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Who's Your Daddy?

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What’s Your Daddy?  Welcome To My World.
Just Add Kids welcomes Toby Mueller, a Raymond dad, as JAK’s guest blogger

It seems like I say "Welcome to my world" at least once a day to my wife when she returns from the world previously known to me as outside employment. I am sure I heard my mom say it to my dad during my formative years. Now, ironic as it seems, I am saying it like I mean it. And I do mean it.

If you would have asked me ten years ago if I ever thought of being a stay at home dad (SAHD), I would have looked at you and said "a what?" I didn't know any SAHD's when I became one in 2006 and I still know very few in the area. And this is for a good reason. There are not many in the US.

According to the 2009 US Census, there were 5.1 million women who identified themselves as a stay at home parent. While there were 158,000 men who identified themselves as a stay at home dad. That means that SAHD's make up less than 1/100th of the total US population. Not much of a chance that you run into a SAHD on any given day. So if you do, enjoy the opportunity.

But, we are out there. We do all the things that stay at home mom's do and then some. Cooking, cleaning, being a taxi, comforting a child who just skinned their knee. Plus, all of the dad duties don't go away…mowing the lawn, landscaping and home maintenance still need attention.

I have been blessed to be able to raise my girls. Not every dad gets the chance to try it. It is not an easy career path and it is not recommended for every guy out there. Believe me, I have thought of handing in my resignation many times!  But, it is doable.

My hope is that I can share just a small part of the SAHD story through this blog and build a network of SAHDs or other dads who are actively involved in the primary care-giving of their children and want to connect with other dads in Racine and Kenosha County.

I have joined forces with Just Add Kids in launching a community called JAK dads, in an effort to connect our area’s SAHDs to each other with the purpose of providing a haven for support and friendship.

We’ll start our private group on Facebook, and see where it goes!  Kinda like the life we live as SAHDs.  So if you are on Facebook, go ahead and “friend” Just Add Kids then request to join our group JAK dads.

If you have any challenges there.  Just email contact@justaddkidsonline.net

In addition to joining the Just Add Kids community as a guest blogger and JAK dads group administrator, Toby is a frequent contributor on the Caledonia Patch website.  You can catch the above commentary and more of his insights here: http://caledonia.patch.com/users/toby-mueller/blog_posts.
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