Bias against stay-at-home dads (and ERE men)

[GandK]

Here is a recent video clip from The Steve Harvey Show in which a panel (4 men, 4 women) discussed the bias against stay-at-home dads. Video is about 7 minutes. They talked mostly about men who don't earn an income, rather than the child nurturing aspect.

As many of you know, I move mostly in traditional/conservative circles in the US which favor women staying home. I have handily taken advantage of that bias in my own retirement. But even considering what I see/hear about "traditional values" on a regular basis, I was shocked by the negativity that stay-at-home dads received on the show, especially from other young men. I would have expected it from men who are 50 and older. Not from the 20-somethings.

We've discussed the bias against men who are outside the traditional workplace in a few threads, frequently in people's journals. But mostly we've discussed the fear of it, as opposed to the reality.

Have any of you retired men, and/or stay-at-home dads, experienced prejudice or negativity that you believe you would not have experienced if you were a woman in the same circumstances? And did it come from another man, or from a woman? How did it affect you? What did you do in response (if anything)?

[bradley]

I'm not retired yet and I'm not a stay-at-home dad, but I can speak to the comments from the younger men. A lot of the men my age (20s) that I've met and known are very much about the bread-winning aspect of the relationship or some kind of shared status. In other words, they're fine with the woman either earning just as much or less or none, but the men themselves need to be at an equal or higher level. It's interesting.

[billc]

Not retired or stay at home either, but...

My wife and I have two little kids. She's home pretty much full time. I work from home - so I'm around a lot.

I personally wouldn't want to be a stay at home at current kids ages (toddler and infant). I would do it if it had to be done - but I find the day in - day out care to be pretty tedious. Though I think my wife also finds it tedious but she wouldn't want to work full time while I stayed home (traditional gender roles)

I wouldn't look down on a man who took on that responsibility though.

side note - my wife has doctorate and could make $80k/year+. Given what she'd talk home after taxes and the cost of full time child care in our area - she's passing up about $30,000 take home annually to stay with kids full time.

[theanimal]

It's interesting to note that both in the video and now on here, that when referring to someone who stays at home, a distinction needs to be made that the person staying home (in this case typically the woman) is educated, has a career etc. It's as if there is already a perceived bias that someone who stays home is inferior and it needs to be documented that they are in fact not.

I find it sad that someone needs to justify supporting their family in some way, whether it means they are staying at home or not, regardless of gender. It speaks to current values and norms.

[Slevin]

I'm not retired yet and I'm not a stay-at-home dad, but I can speak to the comments from the younger men. A lot of the men my age (20s) that I've met and known are very much about the bread-winning aspect of the relationship or some kind of shared status. In other words, they're fine with the woman either earning just as much or less or none, but the men themselves need to be at an equal or higher level. It's interesting.

I just realized I am guilty of this... I think I need to reflect on my own values...

[Laura Ingalls]

I work part time at my "fun job".

Dh does not work outside the home. Occassionally people ask me what my dh does. I say he worked in x field forever and now is retired or on a sabbatical and keeps the homefires burning (literial true the past week or so).

I think people think it is odd and wonder about the math of supporting four people on one part time job. Given the cultural norm of not talking about money they dont ask and continue to believe we are on the brink.

Dh and I have four siblings between us. Two are chill. One hasnt said much and one is very very jealous. I have thought about saying we both married people who like to shop. You married someone that like to buy new phones and buy crap at Costco. I married someone who like to buy AAPL and COST

[GandK]

A somewhat related thread, for those that haven't read it: Do others Respect you if you don't have a Job and ERE

It's interesting to note that both in the video and now on here, that when referring to someone who stays at home, a distinction needs to be made that the person staying home (in this case typically the woman) is educated, has a career etc. It's as if there is already a perceived bias that someone who stays home is inferior and it needs to be documented that they are in fact not.

I find it sad that someone needs to justify supporting their family in some way, whether it means they are staying at home or not, regardless of gender. It speaks to current values and norms.

Me too.

Yet I do the same. When people ask what I do, I say, "I wrote software for 20 years, and now I stay home with the kids." I don't think I've ever just said, "I stay home with the kids." Implicit in that, I suppose, is "I'm an educated woman who has had a 'good' career."

