ANNANDALE, Va. -- The job comes without a paycheck. The hours are long. The rewards can be priceless.

It's not something you put on your resume, but millions of men have decided to give up their careers and become stay-at-home dads.

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Stay-At-Home Dads

Some mothers may resent our giving this much attention to stay-at-home dads. They've been doing it for centuries.

But we're looking at this growing trend because it's a option many couples may not have explored.

This is about children, parents and a difficult choice.

That choice was the subject of the popular 1983 comedy "Mr. Mom." In that movie, a laid-off engineer stays home with his three kids, while his wife returns to work.

It's fiction becoming a fact of life for a growing number of couples.

Chip and Heather Covell of Annandale made the decision eight months ago. As a special education teacher, Chip needed a break. Meanwhile, his wife's teaching career was taking off.

According to the latest U.S. Census figures, 3.6 million men stay home while their wives work. That's a 54 percent increase since 1986.

Human resource experts say the numbers will continue to climb.

"The so-called Generation X and Generation Y workforce are a little more open to the concept of staying at home and a spouse, in this case a wife, earning more than the husband," human resources manager Steven Williams said.

Damon Riley's wife is the vice president of a marketing firm. Staying home meant giving up his job as director of new student orientation at Georgetown University.

"Her salary was probably more than twice mine at the time anyway. And having somebody come to the house was going to cost us almost all of my salary," Riley said.

Riley has been staying home since his twin daughters were born seven years ago.

Other mothers in their Olney, Md., neighborhood are supportive.

"He's just one of the girls. No offense Damon, but he's just one of us," stay-at-home mom Sophie Stopak said.

But fitting in can be difficult. That's where DC Metro Dads comes in. The Bowie, Md., chapter meets every Monday.

"It gives us a network of other men, we get to sit around and talk about guy things," one of the dads said.

The couples told News4's Tony Dorsey that they began by doing the math. They compared child-care costs with the loss of one salary, and decided it was worth the sacrifice.