Moms on Top: the rise of power wives, house husbands and the new single-income family
Now that more women are high powered and high earning, their husbands are choosing to quit work and raise the kids. An inside look at today’s domestic role reversal
Six years ago, when Daniela Syrovy became pregnant with her first child, she planned to take a maternity leave. She would step away from Clutch, her fledgling public relations business, while her husband, Tim Kelloway, would continue running Big Burger, his Etobicoke restaurant. Then their daughter Suri was born. Daniela, now 33, recalls the moment with perfect clarity. “I’d just gone through labour and our whole family was in the room. It was really emotional, and the midwife handed me the baby. I felt completely bewildered by this little stranger, and then I saw Tim was crying. He looked in my eyes and said, ‘Now I understand why I was put here.’ And I told him, ‘Well, thank Christ one of us feels that way!’”
Six months into motherhood, Daniela was overwhelmed. While the baby was thriving, the dishes and laundry were piling up, and she was ordering in dinner every night. Tim proposed, in the gentlest way possible, that he take over the primary parenting.
Now the couple has three children—Suri, who is five, four-year-old Viiva and two-year-old Lennon Peach. Tim has sold the restaurant and is a stay-at-home dad.
“He does everything around the house, and I make all the money,” Daniela says. “It’s that simple.”
The Syrovy-Kelloways are one of a growing number of Toronto families in which the mother is the sole breadwinner and the father takes care of the kids. They are pioneers in the new frontier of family life. In 2011, according to a Statcan study, 12 per cent of two-parent Canadian families had a stay-at-home dad, up from seven per cent in 1996 and one per cent in 1976. That’s higher than in both the U.S., where the rate is only 9.5 per cent, and the U.K., where such families account for 10 per cent.
The trend toward domestic role reversal has come as a direct result of the rise of mothers in the workforce, which crucially crossed the 50 per cent mark in the ’80s, when today’s generation of young urban professional parents in their 30s were growing up. Last year, a Harris-Decima poll found that Canadian women are the primary breadwinners in a staggering 26 per cent of married or common-law relationships.
Breadwinning moms and their caregiving male partners are not just growing in number: they are overhauling the way we think about gender, success and domestic life. “Today’s generation of young parents were the first to grow up watching most of their mothers work and many of their fathers actively participate in domestic labour,” says Nora Spinks, the CEO of the Vanier Institute, which tracks social trends among families. Whether these couples are making a conscious choice to buck the norm, struggling with the practicalities of raising a family in an expensive city or simply doing what feels right to them, they are testing the liberal truism that an enlightened woman can bring home the nitrate-free bacon and her man can fry it up. Toronto is becoming a city on the vanguard of the reordering of domestic labour.
On a visit one mid-week morning to the Syrovy-Kelloways’ Junction house, I’m treated to a typical snapshot of swirling domestic chaos: Suri and Viiva dash naked through the house yodelling like mad Swiss nymphs, while their baby brother, Lennon Peach (clad only in a Batman tank top), saunters into the kitchen holding a half-eaten cob of corn and demands “Mo’!” Daniela sips her coffee and checks her phone as Tim takes the unfinished cob from his son, mimes throwing it in the garbage and then—in a deft parental sleight of hand—pulls it out of the fridge as if brand new. Satisfied, the toddler staggers from the room chewing his “new” snack. Tantrum averted, Tim settles back down at the table. But only until the next holler or demand.
The Syrovy-Kelloways have always shared what they’ve earned—everything goes into and comes out of the same pot. Even back when they were still dating, and struggling to get the restaurant off the ground, the couple had a joint account. Daniela’s friends thought she was nuts, but the idea of not sharing with Tim seemed strange. “Right from the beginning, even before the kids, we were completely intertwined,” she says.
Today Daniela makes between $80,000 and $100,000 a year from her PR business. They calculated that even if Tim went back to work and pulled in about the same, with three small kids in daycare at roughly $1,500 a month each, after taxes they’d be back in the same place they started—only with someone else raising their children. When other middle-class, dual-income families arrive at the same impasse, it’s the wife who usually puts her career on hold to raise the kids.
The division of labour between Tim and Daniela is as stark as it is between Don and Betty Draper—but in the new scenario, the childminder wears surf shorts and the breadwinner a vintage lace blouse. Tim even sounds like a typical underappreciated housewife, complaining good-naturedly about Daniela not cleaning up after herself (“I quickly learned it was easier just to do it myself,” he grumbles).
