A husband in the house

One minute he was changing the world - the next, he was changing nappies." The blurb on the cover of The Househusband, an entertaining novel by Owen Whittaker, is eyecatching - and captures a feeling a lot of Irishmen might sympathise with.

Actor-turned-novelist Whittaker became a full-time dad out of necessity when his wife went out to work to keep their family financially afloat.

Journalist Kevin Murphy and his wife decided in 1996 that one of them should stay home full-time to mind their children, then aged three, five and seven, because of their need for proper childcare; since his wife earned more money, and he could work from home, he decided it should be him.

Bob, also a writer, became a fulltime father when his children were aged nine and 12, for pretty much the same reason.

They are part of a small but definite trend: just as many women are forced by economic necessity to go out to work, full-time fathers are usually forced by a combination of economic need and the cost/difficulty of finding proper childcare into becoming "househusbands". So do they like being full-time parents, or resent it? Would they recommend it to other men?

Kevin Murphy is heading into his fourth year as a full-time father and says, "I would recommend it - it's the best thing I've ever done in terms of my relationship with the children." That said, he believes it is definitely "a harder option". He laughs wryly when asked if he is annoyed at the common assumption that work done from home (whether writing or minding children) is not really work - of course he is.

Like Whittaker, he has turned his position to advantage, writing a humorous weekly column about family life, "Our Man About the House", for the Sunday World. This at least gives him a profile, he says, whereas the work of other men and women who take care of children and run the house "is undervalued, especially in our Celtic Tiger Ireland of material success".

He and his wife both worked outside the home as their young family was growing, but like many other couples, were finding it a strain: he worked shift hours, her job involved a lot of travel. They were concerned about their childcare arrangements and, in 1996, decided they could just about afford to live on one income. It has meant a fall in standards of living, but a definite "increase in the quality of life", says Murphy.

Few men who take on this role wrap up their whole identity in it, the way women tend to: they are journalists, actors, whatever - who are currently working full-time in the home. But for Murphy, parenthood is the priority. "I'm now a part-time freelance - and I don't take on work that can't be done between 9 a.m. and 12.30 p.m."

There are tensions, of course - times when he feels teed off if his wife doesn't notice something he's done in the house, or feels envy of her jetsetting worklife. Equally, "my wife might see a moment of intimacy between me and the children over something that she's missed, and she can resent that." Role-reversal is definitely not for couples whose marriages are on the rocks, Murphy says.

All three fathers are quite certain that men parent differently to women: Murphy reckons men are less patient, organised and nurturing, but more spontaneous and unpredictable. Whittaker agrees that men are more entertaining, but hampered by not being able to "multi-task", to handle a variety of different jobs at the same time. Bob reckons that he has become sensitive, nurturing and so on with practice, but still finds that in about 10 per cent of situations, children need their mother - "who, by definition, can mother" in a way that men cannot.

Interestingly, however, Val Smith of Parentline thinks men and women don't really parent differently, she says. Simply by taking care of children full-time, fathers become sensitive to their feelings and problems. She reports that an increasing number of calls to Parentline come from fulltime fathers, who don't have the same network of friends they can discuss parenting problems with as women do.

Obviously how men cope with full-time parenthood will depend on how freely they've chosen to take on the job. Either way, Whittaker says it would be tough to do it long-term. Like the hero of his novel, he became a househusband from economic necessity when his children were babies. "That was fine at the beginning and the children are fun to be with, but it's what you're not doing that's the problem." He reckons that one way or another, men tend to be forced into the job. "I don't think many people choose it as a career move, no."

As for other people's reactions, "if you meet a bunch of new friends and say what you do, there's silence, then `oh, right' - they're not sure whether to buy you a pint or a Campari and soda."

ALTHOUGH BOB and Kevin find that some women regard them as saints, Whittaker says "you get as much grief from women". In other words, though many men are taking on this task - one in 20, he has heard since he wrote his novel ("there's even a website for us") - it's only barely socially acceptable.

Whittaker was a full-time househusband for four years - then wrote his novel and gave up the day job. But his next novel draws on his experience of parenthood too: in The Godfather, his hero, a childless recluse, inherits two teenage children from friends who die in a crash.

Whittaker and Murphy agree that men - like women - who take time out to be at home can say goodbye to a serious career, at least in the traditional corporate world. All the buzz talk about family-friendly policies counts for little when push comes to shove: men or women who take time out to mind children are out of the promotion loop and aren't taken seriously.

That's why househusbands are often men who can pursue their work interests from home - though it would be a mistake to think you can easily write a bestseller while coping with housework and childcare. You can't.

The rewards are simpler, and they come directly from whatever satisfaction anyone gets from being a parent. Bob, now struggling through stressful teenage years, believes his children do appreciate the fact that they get a lot of attention from both parents and tell him that he is quite different as a father because he is so involved in their lives. "And that's lovely, because you get so much more from parenthood. It's a positive thing."