Stay-at-home Dad.

There is a huge debate going on today about gender. Society believes you’re a boy if you like blue, and like to play sports and go hunting; and you’re a girl if you like pink and have long hair and pig tails and play with Barbie dolls. Society has forced us to choose between the two. I believe that both women and men can both have it all. As Dorment says, ‘competing work life balance and home as much as women’. (Dorment 697) I believe in this article Richard Dorment, has argued his opinion very well, I think both men and woman equally need to be involved in housework as well as taking care of the children. In today’s world were judging who were going to be even before were born. Throughout this article Dorment effectively convinces his audience that men and women should be equal by using statistics and emotional stories, Dorment uses personal stories and extensive research to make readers believe in his credibility, and lastly Dorment employs the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos effectively.

Throughout history, women have been groomed to be the best they can domestically. To place them in the man’s position of being the sole provider of the family seems irrational at best. Although the natural gender roles may be overpowering during the start of having a family, through time duties between husband and wife, regarding domestic life, tend to balance out once financial security is established. Like many major changes, it starts out bumpy but eventually a solution is found and both husband and wife find their “happy-medium.”

Men and women also have different opinions and reactions to leaving the house for work, Dorment says. Men today want to be better fathers than men in previous generations, men still feel like they have to provide for the family, even if they have wives that bring in forty-five percent of the family income (Dorment 709). This is why men feel as though they can work long hours away from home. They feel as though they are sacrificing time with their kids to provide for the family (even though they may still miss their kids). Women, Dorment points out, have a different reaction to leaving their kids to go to work. They feel guilty and experience

The differences between gender roles are not so apparent anymore. Men are not always the typical breadwinners and many women are not stay-at-home mothers. An article by Beaupré, Dryburgh, and Wendy (2010) described the transition that many men are going through. According to Beaupré, et al., (2010), fathers were once considered the forgotten parent. “Until recently studies on the family focused mainly on the mothers” (Beaupré, et al., 2010). Fortunately, both parents are now being focused on. Fathers today are much more involved in the pregnancy and birth of their child and their child’s life in general (Beaupré, et al., 2010). Beaupré, et al., (2010) explained that women’s involvement in the labour force could be a factor to this change. Women are more educated than they were in previous years. And while women want to work more, men want to be more involved in their children’s lives (Beaupré, et al., 2010). Fatherhood is occurring later in adulthood. Research stated that the majority of men are very satisfied with their involvement in their children’s lives. (Beaupré, et al., 2010).

Fewer men have the support of a full-time homemaker wife who can both shield them from family-related work, and enable them to direct energies exclusively toward a career.

All mothers have the protective instinct for their children. So what happens if they have a baby then go back on the job and ended wanting to leave completely, they will not be able to leave until their contract is fully done and completed if they do not fulfill the contract they will be sent to court martial. So I leave that women should stay at home with their children because they can handle it way more than men can. Don’t get me wrong some men take care of their kids great but it’s better for a mom to stay home with them and make sure absolute everything is going okay and won’t have to stress about it as much when you are away from them.

The modern day woman works outside of the home, but then returns and continues to take care of housework and the children. Sociologists refer to this part of the woman’s day as the, “Second shift.” Two studies conducted found that if a man is more economically dependent on his wife, he is less likely to do housework. However, no evidence suggests that becoming economically independent makes marriage any less desirable for a woman. The family is the initial agent of socialization in their child’s life, however, even though the mother of the family may have the job with longer hours and better pay, the parents will still reinforce traditional gender roles in their household (Thompson 301-302.) This behavior can cause a child to embrace the stereotype that the woman’s only role is to cook, clean, and take care of the children. Even if a woman is the primary

In Judith Stadtman Tuckers “The Least Worst Choice: Why Mothers Opt out of the Work Place” Judith Stadtman Tucker looks at why hard working, intelligent woman are choosing to leave their high end jobs to stay at home with their children. Judith Stadtman Tucker expresses her option that it is nearly impossible to work 40 hours a week, be available on your off hours as well as raise children. I fully agree with Judith Stadtman Tucker’s point of view that it is absurd to have to be at the mercy of your employer even in your off hours, nor less if you are attempting to create an emotional connection and successfully raise a child. It is no question that even in today’s modern society that it is assumed that woman are the best caregivers for young children. If you are put in a position where you have a child to raise, is it more appropriate to abandon your career or to emotionally abandon your child to a stranger or strangers and allow them to raise it? Judith Stadtman Tuckers argument against mothers having to choose between the joys of parenthood and the freedom of being able to work a career really speaks to me because it makes me consider what I want for my own future and what I would choose.

