I’m a stay at home dad and have been for the last 5 years. My wife works for herself, spending anywhere from 10-14 hours a day working pretty much 6-7 days a week (she loves her job and gets paid well to do it).

Personally I don’t see it as an unfair bargain. I work hard at home, it can be stressful and tiring sometimes, but my wife takes on all the stress of providing income. I get ‘compensated’ pretty well - we have a good income and I live a great life. I personally think that home-makers who complain that they aren’t ‘compensated’ for their work are being churlish.

That’s great when it’s working well.

I suspect there’s a couple of problems -

(1) often the home-maker goes back to work, but the home-duties don’t get redistributed accordingly. The home maker is forever saddled with that burden, limiting their career options.

(2) In a divorce, the man is often left with a good income, through a valid, ongoing career, while the stay-at-home mom is left with an empty CV, the ongoing burden of the kids, and an allowance decided by the courts. Sure, men might have the burden of a new alimony/child payments ‘tax’, but otherwise they’re now free to do whatever they want. The woman isn’t.

(vast generalization of course)