Reply to Why do men assume their wife will become a SAHM?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is not a knock on moms  that choose to stay home of their own volition.

I'm talking about guys who marry a woman with a career.  Guys that get with awoman knowing her career is important to her, that she spent years getting into her position, same as he did,  that just assume she'll stay home because he doesn't like  daycare or his mom stayed home, and his brother's wife stays home, or because he makes money?

Why is it overwhelmingly the woman who is expected to sacrifice her career ,even if it's not what she wants.

To be fair, I now one dad who altered his career to stay home when his kids were small instead of ecpexting his wife, too, but why is this so rare?[/quote]

OP, I am curious why you are asking this.  Is your DH pressuring you to stay home?[/quote]

Thankfully no. Unfortunately, there are several women close to me who feel pressured to stay home, even though that's never what they wanted, and their husbands are being completely inflexible. There is also the multitude of threads of women worrying over becoming the default parent, or having to quit their job, or boyfriend/fiance etc has decided that the women in the equation is going to stay home.

Where does this come from, that to many it's not even  a thought that they could stay home instead of mom? Especially for younger men, men 50 and younger GenXers and Millenials I can understand in precvious generations  where the society was stll so patriarchal.

There have been many good points made regard socialization,  men being criticized for staying home the way women are criticized for ether choice, religion, and culture.

And interesting though I consider bogus claims of men being incapable of nurturing. Though I do think there could be an argument for their being a biological drive for a mom to be near her infant.

I guess what are we getting wrong?
[/quote]

I think it’s more insidious than this.  
Women carry the infant, so they start off a little more bonded with the infant.  
Then women take maternity leave, so they learn how to take care of the baby.  Maybe they are nursing as well.  
Then when it comes time to go back, it becomes clear that two full throttle careers won’t work.  Since the woman is more comfortable with the home stuff, she decides to step back a little.  
Since she is home more, more of the home management stuff falls on her.  It makes sense.  
They decide to have another baby, and there is more to do at home.  She is now making less money because she stepped back, and she is more comfortable with the home stuff, so it just makes sense for her to go part time.  
He now feels financial pressure to care for two children and a wife working part time.  He goes even harder at work (after all, his wife is taking card of the kids), and starts to make more money.  
Meanwhile, her job becomes less enjoyable.  She is less critical because she works part time, she is tired from doing everything at home, and work becomes only about the income.  
Then one day they look at the income.  And with his increase in income, her part time income minus childcare for two kids is a very small portion of their take home.  It seems like it’s not worth it for the stress it’s putting on the family.  
So she quits.  Or takes very part time consulting work and becomes a SAHM.

So, did she choose to quit?  Did he pressure her into it?  I don’t know.  But unless both people make a real effort to maintain two working parents, it’s all too easy to fall into the above pattern. [/quote]

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