They get by the way most families in the squeezed, educated urban middle class do: by scrimping on the things that don’t matter to them and spending on the things that do. For a few years they didn’t have a car (an experiment that ended last summer—they are now the proud owners of a used minivan). They don’t take the kids to Canada’s Wonderland or spend their money on tacky plastic toys. There is, however, quiche on the table for breakfast the day I visit and organic veggies in the crisper. They take a family holiday every winter and Daniela recently insisted Tim go on a trip to Mexico on his own because he needed a break. Last winter, Daniela spent a month at film festivals in Germany and India—a trip she describes as both business and pleasure. When other mothers said to her, “You left your husband alone with your children for a month?” she’d retort, “You married a man you wouldn’t leave your children alone with?”
Daniela makes perfect sense to me. Like her, I am a new mother who has little interest in raising children full time and a lot of interest in my work. I’d say this is true of roughly 80 per cent of my female friends with young kids. We work because we want to, and because it’s more interesting and better paid than the alternative.
It’s Tim who fascinates me. What I want to know from him is this: How, as an educated, privileged man with every advantage in the world, has he chosen to do the work that women—for millennia society’s chattel and drudges—fought so desperately to get out of? How does he cope with the fact that his wife’s work is rewarded with money and status and gala invitations while his is essentially invisible—except to a narrow selection of small self-absorbed humans with insatiable corn demands?
He listens to the question, and then shrugs. “I guess I just don’t need that kind of validation,” he says. But when I press a bit further, something in him hardens. “Look,” he says, “you have a kid, right? So who’s with your kid right now?
A nanny, I tell him.
He nods. “Well I can tell you something. Your kid doesn’t want a nanny. Your kid wants you. Your kid needs you.”
I start to say that I have to work, and my partner has to work, and he waves his hands like he’s heard it all before—and of course he has. The truth is, I don’t have to work. I want to work. My son would be delighted if I sat in the backyard playing “eeny-meeny” with him all morning as Tim does with his kids. “I just don’t think saying ‘I work’ is much of an excuse for not raising your children,” Tim explains. “For me, it’s just not good enough.”
And of course, like centuries of unseen, unthanked stay-at-home moms and hardworking housewives before him, he has a solid point. It’s just astonishing to hear a man make it.
Once I started looking for stay-at-home dads, I found them everywhere. Visit any Toronto playground during the week and you will see fathers congregating among the usual crowd of moms, grannies and paid caregivers. These men are, for the most part, stylishly casual, well-educated former professionals who have given up offices and after-work drinks for BabyBjörns and Rainbow Songs. Some are on leave (29 per cent of Canadian men now take paid parental leave, up from three per cent in 2000) but many have quit their jobs, content to be dependent on their wives—at least until the kids are ready for school.
This generation of stay-at-home dads grew up in the ’80s and watched Three Men and a Baby and Mr. Mom—movies that placed their finger firmly on the cultural bruise that working women had left behind when they walked out of the house in a power suit and high heels. Through breast pump gags and exploding diaper jokes, these films asked one of the great sociological questions of our age. “Okay women’s lib, what’s next?”
Some of these dads complained to me of feeling trapped by their new roles. To remedy their isolation, they’ve developed a “dad culture”—in which fathers meet and mingle in a manner previously reserved for their female counterparts. There are now dozens of daddy bloggers who proudly share jokes about baby puke, parenting tips and photos of their kids at the park, at the cottage, in the tub and watching sports with dad.
David Eddie, a Toronto-based columnist and author, stayed home to look after his three boys when they were small, while his wife, Pam Seatle, an anchor on City News, worked to support their young family. The experience formed the basis for his book Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad. Looking back on those years, Eddie feels that his kids got the best of both worlds: a dad at home and a professional mother who would come home after a hard day at work and—instead of opening the paper and drinking a martini by the fire—dive right in. “Sometimes she’d come through that door just as I was about to friggin’ lose it,” Eddie says. “And thank god, she’d kick off her high heels, change out of her suit and into sweats, and get involved.”
