By Austin Guest Blogger, Momma’s Bacon

“Kids spell love T-I-M-E.”
-John Crudele

If you follow my Momma’s Bacon blog you will know we are one of the many Austin families with a Stay At Home Dad (SAHD). What you might not know is that Austin has an active SAHD community through the Austin SAHD Yahoo Group with lots of supportive play dates and a monthly dad’s night out for its 200 (and growing!) members.

In fact, I am the proud spouse of the current Duke of Dad’s Night Out who currently spends a portion of his limited free time carefully selecting a monthly fantastic local watering hole with equally yummy food for their Austin SAHDs meet-ups. My husband meticulously plans these monthly locales alternating between north, south and central Austin locations with this month’s location held at Red’s Porch in south. How I love living in a city that takes such an important role of any parent who chooses to play an active role as primary caregiver seriously! All stay at home parents deserve a monthly, heck weekly, night out with their buddies regardless of gender and the Austin SAHD’s group is no exception.

I had the great pleasure of attending the Austin SAHD’s daily weekday park event at Shipe Park last Friday when I took annual leave to enjoy a nice long holiday weekend with my family. The dads in attendance were welcoming, thoughtful and friendly to this working momma.

Their love and care for their children, some with multiple little ones, is matched with any SAHM that I have ever encountered. It was refreshing to have conversations about a wide variety of parenting topics, my favorite being musical activities, with my husband’s peers.

I definitely recommend any Austin-ite SAHDs who are on the fence about joining this group to give it a shot. Some dads are in a similar boat as our family who decided it was important for us to have a parent stay home with our child during her infant through pre-school years and it was a choice for Bob to stay at home based on my income. My husband also loves and is good at being a SAHD and our daughter’s development and her nature is all the proof I need to know we are doing the best thing for her. However, even in this day and age, a dad staying at home to care for their child can be a difficult adjustment at first and the Austin SAHD’s group had been such an awesome support for our family.

Do not hesitate any longer to reach out to this group, Austin SAHDs. I can almost guarantee you won’t regret it and at the very least you will get a variety of cool Austin locations to hang out with dads in your same situation on a monthly night off away from the kiddos. That sounds like a pretty fantastic group to me!

Are you an Austin SAHD who is Interested in Joining the Austin SAHD Group?

· Visit the Austin-SAHDs (a Yahoo Group) page.

· Request membership through this page. Note: You must have a Yahoo ID to do this.

· Create and send out a Bio through group e-mail members once accepted

· Get ready to meet lots of Austin SAHD and join in the play dates and Dad’s Night Out fun!

Guest Blog Author Bio:

I am a local working Austin Momma, with a SAHD hubby and a toddler, who writes a blog under the moniker ‘Momma’s Bacon’ as an un-paid hobby. I write kid’s product reviews with a focus on empowerment as a passion!