I read an article on the New York Times website this week that I thought related really well to our recent unit about men and women's roles in history.
This particular opinion piece talked about how during the current recession, more men are being laid off jobs than women, which means that in a lot of families, the wife is working while the husband is not. This means that the untraditional stay-at-home dad is becoming an increasingly normal occurrence in families across America. But at the same time, this idea is not widely accepted due to the gender stereotypes that have been established in the past, in this case mainly the idea that men should work while women should stay at home.
This idea of breaking the gender stereotypes and accepting something that is not considered "ordinary" is hard for a lot of people in America. In this article, Collins talks about how we are "a country that has spent so many generations celebrating the housewife" and now "could show a little enthusiasm for the full-time dad." After we have spent time in class talking about America's apparent inability to adapt to new and different ideas, it occurred to me that maybe we are unable to accept the idea of the stay-at-home dad because we have been focusing so much on creating the image of a housewife in the past, and it has since been transformed into an expectation.
Why do you think that America has such a difficult time with change? I personally see nothing wrong with the stay-at-home dad and I don't see fathers staying home with their kids as a weakness. What I don't really understand is why we as a country cannot accept this new idea, why we have such a hard time when it comes to change in general. It almost seems like people are so resistant to change that it is viewed as a bad thing, while in fact I think it usually is a source of strength because without change, there is no progress.
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My Dad has his office at home, so he's home all day, unless he is out of town. I guess he could be called a stay at home dad. I don't see anything wrong with the stay at home dad role either. I think it boils down to traditional and historical values, like you said. In America, the norm has always been being a stay at home mom. I think the only way for people cannot get past this gender role is to give it time. Once people see that being a stay at home dad is beneficial for both parent and child, I think people will understand the concept more.
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