Hard Truth: The Works of Stay Home Dads Are “Invisible”

For a long time now, I’ve been mulling over this topic. That stay home dads are “invisible”.

Or rather, I didn’t know I was mulling over it until an incident last month.

Non-Stop Invisible Errands Are Par For The Cause

It was six am on the first Tuesday of 2026.

I had to wake my youngest boy up to get ready for school. But what was different about this day was that I also had to wake my wife up. She had to return to the hospital early for various appointments. The plan was to send her after we drop our son off at school.

Prior to her chemo appointment that day, we had to first see the dietician for a follow-up on my wife’s weight gain progress (she had lost a lot of weight after her surgery last August). To ensure we don’t miss any instructions in the hour-long consultation, I took pains to voice-record the session with my smartphone.

After the consult with the dietician, I drove my wife to a different block at the hospital to collect medicine. The plan was for me to drop her off there (she would make her own way to her chemo appointment thereafter) while I spent the rest of the morning running errands.

Endless Invisible Errands

First, I went to the gas station to pump petrol and wash our dirty car.

Next, I went to a bank at the neighbourhood centre to request a printed statement of his bank account for my son’s school (so they could transfer some monetary award he received into the right bank account).

Then, I went to a traditional Chinese medicine shop to buy some cough mixture for him and his brother (they had caught one another’s bug at the start of 2026). I also went looking (unsuccessfully) for a pouch to hold my youngest’s new handphone. Along the way, I bought my wife an earpiece as her old one was missing.

As it was lunchtime, I grabbed a quick bite at a coffee shop before returning to the bank to collect the statement. Then I went to the large hawker centre nearby to pack a porridge lunch for my eldest boy at home. While waiting for my turn to order the porridge, I emailed my wife’s personal documents to the health insurance company that was helping to cover her chemo treatment costs.

By the time I got home with the porridge, I was exhausted!

Making The “Invisible”, Visible!

And then the idea hit me.

I should list everything I did and send it to my wife as evidence of what I did since we parted ways that morning.

Why? Because I did all the above alone and, other than strangers, there were no eyewitnesses to verify what I did!

It got me thinking: the ordinary, daily life of a stay home spouse and father looks so, well, “ordinary.” Is it any wonder what we do for ourselves and our family is often invisible to the naked eye?

For the record, I’ve been a stay home dad since 2018. It’s certainly given me a deeper appreciation of mothers throughout the millenia for silently and often invisibly holding fort in the hearth. However, the truth is that in recent decades, their efforts have gained much more attention. Attention they well deserve and have been overdue for.

So anytime you talk about a mother performing the role of caring for the family and household, affirmative nods are quickly offered now. And no one would dream of challenging that.

Still, can the same be said of fathers who take on domestic roles?

Unfortunately, I don’t think so.

And I’m not alone.

The Challenge To Not Be Invisible Is Universal

According to a BBC report published in 2023, men who make this choice (staying home to parent) can feel like the odd ones out – and sometimes are judged harshly. Even in cultures where fathers are expected to be more involved than in the past, they are still expected to be the breadwinners of the family, and are frequently stereotyped as less nurturing or domestically adept than mothers. 

While stay home fathers may get the ‘same recognition’ if they do EXACTLY what mothers across time do — cook, clean, clothe, etc. — just that he’s a male, people will still look at him oddly. They wonder why any man would choose to be “invisible” and stay home. For isn’t it only right that the man “conquers the world and (visibly) brings home the harvest.”

Whenever any man introduces himself as a stay home dad (if he so dares), he’s sure to invite a funny look, a raised eyebrow, and lots more questions (mostly unspoken), than if a woman were to introduce herself as a stay home mom.

I’ve come to learn the truth of this state of affairs, both from personal experience as well as the community of dads I got to know these past three years.

Maybe, like how it took decades for society to accept that corporate bigwigs can be female, maybe it will take many more decades for the same acceptance to be granted to men when they choose to stay home.

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