Susan Petersen, is a name we all associate with Freshly Picked moccasins. Have you ever wondered though, “Who is the man behind this amazing woman, supporting her through this amazing journey?” Christian Petersen, known as Chris, is the husband to Susan and I must say, they are the dream team.
Picture courtesy of Susan Petersen
Back in 2005, Chris and Susan had moved to Florida to do window installation with Chris’s brother-in-law to make a lot of money. Turns out, he didn’t make a lot of money like he expected. Susan was sitting around the house all day in Florida and wanted to supplement their income. She started a blog to sell some of the goods she was making and did that for a few years.
Starting with bags, hand quilted quilts and making things out of recycled material that she had bought from thrift stores. Susan was always trying to keep it fresh and supplement Chris’s income because he was going to school and wasn’t making a lot like they wanted.
When they first got married they had talked about how they wanted to make sure that one of them would always be home with the kids. Clearly they had assumed that Susan would be the one doing that. She even looked into doing medical transcription so that she could work from home. No matter how little Chris made, she always stayed in the home.
Their second child was born and she started making moccasins. Chris thought, “this is just another product that she’s making to keep it all going.” At the time neither of them knew that the moccasins would take off like they did because she was just making them for their youngest child.
There came a point when Susan started making more money than Chris was and the question came up of “when does it make more sense for me to quit my job and stay at home with the kids?” This was something Chris had resisted for a year because “I’m not the nurturing type,” which is how it is with a lot of dads. As a mom it comes naturally, but when Chris first started being a stay at home dad this is the part that he didn’t think was going to be so difficult. This was a reality that he had to face.
After becoming a stay at home dad Chris says, “You could even consider me a feminist.” This has changed his entire prospective on what woman are home doing and that it’s a lot more work that he had expected. Guys will look at him and say, “Man I wish I was doing what you are doing” and Chris says that it’s not as easy as you would think. “It’s a struggle trying to be that nurturer that moms have so naturally and it’s still a struggle and it wasn’t like what I fantasized it was” say’s Petersen.
Now that the kids are in school Chris is able to take on a hobby of drone racing which is amazing (check out his Instagram account here). As a parent that is staying home with the kids you need to have an outlet and drone racing has become Chris’s outlet and I must say it is awesome viewing his videos.
In January of this year, Forbes interviewed Susan and at the end of the interview she says this, “I love when people tell me that I can’t do something, it ensures that in fact I will. My husband always says, ‘If you want to see Susan do something, tell her she can’t do it.” I found this to be interesting and Chris says that Susan is a hard working, driven woman who isn’t going to let anyone get her down. She is motivated and I absolutely love her for that.
Taking on the role as the stay at home parent you become that shoulder when your spouse gets home to vent to, but Chris says, “She does a great job at keeping work at work and when she is home she is home.” Yeah she has hard times at work and he is always there to support her and help her in any way that she needs.
Chris absolutely loves his role as a stay at home dad and loves what his wife is doing. “She has a strength that I just love. I love seeing her work hard and accomplish so much, it’s hard to explain it, but she is just amazing.”
Thank you Chris for sharing your thoughts on being a stay at home dad and be sure to check out Freshly Picked and see their story here.
