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Comment by igetspam | Hacker News Reader

Men can stay home and that's the point: we don't see men volunteering to be the stay-at-home parent because there's no incentive for them. We assume being mom is the pinnacle of female existence because we ignore the reality that all humans have goals and independent needs. Maybe your wife is special and thinks she needs nothing else and get cup is filled only by pouring herself out into the cups of others until she's empty. Maybe your local community days the same thing out loud. But I bet if you asked your wife if she ever felt like she'd like to do have something for herself, something that let her feel like individual she once was, she'd probably have some comments and ideas. Perhaps explore that a bit.

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Without exception, my male friends with kids have significantly reduced their time and energy spent on their jobs to focus more on their small children. They all say that their kids are the most rewarding part of their lives. Most have highly-paid professional jobs. I expect to do the same, at least for the early years, when I eventually have children.

This seems to be a huge shift from the previous generation. My father and most of his peers worked long hours and contributed little to childrearing.

I think you're still in the minority but it's a good thing. I'm devoted to my spouse and my kid. I'll drop anything for them. Some of the fathers I know feel the same but some smell like mine and he was a piece of crap. I fully support parenting being a team sport and in my opinion, that's how we're going to fix the modern family, by making it better than pretend version of The Good Old Days.

I don't know about your good old days, but I am just emulating my very religious, very conservative father, who, like me, made similar career choices to spend more time with his kids, as well as that of my grandfather's. Their good old days were pretty darn nice and I fully intend to recreate it for my children.

Reduced but not abandoned, that's the difference. My wife works part time hours since since the birth of our son, but she would never quit her job entirely and that dynamic will change substantially once he's old enough to start school.

Referring back to your previous post, I asked my wife if she felt she should be paid. She says she is paid, in that my money (which I make for the family) is her money and supports the entire household.

I'd guess men don't volunteer to be primary child rearers because stay-at-home jobs have been relatively rare, prior to the past 4 years, men tend overwhelmingly to want to support a spouse than to be supported (which is probably why gay couples have greater household incomes and lower divorce rates than all other categories), and women tend to be hypergamous in mate selection. It's not that there's no incentive to stay home (if you like your children, at least, which I hope is true), it's that there's a strong incentive to go to work.

In my particular situation, tax and childcare would eat most of my wife's income, so she'd be spending 40+ hrs/wk working with other people's children in exchange for less time with hers. She'd rather work with our children and be able to take an afternoon nap.

Would we both prefer to be independently wealthy and not have to work, sure! Might one or both of us work anyway? I probably would. She probably wouldn't.

The remainder of your message appears to be uninformed condescension. My wife is not a chattel slave. Her primary focus is child rearing and home making, but it's not her sole occupation nor solely her responsibility.

There are parts of being single we miss, and parts of being childless we miss. That doesn't change the fact that we've worked very hard for the life we have, find it very rewarding, and wouldn't give it up easily.

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