I met one bearded, affable 35-year-old stay-at-home dad, Stuart Henderson, who is a historian and the author of Making the Scene, a book about Yorkville in the ’60s. After completing a contract teaching Canadian history at McMaster University, Henderson took some time off to care for his sons, two-year-old Noah and four-year-old Angus, while his corporate lawyer wife, Sarah Lowy, supports the family. Henderson does some freelance writing on pop culture and Canadian history on the side, but most of the childcare now falls to him. He describes his family’s financial state as comfortably middle class. He and his wife maintain both joint and separate household accounts. Henderson isn’t ready to give up work in the long run—far from it—but while he and his wife struggle through the weeds of new parenthood, he’s committed to being a house husband. “Among my guy friends, me being a stay-at-home dad has become an easy joke,” he says. “I’ll say I had a tough week, and they’ll say, ‘Why? You don’t even work!’”
Henderson admits he sometimes felt like an interloper in the world of baby activities. When he took his then six-month-old son to infant swim class, he was startled to discover he was the only man there. “It was all women but me,” he said. “They’re all about six months post-birth in bathing suits, probably feeling weird about their bodies—I’m sure the last thing they wanted was a man in the pool.”
The social rules for stay-at-home dads are still being written. Syrovy has noticed that some of her girlfriends are wary of including her husband in their circle of moms. Her stay-at-home mother friends still insist on texting her, rather than Tim, to set up play dates, even though they know he’s the one they’ll be meeting with. “I think they just feel uncomfortable connecting directly with him because they’re worried about how it looks. It doesn’t matter how many times I explain to people, ‘I have no idea what’s going on at home during the week.’ They think I’m the point person.”
Slowly but surely, the stigma against stay-at-home dads is disappearing. “I was honestly expecting a lot more prejudice,” says Brian Sinasac, a 42-year-old former animator with one-year-old twins. When his wife, Elizabeth, a 40-year-old senior policy analyst with the ministry of education, finished her maternity leave earlier this fall, Sinasac (who had also taken a year-long leave) decided to say home for good. “I’ve had a few Mr. Mom jokes,” he admits, “but what gets me is when people ask if I’m babysitting. I want to say, ‘I’m not 13 years old. These are my children. It’s called parenting.’”
Breadwinning moms may be more inclined to work outside the home than their husbands, but that doesn’t mean they have an easy time admitting it—to themselves or anyone else. It took Shannon Barnes, an attractive, blonde Toronto-based television commercial producer in her early 40s, two years to tell people that her husband, the landscape painter Jeremy Down, had become a stay-at-home dad since she gave birth to their now four-year-old daughter, Harper. Barnes, who earns around the low six figures, was self-conscious about being the primary breadwinner. “I found myself making excuses and apologizing for the fact that he was doing 99 per cent of the childcare while I was working,” she says. “But if the gender roles were reversed, no one would bat an eye. It took me a long time to just say, ‘He’s being a dad right now and you know what? He’s awesome at it.’”
Johanna Braden, a civil litigator with three children who lives in the Annex, was astounded by the blowback she and her husband, the employment lawyer Peter Cuff, encountered when he quit practising to be a full-time dad for their small children. “He was more temperamentally suited to staying at home, so that was the decision we made. But some people were reluctant to believe he’d leave a good job willingly. It was like ‘Oh, is he being pushed out? Or does he have a secret drinking problem?’ They couldn’t get their heads around it.”
Many of these moms describe a reluctance to admit that their husbands are simply better equipped as homemakers than they are. Shannon Barnes grappled with feelings of maternal guilt after returning to work. Her job requires a great deal of travel, and during those periods she is on call and fully immersed in the stressful, high-pressure world of commercial production. “At first I missed my daughter terribly, but there was this incredible sense of freedom,” she recalls. “The guilt I felt wasn’t about neglecting her. It was about how much I enjoyed being back, surrounded by grown-ups.”
The stay-at-home dads I’ve met, on the other hand, didn’t say, “It was hard for me to accept that my wife is a corporate lawyer and makes $350,000 a year on Bay Street.” This reveals less about men and more about the extraordinary pressure society places on working mothers both to be thin and high-earning, and to knit blankets in their spare time. Feminist commentators have devoted acres of copy to why this dream of “having it all” is essentially a raw deal for women (see Anne-Marie Slaughter’s “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” and Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In for details), but they often leave out one crucial factor in the debate, and that is the role of men.
Here’s the thing: if men choose to forgo their careers and stay in the home and are good at it, then a working mother can absolutely have it all—a high-flying career, secure children, a clean house and dinner on the table every night. The problem is that most educated, high-earning, ambitious, successful women tend to pair up with educated, high-earning, ambitious, successful men. And when children come along, those ambitious women face an impossible choice: outsource their children’s upbringing or dial back their careers. Most still choose the former.
