Introducing a new book on parenting as a Stay-at-Home/Seasonal Affective Disorder/Generally Depressed Dad
Hello Friends!
While working on revisions to a novel, I’ve also been working on a book proposal for a longer work of nonfiction about my life as a stay-at-home Dad. Here is how I’m describing it below. I’d love to know what you think.
Also, I’m looking for some input to include from friends like you! What were some of the hardest parts of having kids/managing your mental health as a parent?
In this this part memoir/part self-help work of creative nonfiction, I will share my journey of fatherhood and how I struggle to manage my mental (and physical and emotional) health as a Stay-at-Home Dad while raising two young girls in an increasingly volatile world. The book is partially completed as portions of my writing have already been published as essays in various magazines, literary journals, and on my Substack, Levi’s Lost Thoughts. It will be around 65-70,000 words upon completion.
After I lost my job during the 2020 covid-19 pandemic, I (like many people during this time period) suddenly found myself in an entirely new line of work. After more than a dozen years in the coffee industry, I lost my job and transitioned into life as a stay-at-home dad to my then eighteen-month-old daughter. Over the next three years, I found myself navigating the chaos of a life as a father to one, and then two young daughters during a global pandemic—one where libraries and playgrounds were closed, covid outbreaks shut down daycares, and playdates were non-existent.
Millenial Dads spend three times the amount of time with their children than men have traditionally spent, and yet I found myself facing a host of generational specific questions no one seemed to have the answer for. As childcare rates rise and wages fall, how do you decide who goes to work and who stays home? How do you balance self-care and family life as a Stay-at-home Dad/father? How do you stay sane when there are so many unknowns and the future looks bleak? How do you manage screen time? How do you maintain a relationship with your partner while parenting and also try to make art and meaning out of this life?
The book will support and encourage parents who have mental health issues or whose mental health has taken a hit since having kids. To remind people, like all good books do, that they are not alone in their various personal struggles. Chapters include: Sad Dad, Almost Dad, Rad Dad, Broke Dad, Mad Dad, Tired Dad, Fat Dad, and Welcome Dad.
Is there anything you would like to see in a book about parenting and mental health? What things do you wish you’d known before becoming a parent? What things have been the major stressors in your marriage and/or life as a parent?
