Anonymous wrote:It's pretty sad that so many posters have such a narrow view of how men can be providers for their families or wouldn't respect their DHs if they SAH. To me, being a provider means a man does what needs to be done for his family - period. For one family, that might mean he works. In another family, it may mean he takes care of the kids and the house. How can you really say that a man who recognizes what needs to be done for his family and does it regardless of what society says he "should" do is not worthy of respect? And the hypocrisy some women show is astounding. We don't want to be relegated to certain roles because of our gender, yet many of you seem to view men that way.

It's not sad. It's biology accross all cultures for all of history.

It's not attractive. You can be PC all you want and run around slathered in your pachouli singing kumbaya with your lady boys, but it doesn't change a thing.

It's pretty sad that so many posters have such a narrow view of how men can be providers for their families or wouldn't respect their DHs if they SAH. To me, being a provider means a man does what needs to be done for his family - period. For one family, that might mean he works. In another family, it may mean he takes care of the kids and the house. How can you really say that a man who recognizes what needs to be done for his family and does it regardless of what society says he "should" do is not worthy of respect? And the hypocrisy some women show is astounding. We don't want to be relegated to certain roles because of our gender, yet many of you seem to view men that way.

I'm not sexually attracted to non-income earning men.

Anonymous wrote:I have one. It wasn't my plan. I always wanted to work and assumed my spouse would work. There are definite good things about it (much less stress to have a parent at home, kids have strong bonds with dad) but the bad things are:

(1) the stress on me of feeling like everything money and insurance related is on me
(2) loss of earning potential for one member of our team and feeling like he will never really have a career again
(3) sometimes feeling resentful he is more a part of the kids' day than I am.

I think these are the drawbacks of a stay at home spouse of any gender, though.

As a man who works and has an at home wife, these are my sentiments as well. In my case my wife never returned from maternity and gives lip service that she wants to. 5 years later and no job.

I make good money, but I can't help but feel like these is such a profound loss when it comes to future retirement. If I knew what I know now, I would have done a better job of screening for a spouse that understood thr long term value to the entire family of paid work.

I just couldn't respect my husband if he wasn't out in the world making a living, sorry.

Anonymous wrote:Because women's work is not respected and who can respect a man who does women's work? Nobody really.

This was sort of the problem for us. My husband stayed at home for a little over a year. He was actually great at it, and I made enough money to pay for what we needed. We actually still had a housekeeper who did all of the laundry and cooking and such, but we had three little kids.
What made him go back was that he was so embarrassed to tell people what he was doing. It was hard for him to make friends. It was almost impossible for him to feel comfortable at parties where the first question (to men) often is "what do you do?"
I am sure that a different kind of guy could handle it, but he is a pretty straight laced military guy, and it really bothered him.

Sex roles are hard wired . Doesn't matter if people don't like it. If a man has less testosterone he will be an adequate sahd.

Anonymous wrote:I have one. It wasn't my plan. I always wanted to work and assumed my spouse would work. There are definite good things about it (much less stress to have a parent at home, kids have strong bonds with dad) but the bad things are:

(1) the stress on me of feeling like everything money and insurance related is on me
(2) loss of earning potential for one member of our team and feeling like he will never really have a career again
(3) sometimes feeling resentful he is more a part of the kids' day than I am.

I think these are the drawbacks of a stay at home spouse of any gender, though.

Agreed. My wife was a SAHM for three years with our two small kids and I completed agree with the above points. Also, add in a little bit of resentment of the SAHP's side that you get to have adult interaction and recognition beyond being a parent.

Because women's work is not respected and who can respect a man who does women's work? Nobody really.

I didn't go in actively searching for one, but it eventually worked out that way Our situation is not very typical though, so I can absolutely see how other women may not want this. DH is great at it. I love having a SAH parent. I get a fair amount of judgement from other women, but it's been a while since I cared

SAHD usually doesn't work for two reasons:

1. Practically, women end up doing the fine details of domestic work even with a SAHD. Thank-you notes, school projects, PTA fundraisers, clothes shopping, b-day party planning. Men have a lower threshold of what it means to get things done right.

2. Women who have a SAHD are high earning, surrounded by high earning men. That is attractive so these alphas (I hate that term but you get the picture) look more attractive than her DH. Plus, she gets resentful that these alphas have domestic, cared for goddesses at home while she works her ass of at work then second shifts at home. Attraction to husband withers, he feels emasculated, affairs begin.

Obviously a generalization, but I haven't seen this work yet.

MyDH would suck at it. I suck at it so I don't but he would be worse

Lol. Pp here. Demanding career. Not dam ding. Though maybe a telling autocorrect.

Ditto the pp. I also have a sahd. He is between jobs and has been so for 16 months so feel like staying at home IS his job. It works for our family in so much that I have a dam ding career and I am happy to have him at home to handle the day to day. Does he love it? No, he gets bored. He is frustrated that he is not as an equal or greater financial partner to me. Do the kids love it? Yes. He is a good father, very involved in our school and their activities. I do honestly feel pretty left out quite a bit of the time which is hard not to translate into resentment. He is looking for a job regularly and when that happens I am sure I will miss having one of us home. I was the SAHparent for a short time and really didn't enjoy it. we have had great nannies also that helped hold our family intact and on schedule but it is nice to have a spouse so available to our kids needs 24/7. Ultimately, the perfect balance would be two flexible careers that allowed
Both of us to have equivalent time career focused and family focused. In the past ten years, that has shifted from him to me and I cannot say I can imagine that we can both have that at the same time. We are trying though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All these women who's DH far out earn them. Did you scale back your career early on in anticipation of kids? You say it doesn't make sense b/c your DH far out earns you, but is it possible you were stacking the deck?

Or they are unemployable

LOL, no. What a lame conspiracy theory. I was in my career for over 12 years, advancing regularly, but the fact is that my field is simply not as remunerative as his. You do realize that some fields pay more than others, right?

"Stacking the deck" and "scal[ing] back your career early on in anticipation of kids" - now I've heard it all. Yeah...I conspired against myself to make less money during my single years just so that if I ever got married and had kids, I could be making less money than the guy I married and have an excuse to stay home and polish my nails all day. You need help, PP.