Leah Eichler, the founder of Femme-o-Nomics, a website for professional women, says that most women she talks to “don’t want to give up that dream” of marrying a partner who has their earning power or better. Even for strident feminists, she says, “there is some embarrassment in saying, ‘My husband is not as successful as me.’”
It’s fascinating to me that women—theoretically the more nurturing sex—are far more likely to choose their spouse based on status and earning power than domestic capability. It seems we want men who have the capacity to support us financially, even if what we really need is dinner cooked and someone to do the grocery run. This instinct, which many evolutionary biologists believe is an anxious throwback to our hunter-gather ancestors (man hunt; woman tend home fire), doesn’t serve working mothers particularly well in 2013.
Let me put it another way: how many educated, high-powered working moms do you know who grew up thinking, ‘One day I’ll meet a sweet, kind man who I can financially support while he raises our children and redecorates the house’”?
Daniela expressed trepidation to me about being included in this article—not because her children would be exposed or her husband’s choice to stay home would come under scrutiny, but because she chose to prioritize her career. “The fact is, I’m just not very maternal,” she says. “I’m focused on my career and always have been. There’s a part of me that never switches off. I sometimes, quite literally, don’t know how to be with the kids. Tim never has that problem.”
“I’m the only one who makes the bath water the right temperature or cuts the apple properly,” Tim tells me. “Sometimes Daniela would be right there but the kids would want me. It bugged her for a while—she went through a period of feeling like a failed mother.”
Daniela says she’s become closer to her mom, who adores and respects Daniela’s stay-at-home husband, but more distant from her conservative eastern European father. “He’s just confused by Tim, and always has been,” she says. “When the outside world doesn’t accept our scenario, we just ignore it.”
I admire men like Tim for being social mavericks, but at the same time I’m skeptical that they’ve found the perfect family model. These educated men have chosen to take up the lesser role in an outdated domestic division of labour. I don’t believe the model mankind pursued for all those millennia—one half of the partnership a household drudge, unable to own property, vote, have a career outside the house, while the other half earned money, went for lunch and had a tangible stake in the world—was working. It was a raw deal for women, just as it appears to me a raw deal for the men who are taking it up.
The problem, of course, is children. What to do with these small, delightful and frustrating humans who require 24-hour surveillance? What do they deserve? How can we do right by them while also doing right by ourselves?
Just as I’m winding up my visit with the Syrovy-Kelloways, Tim rises from the table to check the kids, then begins charging up and down the stairs, from one end of the house to the other. Daniela ignores this and continues chatting. Finally, I ask what’s wrong. “I can’t find the girls,” Tim says, striding through the room, flinging open closets and cupboards. “They must be hiding.” He heads into the backyard to check the shed, and Daniela offers me more coffee. I wonder if she isn’t a tiny bit worried, what with her two young daughters theoretically scampering naked across the city’s west end like a pair of runaway wood sprites.
“He’ll find them,” she says. “He always does.” Then she smiles serenely and goes back to sipping her coffee and talking about work.
Actually, Lean In explicitly discusses men in the book, and how important a good, supportive partner is; one who shares household and child rearing duties.
These are not “kept” men. They’re men that are actively engaged in the rearing of their own children, as noted above; not “babysitting”, “parenting”.
love Tim’s painted toe nails…
This piece deserved a more thoughtful writer. To the house-husbands, rest assured that her misandristic viewpoint is not shared by all but kudos to you for enduring it.
I could not agree more. This issue is not given its true due by the current Author. It takes a second read just to determine the actual message. Unfortunate, but still great that this is being talked about.
I don’t understand how this paragraph fits into this article, as nothing written in the pages prior supports this conclusion:
“These educated men have chosen to take up the lesser role in an outdated domestic division of labour. I don’t believe the model mankind pursued for all those millennia—one half of the partnership a household drudge, unable to own property, vote, have a career
outside the house, while the other half earned money, went for lunch and had a tangible stake in the world—was working. It was a raw deal for women, just as it appears to me a raw deal for the men who are taking it up.”
airhead, fluff piece
I find it hard to believe that the general consensus for a lawyer leaving his practice behind to take care of his kids would be seen as anything less than admirable by his colleagues and friends. And if it was, I wouldn’t want those people as colleagues or friends.
She supports a family and a mortgage on a house in Toronto earning 80-100K???
I would like to see her credit card (s) balance!
Well…call me old fashioned, but no MAN with anything resembling self-esteem would let his woman take care of him. And any man who would, is obviously married above his station.
