Stay-at-home dad numbers almost doubled in last decade, Australian Bureau Statistics data show TIME FOR GAMES: Stay-at-home dad Vic Pisani with children Bianca and Marco. Picture: MARK BRAKE Source: News Limited THE home front is no longer the domain of a woman, with more fathers choosing to stay at home to cook, clean and look after the children. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal that the number of Australian stay-at-home dads has almost doubled over the past decade, from 57,900 to 106,000 and experts say these figures will only rise. Social researcher and demographer Mark McCrindle said stay-at-home fathers were far from the mainstream, but were growing in numbers as workplaces adapted. "It's only been the last couple of years that you've seen the shift from maternity leave to parental leave," he said. In the past, there haven't been the structures to support the mechanisms to allow fathers to move into that stay-at-home role and now that we're seeing those mechanisms come into play, we're going to see that figure rise even more. And the social desirability and social expectation is also changing. To be a stay-at-home dad for 12 months or more is now well regarded and respected, but you didn't get that a generation ago. Vic Pisoni has enjoyed his role as stay-at-home dad to children Bianca, 7, and Marco, 5, and now that his youngest has started school, is starting to ramp up his career again. "I was pretty naive before I got into it," he said. I had hilarious grand plans with all the supposed free time I would get to write a dad blog and doing a podcast and kids' books as well as pursuing my own pursuits as well. Suffice to say, I concentrated on keeping my head above water and getting some food on the table and doing the washing and all that kind of stuff. Mr Pisoni, 42 - who has run publicity company Can of Words part-time from home during that time - said he found the role socially isolating at first. "I was lucky to have my wife's yoga mums' group as well, that were like my support group at one stage," he said. But I'm meeting more stay-at-home dads the more our kids are in the school system. He said being a stay-at-home dad had made him a better multi-tasker. "When I first started, it was a sink-or-swim initiation into the world of extreme multi-tasking and mega-planning to avoid being trapped in the house," he said. After a week of taking half a day to get organised enough to get out the door, my organisation and multi-task skills started a long overdue overhaul. To this day, I think it's made me a much better multi-tasker and more organised than pre-home-dad life.