I was talking to a full-time mother the other day, and she was pissed. Her full-time working husband was heading out on yet another business trip. It was his third week-long trip that month, and she was over it. Their two kids missed their father, and she didn’t think all the travel was truly necessary, even if it was for work.

After all, we all went through COVID, and everything worked out just fine with video conferencing. She felt he was choosing to travel more than he needed to, mainly for the fun of it and to get a break from the kids.

That conversation got me thinking about the tension that builds in households where one parent stays home and the other goes to work. I feel it too. Every time I debate attending a conference versus preserving a precious weekend with my wife and children, the internal pull is real. With my two kids now in school full-time, the weekends matter even more. So I haven’t gone to a conference yet.

The Challenge of Being a Stay-at-Home Father

Given I’m a man, I’m going to write this post from a father’s perspective. But it is just as relevant for mothers too.

Men are trained from a young age to provide. Even if nobody acknowledges the work, we continue showing up. We feed, protect, teach, drive, fix, support, and problem solve through every stage of our children’s lives.

Being a father requires intrinsic motivation. You cannot expect, let alone crave recognition for a job well done, because nobody cares. Nobody asked you to be a father, and society doesn’t do a good job in appreciating a man’s efforts when it comes to the family.

Gus Fring, from Breaking Bad, sums up one version of what it takes to be a man today. Is it any wonder why so many men opt out of marriage and fatherhood?

Being a full-time parent can be so demanding that some parents actually crave the structure of work just to get a break from parenthood. There’s no off switch with full-time parenting. One distracted moment can lead to disaster.

So after years of pickups, drop-offs, cooking meals, teaching skills, and spending weekends away from friends, how do you let go of the guilt when you finally take a break? How do you give yourself permission to leave your family behind for a little personal leisure?

You start by comparing yourself to other parents, and follow a new framework I’ve created, in true American nerd fashion.

Step One: Compare Yourself to the Average Dad (Or Mom)

When you become a stay-at-home father, you lose touch with the rhythms of normal working dads. Once your children enter school and you start meeting other parents, the contrast becomes obvious.

Most fathers are working full time. Supposedly, the average dad spends just 60 to 80 minutes a day with their children. I know, it’s hard to believe, but that’s what the data says.

In contrast, a stay-at-home fathers spends anywhere from 8 to 24 hours a day, depending on the age of the children and the occupation of their partner.

Do the math:

If you spend 12 hours a day caring for your child during the first three years, while the above-average dad spends about two, you’re putting in six times more daily time. In terms of total hours invested, those three years equal roughly 18 years of parenting time for the average dad.

In other words:

You are not falling behind by taking a break. You are still years ahead.

Give yourself permission to rest. You have earned it.

Step Two: Ask Other Dads (Or Moms) About Their Travel Schedules

Now that you know the general amount of time the average dad (or mom) spends with their children a day, it’s time to get granular. Just like how real estate is local, father time also depends by region. And you want to compare your efforts to your immediate peers.

Therefore, you must ask as many dads (or moms) you know about their work hours and travel schedules to understand how you compare. Here are some examples that I came across.

• One dad was gone for two weeks on the East Coast, then a dad’s golfing trip for four days, then a week in Asia. He was away for almost a month in six weeks.
• Another travels two weeks every month for work.
• Another travels to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East for about a month a quarter to fundraise.
• Finally, another dad says he flies to NYC twice a year for a week to kiss the ring and hope to get promoted. On top of that, he sees clients around the country once a month for three-to-four days.

My Estimated Annual Travel Schedule If I Was Still Working

If I was still working in finance, I would probably travel to Asia two-to-four times a year for 14 – 28 days. I’d probably also travel domestically for five days a month to see clients for a total of 74 – 88 days away for work. Wow, that’s a lot if I wanted to give everything to my job and climb to the highest ranks.

After having children, I’d have to imagine I would limit my Asia trips to just twice a year for 20 days max. Then, maybe I’d send my junior colleague to see clients every other month to cut down my total domestic travel to 30 days. Although 50 days away from family a year still sounds like a lot, it seems much more reasonable than 74 – 88 days away!

Step Three: Build Travel or Time-Off Credits

Once you understand how much other parents travel for work, both from the top down and bottom up, you can start building “credits” for every trip you skip and every day you stay home.

This year, for example, there was a dad trip to another state. It ran from Thursday through Sunday, and my wife was totally fine with me going. But I skipped it. We had a parent–teacher conference on Friday from 10 a.m. to 1:20 p.m., and I wanted to meet all eight teachers we had scheduled.

