Family's a career for some dads

After he bows, 5-year-old Jasper Thomas practices karate kicks in the morning before he dresses himself, makes his bed, feeds his dog, Moki, and lets him outside.

Then he wakes his parents.

"His karate teacher told him it's a privilege to be here," said Jasper's mother, Julie Thomas. She said her son wants to prove that he's responsible enough to earn the right.

"His chores are like his work," Julie said. "He wants to be like his dad."

He is well on his way.

Jeff Thomas, 33, has a full-time job unlike many fathers in Utah.

"I'm a stay-at-home-dad," Jeff said.

"My main priority is these guys," he said, pointing at the two blond children on playground equipment at the park. The kids were trying to get Moki to go down the slide.

"I grew up in a career-oriented home among socialites," Thomas said. "I was really neglected because of that."

By the time he was 7 years old, Jeff Thomas was basically taking care of himself. He wants a different childhood for his children.

"When you get neglected," Jeff said as tears came to his eyes, "you struggle because you want to be loved. I don't want them to have the same feeling as I had when I was growing up."

After his parents divorced, Jeff said, his family situation reached a point where he was almost placed in foster care. Instead, he went to live with his sister in Boise. There, he helped raise her family. By the time he was 13, he was reading books with titles like "Circle of Life."

"She had child-development books lying around everywhere," Jeff said. "I was a teenager and was reading those books. It prepared me for this."

Julie said her husband has wanted to be a stay-at-home dad from the beginning.

"On our first date," Julie said, "we said if we ever stayed together, he'd have to be a stay-at-home-dad and I'd work."

Thirteen years later, the couple is living that goal in the Daybreak development, where they live with their children, Jasper and a 2-year-old daughter, Jaden. Each morning, Julie, 30, awakes about 6 a.m. to start her telecommuting job in their basement, where she works until the afternoon. Jeff takes care of the children, and in the evening he works part time from home as an airline reservation agent.

"I never imagined that we would luck out and I could work from home," Julie said.

On a wall in their home hangs a collage of family photos surrounding the words, "No ordinary moment."

"As a parent," Jeff said, "the situation is always changing. You have to deal with new scenarios."

He said that some men, when they find out he is a stay-at-home dad, assume it's an easy job.

"Dude, you need to have more respect for your wife," Jeff said of his response. "They have no clue."