Posturing and status anxiety...

[JasonR]

o

[7Wannabe5]

It varies. Some men are very much able to stay in their "masculine energy" while in this role, and, unfortunately, others sometimes default to this role because otherwise unemployed or unemployable, and then they give the others a bad reputation. Best case scenario I knew of was the Swedish-immigrant husband of a friend who had a high paying job in nursing management. He took very good care of their 3 kids under the age of 5, while renovating their entire house, and baking delicious cookies and breads at the holiday season. Worst case scenario I knew of was the depressed unemployed husband of a very stressed out underemployed woman, who did nothing but watch sports on TV and gave his 6 year old daughter responsibility for the care of her two younger brothers. He totally pissed off the other stay-at-home moms in the neighborhood because they felt compelled to help out the little girl.

[enigmaT120]

If anything I would be jealous of them. ERE men, not stay-at-home dads. If I were retired I don't think it would occur to me to wonder if anybody had a problem with it.

Love this though: "My usual reaction is stabbing. Then all of a sudden the conversation is all about them. "Help, I'm bleeding" and such."

[henrik]

The government here pays the last salary to one stay at home parent for 1.5 years (subject to an upper limit of 3x national average salary). It keeps going at the same rate if the next kid is born within 2 years. The parents can switch. It's an incredibly generous and expensive benefit and it's questionable whether we should be paying people to produce more people, but I've noticed one thing-- decouple the need to "be the breadwinner" from the actual task of staying at home with kids, and suddenly I see more male than female friends staying home, with their egos mostly intact:)

[jacob]

The principal cultural value of consumer society is to maximize potential lifetime earning and spending.

Your status or human-worth to other consumers is given by earnings-potential and demonstrated spending.

In my experience there are exactly two commonly acceptable alternatives to spending money on alternatives other than new cars, bigger TVs, etc. there are acceptable to most consumers and those two are parenting and travel(*). If for whatever reason you're not out there earning, you can often justify it by saying that you're a stay at home parent (women more so than men, which is obvious from the clip) or that you're out traveling (no sexism here) with the unstated premise that you'll probably return to work some day.

Good luck getting any understanding if you're doing anything else, like bird watching, playing bridge, rescuing cats, or baking cakes!

(*) If I had to make a guess, I'd say that parenting is still valued for historical reasons (cultural inertia from older generations, especially the archetypeical 1950's family) and that travel is valued because it's natural for young people to want to go places and our culture places higher values on youth values.

Earnings-potential for middle class workers is given by education, so people mention education when they're middle class. Other socioeconomic classes would mention other proxies. People mention their earnings-potential proxy to reassert and retain their status and make other people aware that they are deliberately engaging in what should be a socially acceptable trade-off, rather than a failure to achieve earnings-potential, e.g. "I travel or parent because I choose to; not because I'm unable to earn."

In my experience, gender bias has been minor ... mostly from certain people (who consequently got transferred to my shit-list) thinking that I "punked out"(?) after becoming FI for myself (our savings are split) instead of saving enough to cover both of us whereas the opposite was not expected.

A bigger issue has been in picking "none of the above" when it comes to the otherwise acceptable choices of A) parenting; B) traveling; C) working. Those would be the typical "frequent objections" that have been discussed a lot in various threads, e.g. that one has a duty to earn; that not spending is unpatriotic; ... IOW, since I'm neither parenting or traveling I still resort to having to work around most people's very limited imagination or understanding as to how this lifestyle works.

[7Wannabe5]

Bradley said: A lot of the men my age (20s) that I've met and known are very much about the bread-winning aspect of the relationship or some kind of shared status. In other words, they're fine with the woman either earning just as much or less or none, but the men themselves need to be at an equal or higher level. It's interesting.

I see this all the time. A female friend of mine who is an MD/PhD, just recently started making more money than her somewhat older scientist husband. So, what happens? He has an affair with a massage parlor worker who needs rescue from an abusive boyfriend. OTOH, the fact that I have an extremely low income seems to have either zero or maybe even slightly positive influence on much wealthier men wanting to date me, well, at least up to the point where pre-nup comes into consideration, or they get to know me well enough to realize that f*ck you attitude can often trump f*ck you money. So, at least in our culture at the moment, I think gender is a consideration beyond generalized work/status ethic.

