Ranks of at-home dads are growing

Steve Moseley loves his job. He cleans the house, puts dinner on the table -- and spends most of the day taking care of his only child, 2-year-old Carol.

"I love taking her to the museum and seeing her get larger and more mature every day," said Moseley, of Cincinnati. "It's good just being there when she wakes up and starts screaming for Mommy or Daddy."Moseley, a 36-year-old former chemist, is a card-carrying father. While his wife works full-time as a biochemical researcher to supply the family with income and benefits, Moseley attends to Carol and other domestic duties at home.

He is not unhappy. "I kind of like being retired," he said.

And he is not alone.

Every week, the "Cincinnati Stay-at-Home Dads," a group of 10 Cincinnati-area fathers, gathers at a park or other child-friendly setting for a play group. Each of the fathers has given up full-time employment in order to devote time to his child or children. A few continue to work part-time.

Part of a tiny but growing counterculture, the fathers share numerous qualities, including a dislike of day-care institutions, an indifference toward material wealth and a devotion to children. Most of all, they share a willingness to go against the grain, and they are not -- to use one of their phrases -- afraid to "come out of the kitchen" and publicly talk about it.

Several of them did so during a recent play-group outing.

"I don't think there's anything more satisfying than seeing your child walk or crawl for the first time," said Ty Leonard, a 34-year-old former restaurant manager. "And when your little boy turns around to you and says, 'I love you, Daddy, I love you so much,' I . . . well . . . I could cry."

When the Cincinnati Stay-at-Home Dads get together once a month for "Dad's night out," they don't talk too much about sports or other traditional guy stuff.

"One time we got together for a Mighty Ducks hockey game, and we were all sitting there drinking our beers, watching this macho sport, and the conversation turned into an hour of potty-training," said Tim Nabors, a 39-year-old former manufacturer's representative. "I said, 'You know, this is a unique group of guys here.' "

That doesn't mean making the transition from working male to at-home father was as simple as reading Mother Goose, however. The at-home dads have weathered the shock of their colleagues, the isolation that comes from being home with a tiny baby and the discomfort of the inevitable cocktail party question: "And what do you do?"