What My Partner Learned As a Stay-At-Home Dad
Namely, that we don’t value caregivers — and we should
When my partner called me at work, his breath sounded labored. “Is everything okay?” I asked with alarm. Everything wasn’t okay. My partner was walking home with our 14-month-old baby on his back, wearing a tank top through which he was copiously sweating.
Were it summer, there would be no cause for concern. No one walks outside for any length of time during a Washington, D.C. summer without copiously sweating — especially if you have a baby on your back.
But it wasn’t summer. It was January, and the temperature outside was a brisk 31 degrees.
I think I’m having a panic attack, he said.
The thought of my husband having a panic attack — with our daughter on his back, blocks away from home — was enough to send my own nervous system into overdrive.
I managed to talk him down, but it wasn’t the last time his anxiety would rear its ugly head. He wasn’t a stranger to anxiety — or even to panic attacks, for that matter — but this felt different. His anxiety built on itself that much more quickly when he was simultaneously being entrusted with a human life. Not only that, it was the life of a human who had recently learned how to not just walk, but run…
