He’s Aaron Simmons, MBA and Stay-at-Home Dad

To look at Aaron Simmons, you might think he’s a young executive, a middle manager on his way up the corporate ladder. Maybe he’s in sales. Maybe it’s something more like IT. He looks you in the eye and addresses you by name. He’s got a firm handshake and near military posture. You might think he’s the guy running the meeting or making a late-night trip to Kinko’s to get the presentation ready.

And, every one of those impressions would be oh-so wrong and no one is happier about that than Simmons. He was very close to that path toward the corporate climb, but it didn’t happen.

After graduating from Miami University with a degree in Marketing and University of Cincinnati with an MBA, it would have seemed logical that Simmons would have followed the path well-trodden by generations of men before him who played the game and rose through the ranks, using their jobs to be the breadwinner and good provider.

But Simmons, 36, is a stay-at-home dad and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Michelle (his wife) and I knew that I would stay home when we had kids. That was the plan all along,” he says, standing in the kitchen of the family’s Lebanon home, his three daughters, Madie, 4, Izzy, 3, and Katie, 20-months milling about. “Michelle loved her job a lot more… She made more money and she was just better at being in the corporate world…I never had a love affair with my job.”

Now, while his friends attend power-lunches and do their best to feign interest during endless meetings, Simmons is balancing a tight schedule, divided into 10-minute segments. He’s up by 6 to get the youngest breakfast and some daddy time. The two older girls get up a bit later. He gets them dressed and off to pre-school four mornings a week. While they are there, he and Katie run errands: Home Depot, Kroger—the usual. Then, it’s back to pick-up Madie and Izzy and home for lunch. The girls play on the basement floor while he runs on the treadmill or rides his stationary bike.

Later, while one or all of the girls are napping or playing by themselves, he does the cleaning and, eventually, the cooking. These things come naturally to Simmons, whose mom passed away when he was 10, leaving him and his dad on their own.

“After my mom died, I did all the cooking and cleaning,” he said. “So it was no big deal for me to be doing it.”

Dealing with Misconceptions

Aaron Simmons runs his household; he runs marathons—including one in Antarctica. He is a tri-athlete. He can turn a quick mile and a quick meal. He’s a tech guy, a guy you’d probably like to have for a beer and the game. He’s a guy’s guy but misconceptions are common, whether they come from men on his block or women at playgroups.

“A lot of people ask me ‘So when are you going back to work?’” Simmons grins widely when he says this, kind of like when you realize some one is saying something stupid without knowing it. “My plan is to never go back to work. This is the choice we made for our lives… the things that I do don’t just go away once the kids are all in school.”

He’s careful not to call being a stay-at-home dad a job or a career. It’s a set of responsibilities and duties. He avoids the typical, somewhat defensive, notion of care giving as ‘the most important job in the world.’

“It’s not really a job,” he says. “There’s a lot of responsibility, a ton of responsibility, and it may be hard, but it’s not a job… A job is what you go to an office for. I don’t have a job.”

He’s also quick to break from stereotypical male and female stereotypes. “You have to think of it as, there’s a primary caregiver and a secondary caregiver in a family, rather than a mom and dad… I’m the primary caregiver. That’s what I do.”

Michelle Simmons said she and her husband lead a very normal life. They are homebodies, really, preferring to stay in and watch a movie with the kids rather than going out on the town. They met in college, on the program board at Miami, and were married six years before Madie was born. To Michelle, their life is much like the one she grew up in. Her mom stayed home until she was in the second grade and then went to work as a home economics teacher.

A Modern Minority

“I suppose that we’re sort of modern,” said Michelle. “It’s just that our roles are reversed. We live a very traditional life. Traditional, with a twist.”

Time magazine recently ran a statistical abstract of the United States and cited data that 24.2 million married couples have children under the age of 18 at home. Sixty-four percent of these households have both parents working; in 30% the husband works while the wife stays home with the kids. The Simmons family fits into the 4% of American families where the husband stays at home while the wife is the primary financial provider.

Peter Baylies is the founder of the At-Home Dad’s Network, a web-based networking community for stay-at-home-dads based out of his Massachusetts home. He said volatile economic factors lead to a growth in the number of at-home dads in the 1990s, when tech jobs were being lost in the US to foreign out-sourcing. For some dads the online world provides a social safety net to help otherwise reluctant men come to grips with the challenges and social stigmas facing at-home fathers.

