John Lennon as ‘stay-at-home dad’: Inside his final years

Gone way too soon … 40 years ago today –

Dec. 2, 2020 – “He was probably, in those years, the most notable stay-at-home dad in America,” said Larry Kane, author of “Lennon Revealed,” a 2005 biography, and “Ticket to Ride,” a chronicle of the Beatles’ early American tours.

It was a pointed turn for a celebrity who was once one of the international avatars of the “sex, drugs and rock-’n’-roll” cliché. Lennon said he bottomed out while he was separated from Ono in the early 1970s, during an 18-month “long weekend” of substance abuse, according to Kane.

But it was also an unusual role for a middle-age man in that period: Just 2 percent of American households had stay-at-home fathers from 1976 to 1979, according to a Pew Research article citing a 2013 study published in the Journal of Family Issues.

Lennon, according to news articles published at the time, apparently had some help from a nanny. But nearly all contemporaneous stories depict Lennon as a steadfast and joyful father, totally consumed with domestic life. (“Lennon Is Playing Daddy,” a headline from the time read in part.)

“John talked baby talk, tickled [Sean], threw him in the air…