Buncha wimps.
Corporate lawyers don’t make $350K unless you’re closer to being a non-equity partner.
Terrible terrible writer, The author was clear that she loves to work and could never be a stay at home mom, but when you write so poorly perhaps your time is better spent at home with your kids instead of putting out stories like this.
They’re not “taking care” of their men. The couples have decided to divide the work of being a couple and parents however they see fit. The men aren’t just sitting at home doing nothing.
No real “man” should be, or want to be in that position.
Its not a question of inequality..no woman REALLY wants a man who is shorter than her, for example. This is a biological reality.
No “real” woman could respect a man who wasnt her superior in masculine ways.
And another thing…I do everything better than a woman.
Everything. Cook, clean, earn, fight, paint, work, plan, execute, drive, write, build, think…
If I could bend in the right way, I would just marry myself.
The love of a woman is the reward for a life of strength.
If I wanted to marry a man, I’d be queer.
This is my story too. The most difficult thing has been societies inability to accept our story. Things are changing, but my family has lived this for over 10 years. Too late for us to enjoy the approval of society ( not that we need it) but I hope we are paving the way, making it an easier choice for generations to come.
I’m currently a male undergraduate. Are there actually women who would enjoy dating a man who would become a SAHD when they have kids?
I’d rather being a SAHD than have my own career. Would I be seen as lazy or boring?
This article is very badly written. It barely scratches the surface if this discussion, the author repeatedly contradicts herself and she has no clear opinion on the matter. All if the stay-at-home dads in this article sound fantastic and proud- it’s the author who keeps projecting her own biases and perceptions of family structures on these fathers. Don’t quit your day job, author, it doesn’t look as you have much talent for writing.
The title Power Wives is a bit misleading. These women are not Marissa Mayer or Laurie Ann Goldman. They’re regular women with decent jobs.
I’m disappointed by your response.
Every couple has their arguements.
We are no different.
You will forgive me, once you tuck into my basil-tomato scallopini, with Tuscan bean soup side, and try out my new lower back massage technique.
He stays at home and she goes to work. Well, I hope, as many women often complained about men, that she helps out with the kids after her hard day at the office.
‘fraid not. You need to bring a lot more to the party than that.
Ho ho!
YOU aint even had the OLD technique lady!~
It’s possible. Live below your means. Save up some money before buying big ticket items. The article said that they didn’t have a car until recently and got a used mini-van. You scrimp where you can. We live in downtown Toronto, in a house, with 1 child. My husband supports us on 100K and our house is almost paid off. We have 1 car (bought used; cash was saved up before we bought it) as he works outside the city. We had renters in the beginning on every floor of the house except the main floor where the 3 of us lived. Any renovation we do, we save up 50% of the cost before starting it. Every little bit helps. Our credit card gets paid off every month. It can be done.
It’s possible. Live below your means. Save up some money before buying big ticket items. The article said that they didn’t have a car until recently and got a used mini-van. You scrimp where you can. We live in downtown Toronto, in a house, with 1 child. My husband supports us on 100K and our house is almost paid off. We have 1 car (bought used; cash was saved up before we bought it) as he works outside the city. We had renters in the beginning on every floor of the house except the main floor where the 3 of us lived. Any renovation we do, we save up 50% of the cost before starting it. Every little bit helps. Our credit card gets paid off every month. It can be done.
I love the topic, as always Leah has her finger on the pulse of what is current and relevant
today, but agree with the other commenters. I was really disappointing in
the final conclusions. It’s not about generalizing; it’s what works for each individual family. If you’re going to reference Lean In, read it first.
I just checked my wife’s Attractive in a Man list……still can’t find Blow Hard Egomaniac on it!
Your plastic fcuk-doll wrote a list?
Let’s see……grade 9? Grade 8? No, grade 9.
Grade 9 was the last time I directly answered a juvenile insult from an emotionally stunted man-child.
Best of luck, pal.
Sorry but $100k a year household income is upper middle class. If both parents brought in $100k each ($200k household income) that would put them near Canada’s 1%. Remember that most Canadian households work with $30k per year annually.
You had to take Grade 9 twice?
TIT — This is Toronto.
