PENDLETON — Kevin Ray pauses during a spirited morning of caring for his five children.

“Man, this is a lot of work,” he allows in quiet candor. “You get a whole different perspective. It gives you a lot of respect for the moms from years past.”

Ray is among a relative handful of American fathers — fewer than 150,000 — who are stay-at-home dads. On this recent morning, the three acres outside the family’s home on County Road 900 South are alive with activity as he and the kids race to finish chores and beat the rain.

“It’s comin’,” he says with a wary gaze toward a graying sky.

His oldest son, Dekland, 10, maneuvers a bushhog to push a flatbed trailer behind the house while Ray directs. “Back up, line up, and that way you get a better shot at it!”

Karmel, 9, mows the backyard, expertly handling the riding mower.

“I could do a lot of this myself,” Ray says, “but how will they learn to do stuff if I don’t tell them?”

Daughter Kelci, 7, and youngest sons Klaton, 5, and Kalum, who will turn 4 on July 1, play in the front yard and ride bikes in the driveway.

“Don’t go past the Explorer,” dad admonishes.

Ray, who directs youth T-ball for Pendleton Junior Baseball and third- and fourth-grade tackle for Pendleton Junior Football, laughs at the suggestion that he looks a little like a coach directing his youngsters. “That’s really what it comes down to.”

A few moments later, amid the noise, work, play and laughter of his children, Ray pauses again. “I love being home.”

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Shawnee Ray knows the routine. She was a stay-at-home mom for the oldest three children until husband Kevin was hurt several years ago and could no longer continue his job at Ford Motor Co. in Indianapolis.

They traded places. “We’re both really involved in the kids’ lives, so it wasn’t a big ordeal,” she says in a telephone interview.

Shawnee is the manager of arthritis care centers at Clarion Health Partners in Indianapolis. She says the position allows her to spend time with her family, and when she must bring work home, it waits till after the kids are in bed.