Are you seriously calling me a crazed feminist? That's awesome in ways you can't possibly understand. Seriously. Oh heavens. I'm going to go hug my fiance now. I can only imagine what you'd think of the rest of the compromises he and I have made.

I'm leaving aside everything else you said. I'm not married to you, so you aren't my problem.

no you wouldn't j/k

@kaitlyn142 I don't think Savarel is calling you a crazed feminist. What he is saying is if she had chosen to become an extremist than things wouldn't work for him. He doesn't want to deal with an extremist feminist anymore than you would want to deal with a chauvinist pig.

Personally as a female I am not into the idea of a "crazed feminist" I believe feminism is about a woman's right to choose not radicalism. Too much of one thing is usually a bad thing.

No, I'm not calling *you* a crazed feminist. I'm calling any woman who would insist on their husbands quitting a high paying career to be a stay at home dad, just so that she can go back to being an elementary school teacher a crazed feminist.

Essentially, I was saying the situation my wife and I are in pretty much guarantees that I wouldnt be the one to stay home. So there is no real reason to discuss who will stay home.

What if you were the schoolteacher, and your wife was some executive, earning twice as much as you? Would you be equally adament that you be the one to take a year off to spend time with the child?

Is this really just about the money, or are there gender stereotypes and biases at play here?

As for it "not working" for your situation, we're only talking about 1 year here, right? Are you really saying that your household could not survive on your wife's income for even a single year? Do you not have an emergency fund? Could your household finances not recover if you were to go back to work after taking the year of paternity leave? If your finances are really so tight, should you really even be considering having children at all?

In that case I think it would be pretty nice to stay at home while my wife brought home the money. Being a teacher would make it easy to go back to work when I was ready as well, due to the structure of the school year.



In this case, it is about the money. I wont deny my own personal bias against stay-at-home dads or women who put a career ahead of their family. In the face of bias, its best to try to eliminate all personal feelings and look at the situation logically. Logic says it would be absurd for me to stay at home while my wife worked.



We have plenty of emergency savings, but going without my income for an entire year would be tough at the least. We might be able to scrape by, but plans for eliminating student loan debt and auto loan debt, as well continuing to fund retirement plans the same amount that is being funded now would have to go away. Our finances would recov er once I was back at work, yes, but we would still lose out on potentially tens of thousands of dollarsof both income and interest.

What if, as is the case in many European countries, your job was guaranteed for a year so you could stay home with your child? (In fact, it is here in the US for 3 months - FLMA). Would you then consider it? Put aside any political opinion yuou may have regarding the government requiring companies to guarantee your job - I very well might agree with you - if the law required them to and you had adequate savings as you say, would you do that?

You would find that doing so is very common in many European countries.

If my job was guaranteed and we had plenty of savings it would be an option. Even then, you give up the earnings of that year and any potential interest. In that case, maybe both of us stay home for the first 3 months, and then we can discuss the matter and see what our thoughts are. I have a feeling a person's perception would change quite a bit after the birth of their first child.

Wow, some harsh comments here, and at one of our own this time.

Just because a man works while a woman stays home with a kid doesn't mean they are locked in the shackles of traditional gender roles.

On the other hand, the best people to make a decision is the two people involved. There are a lot of choices and you have the most information about what will probably work best. So you do need to talk to your wife about all this, some time in conversation between now and when it's too late

Feelings do change after you hold that baby in your arms - so build some flexibility into your plans.

Yikes!!!

Nope, no automatic traditional gender roles here..... move along....

So its OK to have children and then neglect them for selfish reasons?

Absolutely not, but it's no more or less okay for a parent based on gender... i.e. ANY parent should feel the need to make sure their children are taken care of properly, which may or may not involve modifying career goals.

How about:

If a COUPLE wants children, then I assume EACH PARTNER is willing to concede career goals in order to take care of them properly.

Would you like a shovel?

So then what was the problem with my statement that "if a woman wants children then I assume she is willing to sacrifice career goals"?

Sure, that would be just as accurrate. When I made the statement about assuming a woman is willing to concede career goals, it was said in the context that *I* would be the other partner, so there was no need to include both partners.