Good for you that is impressive. What about savings, do you have anything left for investments, retirement? if you do you should teach a class and charge a lot of money for it :)
interesting quote:
“The problem, of course, is children. What to do with these small, delightful and frustrating humans who require 24-hour surveillance? What do they deserve? How can we do right by them while also doing right by ourselves?” If you see your children as a “problem” then why did you have them?? And if indeed you did choose to have them then doing “right by yourself” should be taking a back seat to “doing right by them” which should be first and foremost whatever form your family unit takes.
Yes, we do have savings (we both have RRSPs, TFSAs and an RESP for our daughter as well as a non-RRSP account; not all maxed out but we’re working on it once the mortgage is paid off next year). A huge reason why we are in such a good spot is thanks to our families–they taught us both to save from a very young age. We are from 2 very different backgrounds but we both have the same attitude towards saving/money (his dad was/is a scrimper/penny pincher almost to a fault. My husband says that I taught him how to spend his money–not sure his dad would approve; my family was more about quality over quantity–buy less stuff but buy higher end so that it lasts longer). Growing up, I was allowed to spend 1/3 of what I made with summer jobs on whatever I wanted and the other 2/3 were for savings (short-term and long-term). We have often joked about teaching a class; we dole out advice to our friends if they ask for it. I have found that people don’t like hearing the hard truth sometimes. People often forget (or confuse) what are real needs vs. wants. I am grateful for a roof over our head, food on the table and our health. Everything and anything else is a bonus.
Suri means pickpocket in Japanese. Viiva means line in Finnish, as in line of drugs. Lennon Peach means delusional parents in English.
Last I checked, chauvinism is chauvinism no matter the author. And the opposite of sexism isn’t misandry. Why is it so difficult for McLaren to process the idea that neither men nor women have genetically ascribed social roles? What we should have been reading about was the incredible benefit children get from spending the majority of their time with at least one of their parents instead of how ludicrous it is to the author that men would volunteer for the role of primary caregiver. Each paragraph illustrated one dusty, outdated trope after another instead of celebrating the evolution of the family. It’s 2013. Women, like men, aren’t chained to their homes or their careers; like men, women make a decision about whether to work inside the home or outside of it, growing finances or nurturing family. This issue is not about role reversal but role dissolution.
The only stay at home husband I can accept is the one that stays at home and works, providing for his family. I will be staying at home too, I’m sure that works as well.
It’s a “raw deal” to spend time with the children whom YOU created to be part of a family, and to train your children how to be adults? REALLY? That’s NOT a “tangible stake,” to be raising the next generation of adults? Pardon me, madam, your selfishness is showing.
Judging from your answers, it seems that your family has bought the house in downtown Toronto long time ago. I don’t think it is all that possible with today’s prices unless you somehow have a large down payment and a very small mortgage.
The family featured is relatively young, most likely bought the house within last 10 years. 3 kids is al A LOT different from 1!
I also find it disappointing that the SDAH dad, implied that having one parent stay at home full time is always better than sending kids to daycare or other alternatives. Just like many stay at home moms, they have to put down other people’s arrangements to feel good about their own, and the author could not even have a clear opinion on that!
I for one, believe my children actually benefit from the structure, socialization of the daycare setting, as well as the fact mommy continues to learn and grow in her career. The choice to work is not entirely a financial one. However, I would never judge anyone who decides to stay home full time.
Everyone’s family is different, every kid is different. Some kids need more stimulation and some are happier just being close to parents. There is no ‘the way it should be’ for all children and families of different sizes and needs!
I applaud these dads’ decisions to stay at home. They should be confident of the choice they’ve made.
As a stay at home dad I thought I would enjoy this article. Now I am confused.
We made a conscious decision to have 1 child. We did buy in an area before everyone decided it was hot (13 years ago). We really lucked out that way. I agree. However, I also know that when we were looking at houses, we had a budget in mind and knew what we could and couldn’t afford (and how much debt we were willing to incur). If our price range was not available where we were looking, we would have chosen something in our price range elsewhere. Toronto is full of lovely little neighbourhoods and I don’t understand some people’s fixation with the latest hot neighbourhood. We plan on staying in our house for as long as we can and seeing how the neighbourhood changes and evolves.
3 kids is way more than 1, for sure. With 3 kids, we would have made vastly different choices than the ones we made. But the point is that we have no idea what their financial situation is: are they maxing out their credit cards? do they have family nearby helping out? how much did they put down? what sacrifices did they make (or are presently making)? We don’t know any of this. I was just providing a different perspective (granted, with less kids) and, hopefully, giving others some hope that they can do it, too, with some sacrifice/planning. It’s not hopeless.