I also wanted to use the weekend to teach my kids tennis through Daddy Day Camp. Public court access in San Francisco is tough, so Friday afternoon after the conferences was prime time to get out there.

By skipping that four-day trip, I built enough “credit” to take a more meaningful six-day trip to Honolulu to surprise my father for his 80th birthday. I still felt guilty leaving my family, but far less than if I had gone on the dad’s boondoggle. I also put in extra time with the kids during those four days, even while feeling a bit sick, which helped reduce the guilt later. The more effort I put in upfront, the lighter the guilt became.

No matter how much your partner insists it’s fine to take a weekend boondoggle with the guys or a business trip to New York for steak dinners and late night partying, some resentment will inevitably build. That is just human nature because solo-parenting is hard work!

A Simple Formula That Helps You Take Time Away Without Guilt

Now let’s build an actual formula so you can take action to feel great about more personal time away from the family. Use my formula as a baseline, and then adjust it to your individual family situation.

1. Ask five working dads (or moms) how many days they spend away from their family each year.

Include work trips, conferences, and boondoggles.

2. Calculate the average.

3. Divide that number by two.

This becomes your guilt-free allowance to travel as a stay-at-home parent or take a break from parenting. For example, if you find the average working dad spends 30 days a year away for work, then you can take 15 days guilt free to do whatever the heck you want.

Why half? Because full-time working parents are providing financially. Travel is often part of their job, even though we all know workers no longer have to travel to build relationships or close deals after 2-3 years of Zoom meetings during COVID.

If you are not the main financial provider, you don’t get to travel and have the same number of days the average working parent gets. Half the average is a fair split.

When to Use a Divisor of One (Equal Travel) – When You Are a FIRE Parent

A FIRE parent is someone who retires earlier than normal so they can be a full-time parent while still serving as the main financial provider. This is different from a full-time parent who steps away from their career entirely while their partner continues working.

If you are both the main financial provider and the stay-at-home parent, then it’s only fair that you get to take as many breaks or trips as the average number of trips taken by the five parents you surveyed.

If you happen to know five stay-at-home dads, you can also divide by one instead of two as well. Their averages will generally be lower, but also more aligned with your lifestyle reality.

That said, I still don’t believe a FIRE dad should take more days off than the average stay-at-home dad, even though he’s also the financial provider. Part of the FIRE mindset is maintaining high standards and outperforming the average in both dimensions.

Being a FIRE Dad Is Not Normal

If you reached financial independence so you could spend more time with your children, understand that your lifestyle is rare. FIRE is already rare, but FIRE parenting is even more so given how much it costs to raise a family nowadays.

• According to Pew Research, only about 7% of fathers who live with their children under 18 are full-time stay-at-home dads. Fathers now make up roughly 18% of all stay-at-home parents (with the other ~82% being mothers). 
• Meanwhile, I estimate less than 30% of the 7% of full-time stay-at-home dads are FIRE dads who stay home and are also responsible for the bulk of the family finances. In other words, 70% of the full-time stay-at-home dads have working partners/spouses who bring home the sashimi.

The discipline it takes to become financially independent is not easy. The discipline to then spend the next 18 years raising your children full-time is even rarer.

However, if you never take a break, resentment eventually builds. You may start comparing your arrangement to households with a more balanced setup. Without finding a better balance, a marriage can easily break apartment.

You cannot sustain full-time parenthood long term without caring for yourself.

There Is No Prize for Being a Martyr

If you work full time and still travel for weeks or months each year, you have an incredibly supportive partner at home. Appreciate them. Solo-parenting for weeks on end is not easy.

If you are a full-time parent or FIRE parent who feels guilty even thinking about taking a weekend away, remember this:

You have already spent more time with your children than many working parents will spend in a lifetime.

Your presence, consistency, and sacrifice are already changing the trajectory of your children’s lives.

But none of it matters if you burn out.

A rested parent is a better parent. A resentful parent is a dangerous one.

Give yourself permission to step away. You deserve the rest. You deserve the freedom. And you deserve the same grace you give to everyone else.

If you’re a stay-at-home parent, how do you overcome the guilt of taking time for yourself? Do you think my formula is fair? If not, how would you adjust it? And for the working parents out there, how many days a year do you travel for work?

