 "Photo: Eliot Meyer")
Matt Alexander used to leave his house at 6 a.m. for the long drive to his office at the Texas Lottery Commission and did not return to his wife and newborn son until 6 p.m.
Alexander said the "miserable" drive from Round Rock to Austin came between him and his son, Jackson.
"If you're gone 12 hours a day with a newborn, you don't get to see a whole lot," he said. "I got tired of seeing e-mails from my wife that said, 'Jackson did this today, Jackson did this today.'"
Alexander quit his job to become a stay-at-home father so he could spend more time with Jackson and be there for all the firsts in his son's life.
"It's a very challenging position, but the rewards are immeasurable," he said. "You get to see everything as it happens."
Aaron Rochlen, an educational psychology associate professor, is leading a team of researchers at UT that studies the psychology behind fathers who choose to stay at home.
Rochlen said about 159,000 fathers in the U.S. have foregone jobs in offices to stay at home with their children. This figure is underestimated, though, because it does not account for part-time stay-at-home fathers or men who might soon return to the workforce. He puts the realistic estimate of stay-at-home fathers at about 2 million and said the number will continue to increase as more women enter the workforce and out-earn their male partners.
Rochlen said that most stay-at-home fathers who participated in his studies came from an upper-middle socio-economic background and had wives with high-earning occupations.
"For a long time, men were providers equated with being the breadwinner," Rochlen said. "Hopefully, this concept is beginning to include care-taking, nurturing and doing what is needed for the family."
He also said the trend will continue as the visibility of stay-at-home fathers increases.
"There are more men out there in the role, getting positive exposure," Rochlen said. "Most people these days say, 'I know a stay-at-home father.' This increased exposure will likely help to reduce the stigma and opens up opportunities for other men and couples to consider this as an option."
Alexander is part of an online Yahoo group called Austin Stay at Home Dads, where he can meet other stay-at-home fathers. Group members meet with their children for play dates at a park or organize dad outings, like softball games.
"In the group, you make good friends, and if you need support, it's there," said Joe Lang, a stay-at-home father of twins.
Rochlen said stay-at-home fathers are passionate about their role in raising their kids and are not particularly impacted by expectations of what men "should do."
Christian Soeffker, who became a stay-at-home father after his wife was relocated to Austin from Germany for work, said he does not care what other people think of his role as a father.
"To stay here and bring Carl up in a free country like the U.S., we had to change roles," Soeffker said. "It's still different, but I like it. I wouldn't go back to doing anything else."
Soeffker said he does not understand why people make such a big deal out of men - instead of women - raising their children.
"We're parents," Soeffker said. "We're men, but we're still parents."
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