Men opting to put kids before jobs

By ALISON HORWOOD

Allister Campbell-Tie is the first to admit that being a full-time dad to his three young children is "the hardest job ever".

Tougher even than the frantic 60-hour weeks he used to work in the television and video production industry.

He gave that job up three years ago and these days stays home to look after Joshua, 5, Fin, 2, and 4-week-old Lily.

His partner, Pip Campbell-Tie, is a clinical psychologist, who runs a back-pain rehabilitation centre with a doctor and two physiotherapists.

Allister Campbell-Tie, of Christchurch, says the decision to trade career for kids was financial.

The couple also didn't want the children to be in care.

"When Josh was little, we used to both work part-time and share the care," he says. "Pip would get home in the afternoon and we would all spend time together before I went to work in the early evening.

"But then Pip set up the business, and after a while it became more financially viable than the work I was doing. Then Fin came along, and [Pip] went back to work quite early on.

"The philosophy we have with the kids is that they come first," he says.

"When we put them into care, it is for them to have contact with other children, and not for us to have time out.

"After spending so much time with the kids, I definitely would not want any one else doing what I do."

Campbell-Tie admits that as much as he loves spending time with the children, it can be hard.

"It can be frustrating sometimes. You can almost climb the walls when three kids are going off at the same time.

"Sometimes I love it, and sometimes I don't. [But] I certainly wouldn't want anyone else to do it for me."

Apart from a short, part-time stint with a Barnados caregiver, Joshua was cared for at home until he started kindergarten. Fin spent a couple of weeks at childcare but hated it.

During the week, Pip Campbell-Tie normally leaves the house before 8am and returns about 6pm. She took five weeks off around the the birth of Lily, but returned to work this week.

"We made a decision not to breast-feed this one," says Allister Campbell-Tie. "We had trouble with the first two, and our midwife just told us to do what was best for all of us."

The bottle-feeding makes it easier for him to care for the newborn, and lets his wife get on with her day without expressing milk or worrying about coming home to feed.

The thing Campbell-Tie misses most about his career is adult contact. In any spare time, he keeps a hand in by teaching video production and media studies voluntarily at a local secondary school.

"When I go out to work, I just forget about them [the children] for a while," he says.

Once the kids are less dependent, he will pick up his career again in a full-time job.

But despite the fact house-husbands are increasingly common, peers' attitudes to his career trade-off can still surprise him.

Joshua's friends at school have asked him why dad doesn't work, and even some of the mothers from school and kindergarten seem to stand back.

"Some people I meet think I am some sort of super-dad, but others seem to wonder what's wrong with me that I can't hold down a full-time job," says Campbell-Tie.

He gets some help from both sets of grandparents, but most of his day is involved with meals, school drop-off and pick-up, and keeping house.

"I try, but I am a male so I can't see dust that well. The days are quite full-on. Thank goodness for midnight supermarket shopping."

Mike McIntyre used to take home up to $1000 in weekly pay as a programmer for a software house, but he gave it all up to spend more time with his 5-year-old twins, Caleb and Chelsea.

These days, the Auckland father of four is on a benefit, often struggling to make mortgage payments and pay the bills.

He quit his job in November last year to spend more time with his children, and says quite simply: "I have no regrets whatsoever. It was the best decision I ever made."

McIntyre says that when he took the job in 1998, he had an informal arrangement to take every second weekend off. He was separated from the mother of his twins, and had an agreement to take them from Friday to Monday every two weeks.

But the hours began to snowball, and he was working almost every weekend. "The turning point was when I asked them for a weekend off so I could spend time with my oldest son. They agreed in principle, but then told me I had to work until midday on Saturday.

"At 10.15pm on the Sunday I got a call asking why I was not available," says McIntyre, of Manurewa.

Apparently the decision to give him the weekend off had been reversed, and he was called into a meeting with his bosses on the Monday morning.

"They said, 'We want you to be available all the time'. I had a three-second think about things and said, 'I quit'.

"I just didn't want to miss out on them," he explains. "They were young, and at a critical age and I didn't want them growing up and thinking they didn't really know me."

He says his relationship with his older children, aged 20 and 21, was complicated when they were younger because of strict visitation rules.

He has tried hard to mend those relationships but says he didn't want rifts arising between him and his younger children.

"It was the single biggest influence in making this decision," he says. "I missed out so much with my daughter and son. I thought, I am not missing out the same way with Caleb and Chelsea."

Now McIntyre is at home, he takes the children one week in two. On weekdays, he walks them to school, and is there to meet them at 3pm.

"It's a godsend. I have such a different relationship with them now. I am not just the good-time dad I was in the weekends, I am actually a real dad. I have basically got to know my children properly."

The only down side is the loss in income. McIntyre describes his finances as "abysmal" and says the past nine months has involved a big change in lifestyle.

"I own my own home, so there are mortgage payments to meet. I think I have been to the movies once or twice in the last year, and I used to take the twins to McDonald's on Friday as a treat, but not any more.

"If they need new shoes it can be hard, but I am good at doing things such as going to the park or beach - which is free.

During the week when McIntyre has the children, he says his days are kept busy preparing them for school, walking them home, preparing meals and keeping house.

Any spare time is spent at home writing an internet application which he says began as a project, but may make him some money one day and allow him to work from home.

McIntyre says the response from people about his decision to give up a good career has been interesting.

"While women are supportive, men say, 'I admire you for what you have done, but I couldn't have done it'.

"But I love my new life and I don't have any regrets. As they say, the greatest thing you can spend on your kids is your time."