group now has over 550 members.
"There are a lot of guys out there that had remote relationships with their own fathers and they don't want that with their kids," added Jeremy Adam Smith, a one-time stay-at-home dad and author of The Daddy Shift. "It's not just stay-at-home dads -- fathers in general are participating more in their children's lives."
Regardless of their employment status, nearly half of the men surveyed by Families and Work Institute said they take most or an equal share of child care responsibilities, up from 41% 20 years ago.
Just don't call them "Mr. Moms," said Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute. "Like it's a female task, I've never understood that."
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the unemployment rate among men as 8.9%. The seasonably adjusted rate is 8.3%.
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