Stay-at-home dad lets wife live executive lifestyle

Married to one of the Valley's top female executives, a father of three says it takes compromise to make family life work.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
POLAND -- Let 'em call him "Mr. Mom." Steve Midgley doesn't mind.
Married for 19 years to Maureen Midgley, the new manager of General Motors' massive Lordstown Assembly Plant, Midgley is comfortable with a decision to temporarily shelve his own career to stay home with the couple's three daughters.
Midgley, an engineer and GM executive himself until he took an unpaid family leave two years ago, said the switch to stay-at-home Dad is just one of many compromises the family has made to accommodate his wife's climb up the auto giant's corporate ladder.
The Midgleys moved eight times in their 19 years of marriage. Ellen, their oldest daughter, attended second grade in three school districts in one year.
Doing what's best: Midgley said he never seriously questioned the fairness of having to move so many times to follow his wife's career. "You do what's best for the team, for the two of us," he said.
The nomadic lifestyle is a complete reversal from the childhoods Steve and Maureen experienced in St. Louis, Mo.
"I spent 21 years in the same house growing up," he said. "When we met in college and got married, we thought we'd probably spend the rest of our lives in St. Louis. I'd have never believed that we'd end up living in Ohio."
Midgley was a civil engineering student and girls' soccer coach at the University of Missouri in Rolla when he met his wife, a soccer team standout majoring in chemical engineering.
First jobs: They were married in their senior year and both landed engineering jobs in the St. Louis area after graduation -- he was hired by McDonnell Douglas, an aircraft maker that's now a part of Boeing, and she took a job as a chemical engineer for the county highway department.
Their odyssey with GM began in 1986, when she accepted a job at a Missouri GM plant.
GM has a spouse relocation program and always found him a position to fit his qualifications, he said, but at times he moved backward instead of forward. "GM tries to help out, and they do a tremendous job," he said. "But sometimes, it was disheartening."
There was one period, Midgley recalls, when he and his wife lived and worked hundreds of miles apart and saw each other only on weekends. During another period, the two young engineers were both commuting a total of 400 miles each day to stay together.
Valley job: When the family moved to the Mahoning Valley and Mrs. Midgley assumed the assistant manager's post at the assembly plant, he was appointed to a position as second-shift superintendent at GM's Lordstown fabricating plant.The company won't assign him to work under his wife's supervision, so the assembly plant was out.
Often working six or seven days a week, he left for the plant in the afternoon before his wife and children returned home from school and work and came home long after they'd gone to bed.
"I had to ask myself: Is this really worth it? The money was nice, but we didn't need it to put food on the table," he reflected.
"I could have continued that way, going to work at 2 in the afternoon, getting home at 12:30 a.m., working six or seven days a week, never seeing my family. But it's like having a car out of alignment. You can put up with it, but you know it doesn't feel right, and it's so much better when you get it fixed."
Midgley said he has learned to appreciate the slower pace, and he never doubts his decision to put his career on hold.
"I don't know what people think. I guess, when I hear about a man's staying home with the kids while his wife works, I wonder about the guy," he said, laughing. "but I wouldn't go back. I made every one of my daughter Ellen's basketball games for the last two years. When I was working, I probably wouldn't have been able to make a single one. That's something you can't make up another time. If you miss it, it's gone forever."
Seeks flexibility: Considering Maureen Midgley's hectic schedule -- including long work hours, out-of-town meetings and seminars and occasional trips out of the country -- he said he'd like to find work with a more flexible schedule. When his two-year family leave with GM expires, he won't go back.
Midgley said the couple's strategy, when a new job assignment necessitates a move, has always been to look for the best schools they can find. "That way you never need to worry about the kids," he said.
GM made the transitions easier by eliminating the need for a job search, he said. "If you know you're going to move, it's good if you both work for the same company."
The auto maker also helps its executives relocate with a real estate repurchase program. If their house doesn't sell in a few months, the company buys it for the price they paid for it. It doesn't pay to invest a lot in improvements, Midgley explained, because the owners can't be reimbursed for major improvements and renovations under the plan.
That explains why the walls and windows are sparsely decorated at the Midgleys' spacious brick home in Poland. "We never really get settled into a house," he said.
The couple keeps in touch with GM colleagues around the country who've become friends, and they've found that their children's activities provide them with a new social circle wherever they move.
They're also active in the Catholic church and have found friends at Fonderlac Country Club.
What about kids? Standing by proudly while their father was interviewed, the Midgleys' daughters, Ellen, 14; Shannon, 8; and Jamison, 4; seemed to agree that the family's frequent moves haven't been too difficult for them.
But Ellen, soon to be a freshman at Poland Seminary High School, admitted she does have one hope. "I would like to go to just one high school, though," she said.