How did my children - my son and my daughter - react to me being a stay-at-home dad? Well my son is 13 and my daughter is 10 now. Now it's just part of the fabric. They don't even think about it that much. But historically I can remember when I came home from work after having been laid off, and my 5-year-old son said, "you lost your job." and it seemed very worried because it seemed not even a concept to him that I could be a dad and not be working. Because that was the norm in his world. But it was also like Christmas because all of a sudden this person who he loved and adored was home all the time. My daughter, she grew up with it, so it wasn't really a change for her. Where it started to become an issue was when they got more into the social scene at school and all of a sudden, dad is at the PTA meetings. Dad is picking up from a play date. Dad is just there all the time. And nobody knows why. And they had to explain to their classmates, "my dad stays at home." And it was a puzzlement for their classmates, and therefore it became more of a social issue for them. But I told them, look, I'm more than happy to tell your friends or your friends' parents what our situation in and help you out socially so that it won't be a big deal for you.