Professional and educated guy will still be able to earn his money when he'll become a father, but it's not true for that professional and educated woman.
Another way to put it - will a man be seen as (a) more or (b) less desirable to most women if he makes the following statement: “I’d like to marry a successful career woman, and when we have kids, I’d like to stay home and be the primary caretaker for the kids”?
What I'm really trying to get at is that no one should be staying home full time while the other is at work all day.
Careers are a very personal thing. Having a child shouldn't be thought of as something you do for yourself. You are doing it for the child and the world. It is important to raise them right, but not at the cost of your future. With two parents, it shouldn't be that difficult to split the time across both.
That may sound wrong, but in reality, it takes a village to raise a child. Why should one person sacrifice the rest of their life?
It may quite well take a village to raise a child, but in practice for most people there won't ba a village to do so; One person shouldn't have to sacrifice the rest of their life, but more likely than not one you will have to do that; and while I can agree that 'no one should be staying home full time while the other is at work all day' and Scandinavian countries have very nice results with such policies for both parents, in USA most people will be forced to choose between either that or poverty.
So, to answer the question, you're stating "clearly the answer should be b" ... but is the answer b in reality?
I didn't say that it should be B, I'm saying that unfortunately it is B. I can guarantee few women in the US want to support a man. However, I think the inverse is making more ground. Meaning I think less men are interested in highly dependent women.
The leveling of the double standard is happening not by women accepting dependent men, but by men expecting an independent woman.
I think about this a lot, but have not formed any convincing theoryas to why this is.