Prepare Your Unemployed Spouse to Be a Stay at Home Dad

Like many others enduring the stress of a weakened economy I am living a scenario in which my husband lost his job and I was offered a full time position leaving my newly unemployed spouse a stay at home dad.

The role reversal has been a little hairy-scary at times to say the least. I realized that I couldn't just dump twenty years of domesticated perfection on him. What started out as a few random notes for my SAHD quickly became a how-to guide to being me when I was a SAHM. Hopefully my tips on how to prepare your unemployed spouse to step into your shoes as a full time stay at home parent will make the transition smoother and help keep peace in your abode.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!

When it comes to cooking meals for the family it's a good idea to discuss what level of cooking your spouse is most comfortable with. If he's Chef Boyardee then let him do his thing and I envy you all the great meals he'll be serving you. If boiled hot dogs are more his speed then work that to your advantage by putting chili dogs and French fries on the menu.

Regardless of how good or bad of a cook he is, there are 3 things you can do to make meal time easy.

1. Write down all your recipes and stash them in a recipe box he can easily find.

2 Buy a magnetic whiteboard and put only 7 days on it '" Monday through Sunday.

3. Put a recipe card on each day. Mix it up every week to fight food boredom.

Grocery Shopping Blues

I found that my unemployed spouse was clueless about groceries when he came home with 4 carrots, an enormous head of broccoli, 3 pork chops and the biggest watermelon he could find. And he had a grocery list in his pocket!

To simplify his new duties I not only planned the meals and made a grocery list, but I actually accompanied him on a few trips to the store. I pointed out brands our family wouldn't eat, how to get the most for my money and how to know how much produce, meat, dairy and junk it actually takes to feed a family for a week.

Now my husband shops in confidence and I know that when I come home I don't have to wonder why we're having jelly beans instead of green beans with roasted chicken.

Exchange Phone Numbers and Addresses

When my husband became a SAHD he had no clue what our kids' friends phone numbers, addresses or names were. He was constantly calling me at work to make sure so-and-so was acceptable company for our daughter.

To put an end to this I made a list of all my daughter's friends (the 5 million I know) including their cell phone numbers, parent's numbers and addresses. My husband learned that if they weren't on that list he would have to meet the parents and get the scoop. It gave him the confidence he needed to deal with our daughter's social plans without checking with me first.

I also wrote down our doctor's phone numbers, school numbers and the coaches' phone numbers. Anyone that we needed to deal with on a regular basis got written down and documented.

If You Fail to Plan You Plan to Fail

One of the best things I ever did for my new SAHD was to create a plan for all possible what-if's; where to get a belt for the vacuum cleaner, who to call if our daughter can't make it to softball practice, where we keep the Drain-o and so forth.

While he'd been in the work world for the last 20 years of our family's lives I'd been setting everything up at home so he had no idea how our household operated. He just assumed it fell into place naturally. He was shocked to discover how much work really goes into running a tight ship.

In order for me to not have to deal with personal phone calls at work it was imperative that I document and plan out as much as I possibly could so that he could hand the daily operations without fear that he'd mess up my already-put-in-place system and I could rest easier knowing that even if he handled something differently than I would, he'd have enough information to take care of it.

I firmly believe the key to role reversal from SAHM to working mom and career dad to SAHD is not just communication but planning. The only way a spouse can step into your shoes, and visa versa, is to know what those shoes do all day. Whatever and however you decide to deal with role reversal just remember that you need each other and you're in it together and it will all work out in the wash -- even if the wash doesn't work out in the wash!

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Personal knowledge and experience
Kelly Spies - Yahoo! Contributor Network