Happy With the Male Au Pair

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Todd Doing says his home in Chappaqua, New York, is no place for discrimination when choosing the right person to watch over his two boys. He and his wife, Susan, have done something still rare in American child care. They’ve picked a man.
       A 6-foot-4 German basketball player, no less, who does this boys’ laundry, makes their lunches, helps with their dinner, and kisses them good night.
+ _+ l/ A# J: X       In his accented English, Fabian Spitzer, 23, remembers friends back in Chemnitz razzing him about assuming duties as an au pair in America. But no matter, he says, “I love to see smiling kids. I love to have fun.”
   “I’ve always been a person who judges people by who they are, as far as what they do.” says Todd Doing, a building contractor. “rather than what they look like or what their sex is.”
: M" p/ ], b/ Q, f8 I6 B* ZSome observers say that kind of tolerance, while still then exception, could trigger a wider acceptance of young men as caregivers for children in the home. The Intelligence Factory, a trend-spotting unit of advertising agency Young & Rubicam, predicts that “as more older men become fathers, a new breed of young, athletic male nannies will emerge to take on the more physically demanding aspects of the job… teaching a child to ride a bike, playing ball in the park.
Doing couldn’t agree more. He characterizes himself as a “bit out of shape.” At the end of a long workday, his enthusiasm for a little rough-and-tumble playtime with sons Jim, 8, and Eric, 5, is maybe not all it could be. “It’s like ‘Daddy’s home. Let’s play.”’ Hr says dryly. Thankfully, Spitzer now burns up the boys’ afternoon energy with basketball, soccer, bike riding, swimming, and occasional calisthenics.
     “He’s got my 8-year-old doing push-ups and sit-ups with him,” Doing says. “He definitely is teaching them physical things, which is good, because I don’t have the time for it.
by USA Today