[Sclass]

or they get to know me well enough to realize that f*ck you attitude can often trump f*ck you money.

I love this.

I am sure there is some bias against people who don't have an obvious source of income. We fear what we don't understand.

Neighbors and stay at home moms (Do they still exist?) steer clear of me. Maybe they're worried about their safety.

When I see young guys living in middle class neighborhoods without any visible source of income I automatically think criminal. I have a neighbor in his 40s who stays home all day with his wife. Disability? Medical pot grower? I don't want to know. I stay back.

He always gives me a knowing smile and nods to me like we are in some kind of club. We are both keenly aware that neither of us works.

[jennypenny]

Yeah, I actually know two different men who stay home with their kids who use the phrase 'fell on their sword' when explaining their decision. I get it since people do seem to expect an explanation from them*, but it's still a little annoying. With women, it's usually couched in positive language like she 'gets' to stay home or she's 'lucky' to stay home, but with men it comes across more like they took one for the team.

*I'm amazed at how many people will come right out and say "Why don't you work?" and then wait expectantly for the guy to give a specific reason like an accident or disability.

[Riggerjack]

Well, Coming from the bottom of the economic spectrum, I see this differently.

Men staying home was not at all uncommon, parenting was; but that's a different subject. The first issue is that men staying home is associated with poverty.

SAHMs are the middle class white picket fence ideal. The Middle Class Dream is the house in the burbs, white picket fence, 2.3 children, with the father at the office, teaching Little Tommy to play catch on Sunday afternoons.

Men staying home, in most cases, is moving away from the Middle Class Dream, and down the economic ladder.

It's not often that I agree with 7W5, but she's right about the masculine energy bit, though I'd use different terms. The way that men and women are expected to compete, and establish themselves in social hierarchies, is different. Men, for better or worse, are expected to compete more directly, women have worked out a subtler approach. SAHDs are usually the ones who don't compete well directly.

SAHDs have the problem that they are associated with downward economic mobility, and not being competitors. This isn't a fair play sexism issue, this is an issue of associations. The solution is differentiating between yourself and the examples. That involves more social posturing than I have the energy for, but there it is.

I like the way MMM put it, first retire, then have kids. Then you can turn the tables with "Oh, I retired when we had Little Tommy. Don't you worry about all the things you aren't teaching Little Sally because you are still working?" Obviously, this doesn't work if a parent is still working.

Full disclosure, I have no kids and I couldn't watch more than half the video. I've never seen that show, but assume it's on TV in the middle of the day on weekdays. GandK, there is no happiness to be found on daytime TV.

[7Wannabe5]

Riggerjack said: It's not often that I agree with 7W5, but she's right about the masculine energy bit, though I'd use different terms. The way that men and women are expected to compete, and establish themselves in social hierarchies, is different. Men, for better or worse, are expected to compete more directly, women have worked out a subtler approach. SAHDs are usually the ones who don't compete well directly.

Right, so income disparity can cause problems with external bias, and also within relationship. Reason being, according to sexual dichotomy theory, that since men are always and forever in hierarchical competition with other men, they really don't want to be in competition with their SO, although they do want a SO of reasonably equivalent social status. That's why if you wish to convey that you are in your feminine energy, instead of saying something like "Honey, could you please turn up the heat?"(attempting to direct the behavior of others is perceived as a dominant play) , you would say something like "I feel cold." or maybe just shiver a bit. Of course, this sort of thing gets trickier when you try to apply it to something like "Honey, do you think you might mow the lawn or get a job sometime this century?"

OTOH, I think most any man who was capable of achieving ERE would likely be capable of maintaining/projecting his ego/power structure in most circumstances/interactions.

[bradley]

*I'm amazed at how many people will come right out and say "Why don't you work?" and then wait expectantly for the guy to give a specific reason like an accident or disability.

I feel like I'm the kind of person who would just say "Because I chose to" or "Because I make my money work for me".

ERE men are in a better position to deal with this sort of bias anyway compared to the typical stay-at-home dad, because ERE by definition means you have an income coming in (just from non-employment sources).