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Nontraditional role keeps dad busy

Nontraditional role keeps dad busy

By AMY FLOWERS UMBLE

Date published: 6/15/2003

IT WAS THE MIDDLE of a horrendous week, and I was making a rare visit to the office. With a house on the market, two sick kids and a sick husband, my appearances at the office had become sporadic.

The booming voice on my voice mail said, "I'm who you're looking for."

He could only be one of two things: a valium pusher or a personal maid-nanny-chef-masseuse.

The voice belonged to Gerry Bradshaw. He doesn't push drugs, but he does take care of kids, cook dinner and do the laundry. This self-proclaimed "king of coupons" even goes grocery shopping. But not for me.

Bradshaw is a disk jockey nights and weekends and a stay-at-home dad during the week.

Many people pore over their finances and search their hearts before keeping a parent at home. For the Bradshaws, the choice was easy.

"When the babies started coming, we just never gave it a second thought. I just started taking care of them," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw's hours as a DJ meant that he was home during the day anyway. And his wife, Patty, is a federal employee with a benefits package neither Bradshaw wanted to give up.

When Reilly, the couple's first son, showed up in January 1988, Gerry Bradshaw became a stay-at-home dad and never looked back.

His early days as a stay-at-home dad were filled with formula, diapers and telemarketers. These days, life is much easier for Bradshaw. The three sons he has with Patty (Bradshaw has an older son, Mason, with his first wife) are all out of diapers and in school. And Bradshaw discovered the one tool he says no one who stays at home should be without--call intercept.

"It's the best $5 any stay-at-home person can spend," he said. "The phone used to ring from nine in the morning to nine at night."

For $5 a month, sales calls rarely even make his phone ring.

Alone in the house--except for Brownie, the family dog--Bradshaw devotes the hours the boys are in school to working on his DJ business. That business grew from a weekend hobby that made a little extra cash to a part-time career that nets the same income as a full-time job.

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Date published: 6/15/2003