Given the amount of progress we've made in recent years with various topics that were once "hush hush", I always find myself coming back to the same overlooked topics.
Stay-at-home dads is one of them.
When our little lady was at the tiny age of 5 months, my partner went for a new job in a new sector that was absolutely worth the long process of interviews, checks and paperwork.
He found himself waiting however, and as it turned out he continued waiting for nine months after leaving his previous job.
Those nine months of him being a SAHD were unplanned, but the most wonderful months. And he will say to this day that he would never change it.
He cooked, cleaned, fed, changed - and everything in between. Yet I am fairly positive that there were many people looking at him thinking: "surely he's not capable of taking on the mother's role?"
But, what is a mother's role as opposed to a father's?
It seems that, even in this day and age, there's a misconception that men are totally incapable of keeping a home together plus minding children.
People can talk for hours about the maternal instinct but does anyone talk about the paternal?
It's real, it's there, and it exists in both sexes, just not in every individual.
It seems that there are still a lot of women, and men, who still believe that we are living in the old age of the woman being the home maker, and the man being the breadwinner.
If you are led to believe you can't do something, then why would you bother?
With this unspoken subject, the "men are useless" tag is just downright old-fashioned; how is anyone supposed to have confidence in themselves as a parent?
I personally made sure that the wonderful father of my little girl got as much encouragement and involvement in those newborn days, as he was an extremely inexperienced carer of babies, let alone newborns!
I truly believe this led to us carrying on our relationship the same as we always have, equal and fair.
If we stood back and looked at the bigger picture, we might even find that these stay-at-home dads all have varying situations in their lives, just the very same as stay-at-home mums.
Partners have walked out, passed away, separated - you name it. There are so many situations whereby the other parent is left "holding the baby" so to speak, picking themselves up and carrying on for their children.
It does not matter if that is Daddy or Mummy. We just shouldn't judge a situation we know nothing about or we are just seeing from the outside.
The bottom line is: all stay-at-home parents, whether it be one or the other, I applaud you!
I myself am a stay-at-home mum and I wouldn't have it any other way right now.
It is a very hard thing to do and we ALL need to realise that no matter who you are or which gender: you are doing an awesome job!
