The term “stay-at-home dad” is just as accurate as “stay-at-home mom” considering they are hardly ever home says the poughkeepsiejournal.com.
In the Schmitz family, it is Judy Schmitz who boards a train each morning to her job in Albany. She is marketing and web services manager for the SUNY Learning Network, a system of online courses and degree programs organized by the State University of New York.
Her husband, John, partner and creative director for an advertising firm, works from their Barrytown home.
“I’ve still managed projects with large clients like Microsoft and Procter & Gamble from up here,” he said. However, his 50 to 60-hour weeks are a thing of the past, as are the “logging of hundreds of thousands of miles” of travel.
“When the kids are in school, I can get in five to six hours a day for client work, sometimes more if I keep working after they get home.”
Meanwhile, after several years mothering their daughter, Caitlin, his wife was thinking about returning to work.
“I started joking about switching places with (her). … I was actually inspired by John Lennon who quit ‘the big time’ to raise his son. I’d had a full life – traveled and worked all over the world and experienced things many never do.”
When she was four months pregnant with their son, Liam, Judy Schmitz went back to work, and her husband became the “stay-at-home dad.” He had been asked to become a partner in a design firm based in London.
“We decided that a ‘virtual’ New York City office would work fine, so I could work from upstate and come in when necessary for meetings.”
For their daughter, Caitlin, now 12, her father has been at home since she was 5. Their son, Liam, 7, doesn’t recall a time when it was different.