“An at-home-dad kind of knows in his gut that it’s good to stay at home with the kids,” Baylies said. “But more and more fathers are coming out and saying they are proud to be dads… It’s not a revolution, it’s an evolution.”

“It’s becoming more prevalent,” Michelle said of her Microsoft coworkers. “I’d say about half of the people have a spouse stay at home and it’s mostly wives. But there are some husbands who stay home too.”

All About Team

Aaron staying home means Michelle can concentrate on her career. It has to be that way, she says, other wise she would become distracted by worrying about things at home instead of work.

“(Michelle’s) dad says we make a good team,” Aaron said. “Michelle is very supportive and understanding of the fact that our roles are reversed. She defers to me on virtually everything when it comes to the kids. Just like most dads would defer to their wives.  I decide when they go to bed. If they’re sick, I decide if they go to the doctor or just wait and see. When we did potty training, we used my strategies. Sure we ‘discuss’ things, but for the most part the day-to-day choices are left to me. If she tried to get into everything that went on around here because those are ‘mom decisions’ this would be a disaster. Our house is exactly like any ‘stereotypical’ stay-at-home mom house, everything is just reversed.”

Friends and family have accepted the Simmons’ lifestyle and duties. Some are even envious. How many cubicle dwellers get to wear shorts every day of the year? They don’t see him as a ‘Mr. Mom’ – a moniker he thinks is out of context. (“Guys who stay at home don’t like Michael Keaton with a beard ironing grilled cheese sandwiches; clean shaven and together later in the movie. Fine, but no beard.”) And for those who maybe don’t quite understand, he’s patient and tends not to let it get to him.

“Some guys, but a lot of women, especially those who stay home, seem a little defensive about staying home.” They act like they have to prove their worth to the outside world for staying home with the kids, he said. “I just never felt the need to validate myself.”

Q and A with Aaron Simmons

Has there ever been a time when you (either of you) wanted to reconsider your situation?
“There has actually never been a time where I/we reconsidered.  However, they drive me to the brink of insanity on a daily and sometimes hourly basis.  They also drive me crazy.”

What’s the first question you are usually asked when you meet someone new and tell them you stay-at-home? Is there a standard reaction?
“The standard reaction is, ‘Oh the guy down the street from us stays home.  I’ll give you his number and you guys can get together.’  It’s like people trying to send their homosexual friends on blind dates because ‘gay men only want to hang around other gay men and can’t meet them on their own.’ I have never met with a negative reaction. Some dads wish they could do it. Some moms say they could never stay at home.  The moms that stay at home are usually positive. They know (that unlike their husbands) I actually understand what goes on everyday. In fact, I probably get along better with the moms I know because we have common complaints about our spouses and children. Take most of the stereotypical dad complaints (home late, doesn’t put kids to bed on time, doesn’t cook, doesn’t clean, leaves dirty clothes all over) and those apply to Michelle, the same as they would any dad who works a full time job.”

What’s your favorite meal you prepare?
“I do lots of chicken and pork chops on the grill.  Mashed potatoes from scratch.  Good chocolate chip cookies. The chicken finger recipe on the Bisquick box is pretty good. Anything that can thaw in the morning, marinates in the afternoon, and cook in less than 30 minutes. Frozen vegetables are pretty popular.  The crock pot is also used quite a bit.”

What’s your favorite brand of diapers?
“Three kids over five years and we’ve never used anything but Pampers.  If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. In a general sense with virtually everything around here, I am very brand loyal.”

You mentioned that you keep in touch via the internet and Wall Street Journal. Do you read any parenting magazines or websites?
“Looked at the magazines and websites a long time ago, but they are fairly worthless.  Same articles re-hashed over and over just to sell ad space.  People who give advice like ‘when the child throws a tantrum, explain to them in a steady voice that they need to calm down’ need to be pushed off a cliff.  The same with, ‘give the child a choice between carrots and broccoli, that way they feel in control.’  BS, the kid knows they’re both vegetables, he/she may be a kid, but they aren’t stupid.”

Is there anywhere that you are at a disadvantage for being a stay-at-home dad instead of a mom?
“The single thing I have the most trouble with is hair.  First, my head is shaved; second, I have no clue how to do pig tails, ponytails, or any of that stuff.  Usually, I make a terrible attempt at it and then the teachers at Madie and Izzy’s school fix it for me.”