A new report from Zillow shows nearly 10 percent of stay-at-home parents in the Seattle area are dads, and it's a trend that is growing.
Jamie Tuttle is a stay-at-home dad to 19-month-old twins Talus and Titan.
It was a choice Tuttle made when he and his wife Jill first got married. He wanted to spend as much time as he could with his kids and when they found out they were having twins, having him stay home to care for them was a no-brainer.
"It's a very unconventional role," Tuttle said. "It's a stereotype I like to buck."
When Tuttle tells people that he stays home with the kids while his wife works, almost everyone seems surprised.
"Most of the time I get the question when I'm out shopping with the boys. I'll get a lot of, 'It's babysitting day for dad!' Or 'Dad's getting a little time with the kids,'" Tuttle said.
When people ask what it's like, Tuttle said, "It's like I'm a parent. I do what any other parent would do."
Making friends with other moms hasn't always been easy.
"There's been a couple groups where I've gone for meetups, they look at me differently and say, 'Why is he here?"' Tuttle said.
But for the most part, people are accepting and welcoming. He experienced that on the first day of a new parent support group at Evergreen Health.
"I realize there are a bunch of breastfeeding moms there, how is this going to happen? Boom, everybody's doing it, and everybody's cool with it. So I guess I'm part of the group," Tuttle said.
Like a lot of new moms, Tuttle said the hardest part of being a stay-at-home parent is loneliness and isolation. But life with two young boys is usually filled with so much laughter and adventure, being at home has been worth every challenging moment for him.
