Stepping up to be a Lead Dad isn’t always without its challenges.
Dan Jones, our Lead Dad of the Week from suburban Boston, said he embraced the role as his wife Lisa’s financial services career required more travel. He realized quickly that his transition from a senior role at Fidelity Investments to full-on Lead Dad was abrupt. He hadn’t realized what he’d missed – a paycheck – until he did.
“I wasn’t prepared for the supposed ‘jokes’ from other men about staying home and how I had it made and ate chocolates all day,” he said.
At the same time, he loved being there for his two daughters and threw himself into their schools and activities.
About ten years ago, he got a call from some friends he’d known from his single days. They were putting together a group to invest in some real estate in Gardener, Montana, an entrance to Yosemite National Park. A saloon, a restaurant, a dance hall with gambling, a pizza parlor, a few other buildings – sounds like the setup for an old Western. He was in!
“I missed working,” Dan said.
Now he had something to focus a different part of his brain: “I was very lucky that I could do the work whenever I wanted. I had missed the intellectual challenges of working your brain and solving problems. Every day it was something new, and I liked it. I needed something else to focus on.”
Today, as he looks back having recently become a Lead Grandad, he has some advice he wishes someone had told his younger self.
“I would have had a better answer to what you do,” he said. “I struggled with that one in the beginning. My response became, would you tell a woman that? Probably not.”
And second: “I’d tell my younger self to be prepared for what it feels like not to have a paycheck coming in. My wife’s upside for compensation was dramatically increased by me becoming a Lead Dad, so from a Jones Family standpoint, economically it made sense. But it didn’t mean that I didn’t miss having a paycheck.”
Thank you, Dan, for your introspection and honesty. Welcome to The Company of Dads.