Take Care Of Your Family, Even When You’re Not There

As stay-at-home parents, we carry the invisible load. We show up every day, even when we’re exhausted. But the truth is, none of us can be present 24/7. Whether you’re traveling, working, or finally taking that long-overdue break, having the right life insurance means your family is protected no matter what.

That’s where Policygenius comes in. It’s my preferred life-insurance marketplace because it does all the comparison shopping for you, quickly, clearly, and at the lowest prices available. In minutes, you can compare top insurers side-by-side and get the coverage your family deserves.

If you’ve spent years putting your family first, make sure you protect them with the same intention. Once my wife and I got matching 20-year term life insurance policies through Policygenius, we breathed a huge sigh of relief. They were affordable and enabled us to better focus on being present for our children.

Check your life-insurance rates today with Policygenius. Your future self, and your family, will thank you.

Subscribe To Financial Samurai 

Listen and subscribe to The Financial Samurai podcast on Apple or Spotify. I interview experts in their respective fields and discuss some of the most interesting topics on this site. Your shares, ratings, and reviews are appreciated.

To expedite your journey to financial freedom, join over 60,000 others and subscribe to the free Financial Samurai newsletter. You can also get my posts in your e-mail inbox as soon as they come out by signing up here. Everything is written based on firsthand experience and expertise.

If you decide to forsake making maximum money to become a FIRE parent or stay-at-home parent, then you had best spend more time with your kids. Otherwise, you might as well go back to the office and grind under fluorescent lights for 10 hours a day to make that sweet coin.

One of the greatest benefits of FIRE is the freedom to fully lean into parenthood, especially during summer and winter breaks. While working parents scramble to juggle camps, childcare, and schedules, you can relax knowing that if a spot doesn’t open up, Daddy Day Camp (or Mommy Day Camp) is always ready to go.

Even though I no longer consider myself a stay-at-home dad after eight years of being one, my goal is to return to full-time parenthood every summer and winter until my kids leave home. It feels like the optimal balance: enough flexibility to savor these years, while still writing about ~15 hours a week to keep my brain engaged.

Given that my kids have about 48 vacation and in-service days during the school year plus another 80 or so days off in the summer, they’re out of school for more than four months each year. You could argue this dilutes the benefits of FIRE since parents naturally get plenty of time with their kids anyway, if they can take time off from work. Or you could argue it makes FIRE even more valuable, because it gives you the freedom to truly take advantage of all that extra time together.

Either way, having kids doesn’t diminish the FIRE lifestyle, it enhances it, because they give you more purpose. So for all of you who no longer have to work, don’t be afraid of having kids. You will find a way to provide for them financially if necessary.

The Financial Case for DIY Camps

Whether you are a stay at home parent, FIRE parent, or working parent, I highly recommend trying your own Daddy or Mommy Day Camp at least once. It does not have to last a whole summer or winter. Even a week or a few days sprinkled here and there can make a huge difference.

The beauty of running your own Daddy or Mommy Day Camp is that it can be whatever you want it to be. You’re the counselor, the coach, the chef, and the chauffeur. You set the schedule, design the activities, and, best of all, actually spend time with your kids in ways that create lasting memories for both of you.

From a financial perspective, the savings alone are eye-opening. In San Francisco, for example, summer camps typically range from $600 to $1,200 per child, per week. Let’s say you have two kids and want to keep them busy for six weeks of summer. That’s $7,200 to $14,400, basically the cost of a used car or a family vacation to Hawaii.

Hiring a private coach to teach your kids tennis, swimming, soccer, basketball, music, or anything else often costs $60–$140 an hour. By coaching them yourself, you not only save money but also build a stronger bond—a true win-win.

DIY Day Camp Is An Extension Of Homeschooling

When the pandemic hit, we homeschooled our son for 18 months. It was one of the only few good things to come out of that era. We also realized how much more efficiently he could learn at home. In just 1.5 hours, we could cover what might have taken eight hours in a traditional school setting.

So if you’re not ready to take the step in homeschooling just yet, you can take a baby step through DIY camp first to see how it goes. If your nerves aren’t frayed by the end of it, you might just be cut out to be a homeschool teacher.

Not only do you save thousands of dollars, but you also get to reallocate that money toward investments, travel with your family, or simply padding your savings. If you have the time, you could conceivably run a camp for other family’s children too. Building wealth for your children before they become adults alleviates stress and creates a nice safety net.