I find these pieces don’t help things as they gloss over the details and present a very sanitized (and stylized) view. The comments allow us to push back and ask questions and give each other support and hope. There is no “one” way to do things. Different families have different needs. I put our family out there as one tiny example in a very big city.
You are right Amanda. You did provide an excellent example on living within your means; more people should learn from you! I am also a firm believer of your philosophy but I wish I had bought a house 13 years ago.
We bought ours in the city in a good neighbourhood (not for being posh, my only requirement was the school district) last year, although we did not go over budget, I find it tight financially. One reason being that the associated costs such as property taxes are much higher due to the high housing price, and since we could only afford an old house, there are always issues to suck away your money. Eventually it will need to be renovated although our family can happily live with the orange tiles in the bathrooms for now.
You are right about not knowing the details of their finances and this article isn’t that insightful, but I do believe for an average family making that income with that many kids, a house in the city is probably out of their reach.
Thanks for sharing your story though. Reading yours make me hopeful that maybe one day, I too, can retire
It’s a little misleading to call all of the men house husbands. Rather, they are husbands whose flexible careers and skill sets allow them to either take work sabbaticals or telecommute so that they can look after their kids.
I notice that Tim Kelloway (the husband) got nail polish on his (visible) foot……i rest my case….
I’m always happy when reverse-traditional marriages get some
attention in the media because I’ve been in one for the past ten years. When my
husband and I married in 2003, I was completing my doctorate and he was a
college drop-out. It was obvious from the get-go that I would always have much higher
earning potential than him so we decided that I would always be the primary
breadwinner and that he would either stay home full-time (especially if we had
a child), go to school or be a secondary breadwinner. We followed through on
that plan. Ten years down the road, I am a tenured professor with a prestigious
research chair appointment. My husband stayed home with our son for 3 years and
recently started working again. In our decade together, my husband not only
completed his degree but also earned a master’s degree. Given the huge
headstart I had on my career, I earn three times more than him and will always
by far be the primary breadwinner but my husband does a lot more childcare and housework
so I consider it to be a very fair balance. We have a very good marriage. I was
appalled by the journalist’s “astonishment” at men who want to stay home and
raise their children. It didn’t shape my opinion of the men in the story in any
negative way but it did make me wonder what kind of Neanderthal she must have
her had her child with!
I was appalled by Leah McLaren’s “astonishment” at men who want to stay home and
raise their children. It didn’t shape my opinion of the men in the story in any
negative way but it did make me wonder what kind of Neanderthal she must have
her had her child with!
what a sin. god puts the husband as the head of the house. not the wife.
Not sure why women have children if they aren’t prepared to nurture them. Oh, I know why: to show to friends, family, and co-workers that they can have it ‘all’; kids, career, house, car, and a man who stays at home so that they can achieve this. Husbands are supposed to provide and protect, it’s biologically programmed into a man’s DNA. It’s no wonder that 50% of marriages end in divorce, or why men cheat.
Agreed. I know some men who are house husbands and they are no more than deballed men. No matter what a woman tells you, they will never respect a man who is a stay at home daddy. Take a look at the men in the pictures. They look sooooo defeated. LMAO! Cuckold, betas!!! I bet they look so cute wearing an apron, latex gloves with a toilet brush in their hands. Manly and sexy these men ain’t.
It’s not surprising why the women never took their husband’s last name–they’re ashamed to. Yet, they will lie through their teeth and shout from the rooftops to convince themselves they ” HAVE THE BEST HUSBAND EVER!!!!”
I wonder how many women in the article have thought about, or have already cheated on their beta husbands?
Unfortunately, in this day and age in North America, the woman is the new man.
OMG. I thought that was a chick. LMAO!
Pfft. Stay at home dad. You should be ashamed; not confused.
Well, if God has made the husband the head of the house, it’s fitting that he runs the house (as well as cleans it, cooks the meals that are eaten in it and the children that are growing up in it).
I know some men who are house husbands and they are no more than deballed men let alone ‘kept men.’ No matter what a woman tells you, they will never respect a man who is a stay at home daddy. Take a look at the men in the pictures. They look sooooo defeated. LMAO! Cuckold, betas!!! I bet they look so cute wearing an apron, latex gloves with a toilet brush in their hands. Manly and sexy these men ain’t.
It’s not surprising why the women never took their husband’s last name–they’re ashamed to. Yet, they will lie through their teeth and shout from the rooftops to convince themselves they ” HAVE THE BEST HUSBAND EVER!!!!”