Before we began to build our family, my husband and I were both working full time jobs at an upwards of 60 hours a week. This was practical at the time, but I knew I could not continue to do so with an infant. This led me to leave my job of 3 years just before giving birth. After a few months, I debated long and hard on returning to work. After very careful consideration, I decided the best thing to do for everyone would be for me to stay home. I knew that being a stay at home mom would be hard. More importantly, I also knew that my daughter needed me to be there for her. It helped me learn that the plan you may have for yourself may not be the best plan for everyone else; being able to compromise for loved ones is always important.

Women’s role within the household has changed considerably over a period of time. In the later days in the United States women were to attend to the children and to the house and not do much more than that. Children are now being raised by stay at home dads instead of the stereotypical stay at home moms. According to Gardner, "Real-life families have changed considerably since 'Mr. Mom ' appeared, with more men sharing child-rearing and household chores." (Gardner 2010) This is occurring because women’s jobs are no longer labeled as being just for women. Men have gotten a lot of criticism for being stay at

Well, my parents went to work every day to provide for my brother and I and we had everything we ever needed. We lived in a nice house, had a dog, and I never went without. I was able to dream about the future and the possibilities that were out there for me to seize. With that being said the first topic I would like to discuss with you is the issue of childrearing. If you look at the US over the last 50-100 years within the scope of childrearing you will find a common theme. The “normal” house consists of a father who leaves every day to go to work and provide for the family and a mother who stays home to take care of the children and the house. This has been a standard of living in the US for a very long time. A recent article published by the Pew Research Center states: “While most stay-at-home parents are mothers, fathers represent a growing share of all at-home parents – 16% in 2012, up from 10% in 1989. Roughly a quarter of these stay-at-home fathers (23%) report that they are home mainly because they cannot find a job. Nearly as many (21%) say the main reason they are home is to care for their home or family. This represents a fourfold increase from 1989, when only 5% of stay-at-home fathers said they were home primarily to care for family” (Livingston 2014). This is interesting in many ways. Less than thirty years ago the number of stay at home dads was drastically lower. One might say that the only reason that these dads are staying home is because they cannot find work outside the home. The statistics disprove this theory. While it is true that some have suffered from a shaky economy, many are home because they choose to be. 23 percent say that they are home due to the fact that they cannot find work. 21 percent are home by their own choosing. This is hard to understand for most people. Globally it is accepted that the place of the man should be

The survey found that it was still very rare for fathers to take primary responsibility for childcare in dual-earner families, no-earner families or families where only the woman worked, showing again inequality in conjugal roles. Therefore Ferri and Smiths findings disagree with the statement, showing inequality in conjugal roles. Many women agree with Ferri and Smith that it is they rather than their

Long gone are the days when women were expected to stay at home and play “housewife”, cooking, cleaning, and making sure the kids got off to school, while their husbands worked a 9 to 5 in order to make ends meet. Today, women are no longer viewed as weak and incapable. A “superwoman” is the new woman. Men as the “breadwinners” have been replaced by “Ms. Independent.” The traditional male role has diminished as women fulfill bigger roles in society and exceed the expectations of their male counterparts in the household, workforce, and within social settings. We have abandoned old rules; no longer is it a “man’s world,” we now live in a shared world.

With or without the existence of this challenge, women have been gaining a steady foothold in the workplace. In fact, in America it has become a natural cultural trend for there to be dual incomes within the family and many families could not live the lifestyle that they do without the female’s contributing income to the family. This is the new norm in our local society. The new roadblock that we face now is when it comes to a single-income family in which the breadwinner is the female. So now the question becomes, why? Why is this idea so difficult for us to accept? Stay at home dads, aka; Mr. Mom’s, are becoming more and more a trend of today. Some of the factors that go into a decision like this are things like benefits, childcare, and which earner has the

In some instances, one salary may not be sufficient to maintain the family needs. When a woman takes up maternity leave depending on the circumstance, her spouse may want to be there to assist. In taking up paternity leave the father can be present to lend his support in one way or another. Taking time off from work to be at home with the family for a few weeks does not take away a man’s role in the family. Fathers play an important role in child-rearing. A man who loves his family and has family values would see no fault in staying at home for a few weeks to lend support and assist his spouse with little things like change diapers, give baths, make meals and clean the house. While the “rest of the men” are doing “stuff”, men who are confident and value their family do “stuff” with them.