Maid, cook, stay-at-home daddy

By DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE All Woman writer husseyd@jamaicaobserver.com 

FRED Campbell's routine is much of the same everyday. He drops his wife to work and his son to school, then he returns home, sweeps up, cleans, washes on select days, and then relaxes to listen to Perkins On Line. When school lets out he goes to collect his child, then returns home where he does the homework/dinner routine, before he has to pick up his wife again.

This he has been doing since his son, three in March, was six months old, and his wife returned to work after an extended maternity leave.

Before that, he worked as a driver for a distributor company and then quit to be a taxi operator, and his wife had worked up to her ninth month of pregnancy.

He will tell anyone who will listen that he has it "good", and he preaches the importance of one parent being available full time to meet the child's needs.

"My child will not go to daycare," insisted Campbell, whose name and others in the story have been changed.

He had worked on and off as a taxi driver while his wife was pregnant and immediately after the child's birth, but quit as soon as she returned to work. Nowadays he will do charters occasionally when a neighbour or friend needs his services, but for the most part plays daddy, maid, cook, and full-time househusband.

Alfonso is laid up at home with a bad leg from an accident, and has no intention of returning to work. He has invested the insurance money from the accident, and his wife makes good money managing a bakery in Mandeville.

"We made the decision that it didn't make sense for me to return to driving trucks for people, and my father-in-law, who had lived with us, passed on, so there would have been no one at home when the children got home from school," he reasoned. "I'll always have a limp and metal in my leg, so my heavy-duty working days are over."

Nowadays he sends the children off to school and does the cleaning and laundry while he has the house to himself. He attends school meetings and does the shopping and looks over homework and has dinner on the table when his family gets home.

"I was 46 when the accident happened, I'm 48 now," he said. "The decision we made was perfect for our survival as a family."

Househusband beaten with a pot cover

The men's choice to stay home is rare in Jamaica, where, even if the situation is actually evident in homes, experts list it as less of a choice by families, and more of an economic factor.

Dr Herbert Gayle, anthropologist at the University of the West Indies and president of Fathers' Inc, said while a number of men are in fact staying home, it is not an option for them but a spin-off from unemployment, as a number of them have been laid off or are unemployable.

And he said, regardless of the reason for men staying home, they are looked down on, not only by the society in general, but by their own partners.

"Yes these men are looked down upon by many of their spouses," said Gayle. "Yes, a lot of women look down on these men, a lot of cases we have in front of us (Fathers' Inc) directly, where a lot of the women pretend it's OK and when the pressure reaches them they tell the man he is not a man.

"I have always encouraged women not to encourage it — the 'I go to work and the man stay at home', because I know for sure that when the frustration hits them there will be problems. I know of one case where the woman actually started to beat the guy... when the frustration hit her she beat him with the pot cover."

Gayle said in cases where the men genuinely choose to stay at home the women earn more money, are very mature and are not given to beating their men.

"For that is a major problem, where the woman will beat the men..." he said. "I think we kind of overdo the father wanting to stay at home thing," he declared. "Men are biologically hunters. But men are not primarily homemakers."

The women say:

All Woman asked a few women their thoughts on men staying at home while women work. These were the responses:

Dorain Phillips, 23, Duhaney Park, St Andrew:

It would depend on the circumstances. If I know that he is usually the type of man who always works hard and lost his job, and as long as I see him trying to get a job again, then I can work with him. If while he stays home he is washing, cooking and cleaning for that time that he is home then I have no problem with that, because it is less strain on me. But if it is a long-term thing, no sah! I couldn't work with that at all! Worse if all he does is stay home and watch soap operas and have friends over to drink. No. That could not work.

Bridgette Rose, 38, Arnett Gardens, Kingston:

No woman can be happy in such a situation! I am in that very position and I don't appreciate it because if he was working the money would stretch more. It is very stressing to have a man sit down at home doing nothing and you alone have to go out and work. Especially when he can find something to do. If he was working his dollar could put on mine and the bills would be less on me. Right now he will pick up my daughter from school but he's not washing and it's only like a week now I notice he's started cooking when I am at work. In fact, I understand that when I am gone to work and leave him with the kids — one four-years-old and one four months — he just leaves the bigger one with the little one and gone 'bout him business. More time I have to just cuss him off and tell him some awful things. I call him 'Ole worthless bwoy!' and tell him he's 'worse than a infidel'.

Alecia Palmer, 36, Arnett Gardens, Kingston:

Man not supposed to stay at home. The Lord say the man is the head of the household, just like how Christ is the head of the church. They are the breadwinners so as long as him not a thief or a gunman he should go out and work to support his family — that is a man's job! One hand can't clap! So if it's even to go out and sell bag juice or phone card, do something! The Bible say 'don't feed a lazy man', so him can't eat my food!

Nicola Murray, 41, Cross Roads, St Andrew:

A maama man dat! Nuh man can't come to me with that! And live in whose house? If it's a case that him get fired or him lose him job then him can stay home for a while, yes. But everyday mi have to see the effort him putting out to find work. I am not minding any man. Yes I don't mind him helping out with the kids and taking care of the house, but as far as I am concerned he can — and should — do that even while he's working 'cause I am working and I have to do that too. So it has to be both of us in everything! I could not sleep with a man like that.