I wonder how many women in the article have thought about, or have already cheated on their beta husbands?
Leah McLaren, it is so incredibly biased and short sighted for you to refer to a person who stays at home with their children as a household drudge getting a raw deal, it’s just astonishing. People make different choices in life and what isn’t your cup of yea is someone else’s beverage of choice. Sad that something so positive in terms of families making the best choices for themselves without being constrained by social norms is being positioned as a slightly embarrassing conundrum. Was this intended to be an opinion piece? Disappointing.
Here’s the punch line:
When they get a divorce, the courts will give her the kids because …well…she’s the woman and more nurturing and then he will pay her tax free money (child support) that she is not accountable for. I have seen it happen too often. Oh there are exceptions here and there but we men are the butt of the equality joke.
Here’s the punch line:
When they get a divorce, the courts will give her the kids because …well…she’s the woman and more nurturing and then he will pay her tax free money (child support) that she is not accountable for. I have seen it happen too often. Oh there are exceptions here and there but we men are the butt of the equality joke.
I do not condone men being financially dependent on their wives for this reason unless she is prepared to regard him as an equal in divorce.
Here’s the punch line:
When they get a divorce, the courts will give her the kids because …well…she’s the woman and more nurturing and then he will pay her tax free money (child support) that she is not accountable for. I have seen it happen too often. Oh there are exceptions here and there but we men are the butt of the equality joke.
whats happening to our race, women earning bread and husbands are being sissies staying at home .. wives are banging their bosses for extra pay and husbands are cuckolding them for money ,disgusting . let women cook and take care of kids . white male is seriously not doing the things right
Lol you can’t blame cheating on this. Everyone’s programmed to cheat, including women.
It costs more than $100 to have what used to be middle class in Toronto…
So these pregnant females remain with their Careers right until going into labour prompts them to head for the hospital for several days, babies delivered if more than one, so what then w.r.t. Breast Feeding, which is why women have breasts and to remain healthy are suppose to use them as such, just as was done since cave people or what have you? Babies have no say in being breast fed, which is superior than any formulated milk. And, breast feeding should be continued until a baby has enough teeth to chew. I do not have to say how unnatural urbanites have become because this article is yet another indicator…totally bizarre. And, those relationships that end up with a Mr. Mom have a greater chance of breaking up…any Family Court lawyer will tell you this. However, IF this kind of mother decides to break off the marriage, will she PAY Child Support?! Screwy Toronto typical of what Liberal Socialism has done to ONTARIO!
You are right Nadia, and women who would not be a stay at home mother should have kids! Babies would tell the THEM that if they could say so coming out of their DAM cold hearted bodies…what a sick generation of so called MOMS who think like this. There will be even more hell to pay down the road for this unnatural parenting and you know what, inside these people’s minds they know they are behaving unnatural. ALL of history indicates this.
WAV, THANK YOU FOR SPITTING OUT what BS these women state. You are 100% correct and I still have the lashes on my back for being a GREAT Mr Mom but lost my son to a Evil Feminist JUDGE … NEVER listen to these wacko Feminism Career women because they are screwed up worse than we have ever seem human beings on the face of this planet, destroying Mother Nature in the process..and I will say also, they defy whatever created us which or whom will deal with them eventually.
TRON MARTIN…I have read tons of responses over a long period of time w.r.t. this issue and God will bless you for sharing the best, concise truthful reply to date. What you just said happened to me and, 9 years later I have lost hundreds of thousands battling for fatherly rights.
Google “deballed husbands” without the quotes, hit Google Images, and this article comes right up. The lesson to remember is, NEVER listen to a woman what she says, but pay attention to what she does. No real man worth his testicles would ever become a house husband. I don’t care what the financial situation is, a woman will never respect a man who does one inch of housework. The classic example here is Pam Seatle. She married a beta male who blogs/writes and took care of the kids acting like a mommy. The irony? Pam is now worried her 3 sons will be dominated and disrespected by their future spouses since we are living in a society of henpecked men and strong women. David Eddie fails to grasp he has just been insulted, and that her 3 boys will emulate and eventually end up like their father.
That was a touchingly endearing comment.
How can you stay at home, work, and provide for your family? Is that even possible?
Just remember that women lose respect for men that are not the primary bread winner. They will end up having affairs with men that also operate in the ‘progressive’ mold of anything goes especially NOT staying loyal to your spouse.