Daddy Day Camp can also help you assess your children’s abilities early on. If you notice above-average talent in a sport or activity, you can choose to dedicate more resources accordingly. At the same time, you’ll avoid wasting money on lessons and activities they have little interest or aptitude for. Because you’re directly involved in the teaching, you’re less likely to fall victim to the Dunning–Kruger effect—overestimating your child’s abilities compared to reality.

The ROI is clear: Daddy and Mommy Camp offers both financial savings and emotional dividends.

Activities for Daddy Day Camp

When I first tried Daddy Camp, I thought I needed elaborate activities, but I quickly realized kids don’t care about fancy. They just want fun and attention. A ten dollar soccer ball or a stack of board games often goes further than the priciest setup.

It’s the same with houses. Sure, my kids enjoy running around a bigger yard. But their happiness isn’t any different from when we lived in a smaller place with fewer en suite bathrooms and only a deck to run around on. At the end of the day, all kids really want is a parent’s love, time, and attention.

Here are some easy activities to get you started:

• Sports Day: Organize a mini Olympics in the backyard with running races, soccer drills, and basketball shootouts. Add medals or silly prizes for fun.
• Cooking School: Let the kids choose a recipe and cook it together. It might get messy, but kids love eating what they made. They might even start appreciating all the time you or your partner spend time cooking for them, and volunteer to cook and clean up in the future.
• Adventure Hikes: Explore a new trail or park nearby. Bring snacks and make it a scavenger hunt for certain plants or animals. During COVID, we made it a mission to visit every playground in San Francisco. We found some cool hidden gems, like a slide in Bernal Heights that ran down one block.
• DIY Projects: Build a birdhouse, paint a mural, or even set up a lemonade stand to teach entrepreneurship. My favorite physical activity so far is landscaping a rental property. Nothing like a hands-on lesson in marketing, margins, and customer service. Eventually, these properties will be theirs to manage.
• Board Game Marathon: Rotate through Monopoly, Chess, and Uno. Keep score for an end of camp prize like choosing what’s for dinner. Great way to sneak in strategy, math, and negotiation skills.
• Water Play: If you don’t have a pool or hot tub, a garden hose, buckets, and water balloons are enough for hours of laughter.
• Library and Movie Day: Pick out books in the morning to read, then make popcorn and watch a family movie at night. The library is one of the best free resources around.

For children 8 and under, the ideal amount of time to spend for each activity is 45 minutes. Any longer and many children start to really lose focus.

Also, when kids are younger, it’s easier to teach them everything you know. One day, though, they may surpass you and that’s when a more experienced (and pricier) coach may be worth it.

Our Customized Daddy Day Camp Activities

For the last week of Daddy Day Camp this summer, we packed up and headed to Sonoma County, just a quick hour and twenty minute drive away.

I set three fun challenges for the kids and me this week:

1. Master a safe and proper dive into the pool
2. Work on forehands and backhands in tennis
3. Be proficient at breaststroke and freestyle swimming

We settled into a steady routine: tennis and pool in the mornings, then tennis and pool again in the early evenings. Over five days, I logged seven 45-minute tennis sessions with the kids, seven 1.5-hour swim-and-play sessions, and five 20-minute soccer passing and dribbling drills. With all that practice, their skills took a noticeable leap forward by the end.

Midday was for recharging, especially with the daily 90–103 degree heat. We’d head out for lunch, followed by a little Pokémon-hunting adventure, and then it was quiet time. Mommy and Daddy took a nap while the kids curled up with books, sketched, or battled over board games.

The Hardest Parts About Daddy Day Camp

To make Daddy Day Camp work, I woke up at 6 a.m. to write until 8. Luckily, I’m a morning person and have kept this routine since 2009. If mornings aren’t your thing, you may need to carve out time in the evenings instead.

A successful Daddy Day Camp starts with enthusiasm. Kids pick up on everything. The moment they sense you’re not excited about heading out for another activity, their interest fades too.

Consistency is another key. When you’re tired, it’s tempting to skip a session. Don’t. By sticking to the schedule, you show your kids you’re serious about camp while also teaching them the importance of showing up. I truly believe the key to success is long-term consistency. It’s hard to lose if you never quit.

Teaching kids new skills also tests your patience. Accept there will be tantrums and meltdowns! For some reason, kids often listen better to other adults than to their own parents. It can drive you crazy when they keep ignoring your instructions and repeating yourself or the 100th time, but your job is to stay calm and keep leading with kindness and enthusiasm.

