Half Changed World

In the past couple of weeks, I keep seeing mentions of what I call "reverse traditional families"’ — families where the mother is the primary breadwinner and the father is a SAHD — in all sorts of media.  I’m most intrigued by the fact that these aren’t stories about SAHDs as such.

• The February issue of Money has an article headlined "Get the Life You Really Want."  One of the families profiled, the Davis family, describes their goal as "wanting their kids to be raised by a stay-at-home mom or dad."  Moreover, they’ve actually managed to take turns at the at-home role, which is a nice trick; I wish the article had talked more about Laurie Davis maintained or developed her work skills while out of the work force, such that she "was recruited for a lucrative job at a medical device company" after having been home for 4 1/2 years.
• In an essay in Working Mother about the value of having two involved parents, Courtney Nowell writes: "Carter and I talked about one of us quitting… "  While they ultimately decided to both work outside the home, I like the matter of fact tone in which she considered it equally possible for either parent to stay home.
• I’m in the middle of reading Life, by Gwyneth Jones. This book is largely about gender relations, so I’m very interested in seeing what Jones does with the fact that the main character is her family’s breadwinner, while her husband is a househusband and SAHD.  So far, it’s mostly been a device for commentary about how hard it is to be a mother and a scientist.
• In one of my favorite comic strips, For Better or For Worse, last week we heard that Liz’s old boyfriend Anthony is taking a year off for parental leave.  Again, I’m looking forward to seeing what Lynn Johnston does with this plot thread; at the moment it seems to be just another way of showing what a great guy Anthony is and what a bitch his wife is: "Therese told Anthony that when the baby was born, it was HIS.  She said he was the one who wanted a family, so he could raise the baby, and he said he WOULD!"

In Kidding Ourselves, which I’ve discussed here previously, Rhoda Mahoney argues that reverse traditional families are a tipping point phenomenon.  More formally, she argues that men’s willingness to be primary caregivers is in part a function of how many other men are (or are perceived to be) primary caregivers. So the fact that SAHDs (and their wives) are showing up in the media, and not just in stories describing them as exotic Desperate Househusbands may actually be making a difference in the choices that families consider for themselves.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 9th, 2005 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Magazines and Newspapers, Work-family choices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.