nytimes: Daddy’s Home, and a Bit Lost

"SCOTT BERRY has always been a morning person. For years he would wake up at 5 a.m., shower, shave and, tamping down a twinge of regret, plant quiet kisses on his two sleeping children and his wife, before backing his BMW out of the driveway.
As the family breadwinner, he worked long hours at his job as a technology analyst for a boutique investment firm in Manhattan. The demands of his work and the substantial commute from his home in Darien meant he rarely saw Samantha, 8, and Max, 7, before his wife, Tracey, had them in their pajamas and ready for bed.
Then in December 2007, Mr. Berry, 49, lost his job. He immediately looked for a new position but found opportunities puzzlingly elusive. In mid-2008 came the rout on Wall Street. “The good news is, I don’t feel singled out for unemployment,” he said, running his hand through his light-brown hair.
But his plan for his next job — as an analyst in a venture capital firm or as an executive at a start-up — has been deferred. So Scott and Tracey Berry have faced a complex series of choices about work, money and the roles and responsibilities each would assume in the family. Their goals: to keep their domestic economy from mirroring the national one — and to stay married. "