I spent yesterday and today at home with the baby. Mama WOWO went back to work, and so there was some lag time between her return and the arrival of family help. So I became the Stay-At-Home dad.
According to this segment of the conversation in the video above, the economy is creating lots of Stay-At-Home dads. Banking, housing, and automobiles are industries which have a skewed gender ratio in favor of men, and because these industries have been hit the hardest, a large majority of the recently laid-off happen to be men–82% according to the Times segment. Without these jobs, more and more men have left the job market and have now taken on roles as house-husbands. It’s a complete reversal of the traditional gender roles, which is what the two bloggers in the video above are discussing. Who would’ve ever thought that the economy could help fight sexism?
So how were my two days as a house-husband? Not bad, actually. On the first day, I took my daughter to the library for the Bed Bugs program, where a librarian read and sang with moms and kids under 12 months old. It was lots of fun–although I was the only dad in a roomful of women. The little one mostly just stared at me, but I was able to elicit a smile or two. I spent part of today cleaning the house while she slept, and another part writing a query letter for a magazine submission. Cooking dinner was fun as always, especially since my son now eats.
I think I could get used to this. It’s good to get back to the basics of home life from time to time.
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I also wanted more rice than what could fit inside the wrap....
I won’t expressly judge how well of a house-husband you have been, because I don’t know you well enough. But *generally* I just don’t see men doing this particular job very well.
As you know about my recent accident, the husband has had to assume all domestic duties… and our house is in chaos. Funny I should read this entry this morning. We have company coming over this evening, but Hubby hasn’t done dishes in a week. Nor does he think it necessary to, say, ever wipe the countertops. Before bed last night, I reminded him that we had company and we should probably clean up.
Thank goodness I got up at 6 this morning; otherwise I wouldn’t have had the time to clean! I even had to empty the dishwasher first. He left clean dishes in the dishwasher, for how long, I haven’t a clue. And on dishes… his idea of washing dishes is a swab of detergent and then run it for a few seconds under water. After he “does the dishes,” I have to go back and do it again, because everything is still dirty.
Usually I tidy up his home office for him, you know, pick his dirty socks off the floor, throw out old newspapers and magazines, arrange his desk. I didn’t step into that room at all for one week and now the place looks like a landfill.
I remember Tuesday night of last week in the ER room, Hubby held my hand and said sweetly, “Now I can be a house husband and do everything while you heal.”
Uh….
No, no, of course he has been wonderful. He tries. It’s just that, frankly speaking, he sucks at the particular job of house-husbandry.
P.S. House Husband and Stay At Home Dad are two different and distinct jobs. I have no question that men make phenomenal stay at home dads, but house husband? That one I question.
“But *generally* I just don’t see men doing this particular job very well.”
If this were the 44s, one of the angry women would be on you like rice on rice. Actually, one in particular would probably accuse all men of sexism, and THEN be on you like rice on rice. She would say something like, “It’s because they’re sexist! Sexist!!! All men are pigs except for the ones who never leave socks on the floor! Look at Kaneshiro. Have you ever seen him leave socks on the floor in any of his movies?”
On a another note, it’s ironic that you bring this up because almost as soon as I posted, I got in trouble for my poor House Husband skills. It looked clean to me!
Quite honestly, I don’t think men are genetically unequipped to be good house husbands. I think they are psychologically wired to think of household chores as something beneath them, and even if there are good intentions, do not give the chores their due value, i.e. who cares if I missed a spot of egg yolk crust on the plate, what’s the big deal, if you care so much, you do the dishes. Also, much of the sexist attitude stems from how their parents divide domestic chores.
So, yes, there are men who do make fine (if not fabulous) house husbands… This may not be much coming from me who is a “domestic zero”… but I have to say that my boyfriend is one of those men who are fabulous house husbands. They do exist.
Check out this article in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/business/11envy.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=86f35713ad1ca64b&ex=1187755200&emc=eta1
“The thing I most want in life is a wife. I’m not kidding,” said Joyce Lustbader, a research scientist at Columbia University, who has been married for 29 years. “I work all day, sometimes seven days a week, and still have to go home and make dinner and have all those things to do around the house.”
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