A New Life: Declan Moore tells Theresa Judge being a stay-at-home parent is the toughest job he'll ever have
It's always refreshing to meet people who are honest about their daily struggles, who don't feel the need to pretend that their work doesn't sometimes get the better of them.
Declan Moore is the epitome of honesty. "By 5.30pm some evenings I'm minced - I just feel my brain is in overload. What I do now, when I can, is get out and go for a walk, just to clear my head."
After more than 20 years in the world of paid work, he says that in the three years since he became a stay-at-home father he has learned "a hell of a lot".
A computer science graduate, he used to be a technical analyst in Eircom's software testing centre, which might help to explain why he sets himself high standards and talks about his "performance" in the job.
Since deciding to stay at home he has done a cookery course for men and a parenting course, all to help him in the task of caring for his two sons Fergal (2) and Oisin (5). "It's too responsible a role to try to stay in if you're not doing it right," he says.
He accepts that most women who opt to stay at home probably take a more relaxed approach to the job. "I don't like generalising because I've learned a lot about the opposite sex in this business, but in general women have better multi-tasking abilities - they can have 10 things going on at one time but never finish anything until eventually they have to."
He admits this tendency not to finish things used to irritate him until he tried doing all the tasks associated with childminding and housework.
"You have to develop that kind of psyche because you can never get anything finished in this job, you have to develop some of these multi-tasking skills."
He admits he was very unsure about the decision initially because he was "the stereotyped Irish Dub male who lived at home with mammy for a very long time".
He could cook basic meals but his cooking skills were "very limited".
During his first months at home, he started to get worried that his son was getting pickier about food and this prompted him to do the cookery course. Since then he's read up a lot on nutrition and is conscious of trying to make meals both healthy and appealing - "if you can't produce a meal that they like or like the look of, then you're in trouble".
The cookery course gave him confidence to try things and get over some early disasters. This year he even made his own Christmas cakes.
Any early uncertainty about staying at home with his sons has certainly worn off. He believes it has "fast-tracked the bonding process".
He now feels very lucky. "I wouldn't have been able to get to know them as well as this, and you won't get a job that gives you the feedback that this does.
"Life is not a rehearsal, and to be with your children at this stage of their development, well I feel privileged - it's a very enjoyable time because their innocence is something to be seen . . . and in 10 years' time they mightn't want to know me."
He says he thinks he and his wife, Eileen, were lucky because they had children later, at a time when they were more financially secure. The decision to stay at home was taken when they were expecting their second son.
They were both working full-time and their life was "pretty chaotic".
"If there was a problem in the creche or if Oisin was sick, someone had to go back and take him out, something had to be compromised.
"You needed a job where there was a lot of understanding - having two people working in high-pressure jobs didn't suit. I felt at one stage it was having an impact on my job - that I wasn't able to do it as well as I would have wanted to."
When a redundancy package was offered at Eircom, and they weighed up the cost of creche fees for two children, and the stress they were both under, it seemed the best option. They also decided to review the decision after a few months.
"The first couple of weeks I wasn't so sure I'd made the right decision because Oisin was pining for the girl in the creche, and I was missing the adult company, so there were a couple of what I'd call temporary insanity moments."
He says he quickly developed an appreciation of what his mother and other women had to deal with. Isolation was one of the hardest aspects of staying at home.
"You suffer a confidence loss - you have an identity in a job, but childminding, that's not seen as a role at all."
He feels it took him about a year to get used to it. He attended parent and toddler groups because he felt he could learn a lot from others. He has met quite a few men who stay at home full-time but finds it interesting to talk to women as well.
"Women are not going to talk to you about Roy Keane and football, they want to know you on a slightly different level. And the thing is understanding how to communicate with them on that level is a challenge . . . women are more inclined to talk about what makes them stressed and how to manage it."
One of the most stressful aspects of the job initially was the issue of discipline. The parenting course taught him a lot, for example, "how to correct children without chastising them", how to deal with your own anger, that there's no point in simply telling a child not to do a certain thing, that you have to explain it, and ask them if they understood and talk to them about it.
"And that can be very difficult because in a pressurised situation, you don't have time to do these things."
When he goes for a walk these evenings, he thinks over what happened during the day. "If there was a negative situation and I didn't handle it properly I try to think what way should I have handled it."
It all sounds like very hard work. "It's probably the toughest job you could ever get into - you're competitive with yourself because you want to do the best you can for your children.
"You have to have a positive attitude and you have to work constantly on yourself and on your weaknesses, to try to bring your strengths to the relationships."
While he always enjoyed work from the time he joined the old department of posts and telegraphs at the age of 18, he has no regrets about leaving his job and is in no hurry to return to any full-time post.
About a year ago he started doing some computer call-out work on Saturdays as he thinks it's good for him "to get out to meet people" but he's careful about limiting the time he spends on it.
He believes staying at home has benefited him and the whole family.
"I've learned a lot about people, I've learned about myself and it's a lot more interesting. Compared to when the two of us were working, the stress levels in our lives have gone down completely. From a quality-of-life perspective we are much better off and that's the tangible benefit."