Stay at Home Dads

Stay at Home Dads When we think of a stay-at-home dad, we think of a deadbeat dad that can’t get a job and support his family. In reality in these economic hard times more and more men are forced to stay home and raise their children while the wife works. In our culture we’ve had fixed gender roles where men were the breadwinners and the women stayed home raising the children. We should not judge those dads that are taking on the role of Mr. Mom because they are doing their part in rearing their children. The old fashion thinking that men are better workers than women is now more scorned at than understood. Yet, thinking that women can take care of the household better than a man had not changed until the early nineteen-hundreds when we had a depression and everyone had to find work to be able to survive. According to the (“Family Roles”) Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender, family patterns and roles have been greatly affected during the past century by contemporary trends that include changes in urbanized, economic modernization, the shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy, and improvement in the status of women in the United States and around the world.” This change was started when women were brought into the factories during World War II because they needed workers to build the war machines and the men were shipped off to fight in the war. When the war ended and women were then expected to resume their duties at home, they were not happy about it. The women got a taste of working and earning a pay-check to support their family. As a result this started some disharmony in the family unit and men were expected to share in the raising of their children. During the sixties and the women’s movement, some women were convinced they could do any job a man could do and achieve anything they desired. As a result of all of that, a woman being out of the household working a fulltime job could possibly have been the cause of more

Cited: Works "Family Roles and Patterns, Contemporary Trends." Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender. Oxford: Elsevier Science & Technology, 2001. Credo Reference. Web. 16 November 2012 Gill, Libby: The Essential Guide to Creating the New Family. New York: Penguin Group. Stay-At-Home Dads Williams, Alex; The New York Times August 2012. Web. 24 November 2012.