When your child makes the same mistake ten times in a row, or keeps smacking the tennis ball into the net despite your reminders to start from low to high, you’ll want to quit. But this is when you need to carry on with encouragement. Don’t give up on them!

The Breakthrough Moment After Reaching The End Of My Rope

After nearly ending a tennis session when my son threw a tantrum, I decided to change my coaching approach. Instead of repeating instructions, I leaned hard into positivity. After a miss or bad hit, I’d say things like “Almost!” “Great effort!” or “You got this!”—instead of “Try to hit the strings, not the frame” or “Remember to swing low to high.” Steady encouragement kept my kids far more motivated than constant corrections ever did.

Finally, mix things up to keep them fresh. By day three, my kids were bored of forehand and backhand drills. So I added cone runs, practice swings, and live hits to end the drill. Suddenly their “Do I have to?” turned into “That was fun!”

After the tennis session was over, we transferred over to kicking the soccer ball in a triangle. Then we put cones out for them to dribble around and beat their own time. They were thrilled. Then of course, it was time to do some diving and cool off in the pool.

As parents, it’s up to us to make activities engaging while also teaching that hard things get easier with practice.

Fun Example Of How It Started

Diving instructions on first day: Place your hands together above your head, break the water cleanly, tuck your chin, enter with the top of your head, and keep your legs fully extended.

The end result! Frog legs entry and face plant with hands apart.

Making Up For The Missing Pieces In Your Childhood

To be frank, my main reason for running Daddy Camp is not to save money. It is to avoid a future where my adult children ask why I was not around. That fear comes partly from my own childhood. Both of my parents worked full time, and when I longingly wanted to throw a baseball in the backyard after school, my dad often came home too tired. My sister had her own interests.

Since my parents did not return until after 5:45 p.m., I had hours of freedom once school ended at 2:30. Too often, I used that time poorly when it wasn’t tennis season. I got into trouble in middle school and high school, and I still feel guilty for disappointing them. In some ways, Daddy Camp is not just for my kids, it is also my way of making peace with my past.

You might also discover that running your own children’s camp helps heal parts of your own childhood.

I have met too many adults who carry strained relationships with their parents. Sometimes parents truly were not around. Other times, children simply remember it that way, even if the reality was different. But in the end, perception becomes truth.

That is what I fear most: my kids one day saying, “Dad was always working or distracted on his phone. He never had time for us.” It stings because I know I spend more time on my phone than I should. That is the narrative I want to avoid.

Consecutive years of Daddy Camp are my safeguard. If my kids ever decide to misremember, I will at least have the evidence to show them: I was there

You Won’t Regret The Time You Spend With Your Kids

Daddy Camp is not about being the perfect parent. It’s about being present, being engaged, and making the most of the precious years we get with our kids.

Money is important. We all need it to survive and to provide stability for our families. But beyond a certain level of financial security, the tradeoff between money and time becomes obvious. You can always make more money. You cannot make more time with your kids when they are little.

When they are grown and gone, you will not wish you had worked longer hours or made a few more dollars. You will only be thankful for the memories you created together.

So this upcoming summer or winter, if your kids can’t get into a camp, don’t panic. See it as an opportunity. Run your own camp. Create your own traditions. Laugh together, get frustrated together, get messy together, and make memories that will last a lifetime.

That is the magic of Daddy Camp and its true ROI.

Parents, do you ever run your own little “camps” or activities for your kids during the summer or winter? What fun things have you tried at different ages? For those of you who are FIRE parents or stay-at-home parents, do you ever find yourself missing work during the ~8 months when the kids are in school? And how do you balance taking care of the kids with still doing something purposeful for yourself?

Subscribe To Financial Samurai 

Pick up a copy of my USA TODAY national bestseller, Millionaire Milestones: Simple Steps to Seven Figures. I’ve distilled over 30 years of financial experience to help you build more wealth than 94% of the population—and break free sooner. To be able to spend more time raising your kids is a gift you will never take for granted.

Listen and subscribe to The Financial Samurai podcast on Apple or Spotify. I interview experts in their respective fields and discuss some of the most interesting topics on this site. Your shares, ratings, and reviews are appreciated.

To expedite your journey to financial freedom, join over 60,000 others and subscribe to the free Financial Samurai newsletter. You can also get my posts in your e-mail inbox as soon as they come out by signing up here. Financial Samurai is among the largest independently-owned personal finance websites, established in 2009. Everything is written based on firsthand experience and expertise.