Women have come a long way in the 21st century. Staying home and caring for your children is no longer the norm. There isn’t a singular criteria for being feminine and we’re even allowed to wear pants on the Senate floor (it only took us until the 90s).
Unfortunately, ideas about masculinity haven’t quite caught up yet. Men are still largely expected to be providers and doers. They are discouraged from care taking and nurturing and encouraged to have a more masculine strength, one that requires being an aggressor, a leader, a breadwinner.
If your man doesn’t fit the stereotypical masculine mold and is brave enough to stand by his true self and desires, count yourself blessed. Men that aren’t afraid to take on less traditional roles are more likely to respect your own choices.
There is a growing amount of men who are choosing to stay home and take care of their families.
In the early 2000s, 3.5 percent of American dads stayed home with their children, according to the Pew Research Center. This number has grown from the 1970s when only 2 percent of fathers stayed home. The role of the House Husband is increasing globally too; in Japan, a group called Friends of House Husbands is hoping to increase the rates of house husbands to 30 percent by 2020. In Australia the first episode of the comedy drama “House Husbands” ranked number one between the age demographics of 16-39, 18-49 and 25-54 years old. And many countries have recently introduced paternity leave for new fathers.
House husbands are able to take care of children and the household while women assume the breadwinner role. Sometimes, financially, it just makes more sense for whichever parent that makes less money to stay home. Just like there’s nothing wrong with a woman choosing to stay home and care for her children, there’s nothing wrong with men choosing to do the same.
There are lots of benefits in having a husband who stays home.
Studies have shown that children whose fathers are more involved in their lives end up happier and when husbands are more in charge of family and homemaking tasks, wives report higher levels of marriage quality. The role of the housewife has been a profession since nearly the dawn of time, so why are we so against reversing the role?
Perhaps our stigmas come from a lack of respect for homemakers. We see housewives as having an “easy job” and we also see the financial means of the breadwinner as an excuse to claim more power within the marriage and family.
In 1989, Fortune coined the term trophy wife, which today means a woman who serves as a status symbol for a man. Is it possible we link people’s worth to their jobs more than we should?
And do we not consider family life as work? This sexism towards men only underscores sexist attitudes towards women. An article published by the Pew Research center in 2015 stated that 74 percent of the public believed that having more women in the workplace made child rearing more difficult, indicating that we largely still view child rearing as a women’s job.
Stay-at-home dads take a different approach to gender equality, one that includes diversity of experience and allows equal opportunity for both sexes.
