Homemaker Dad, Breadwinner Mom

Some families today are going away from the societal tradition where women are responsible for staying at home with the raising of the children while the men work outside the home.  This article, Homemaker Dad, Breadwinner Mom, is about how this role reversal is occurring and gender roles are changing in the United States as of 2010, when wives were 9% of the sole earners and husbands were 20% in all marriages.  Despite facing a reduction in earnings and employability, these families are determined to devote themselves to the raising of their children.  As fathers are gaining respect as stay at home parents compared to 10 years ago, public and government policies, tax breaks and bonuses and Social Security benefits does not make it easier for these families to “reconcile employment with family care” as they do in the Nordic countries.  This article brings to light the arduous task of finding the balance between work and family, and the “unpaid work that may come with providing for the needs of children”.  This is an important factor in gender inequality.     

The positives of this article is how it gives recent statistics of role reversal and gender roles, but I think it would have been stronger with even more statistics of this nature and maybe incorporating some interviews of families or of men who are homemakers or women who are the money makers. To learn of personal insights would  have made this article even more intriguing and interesting.  

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/homemaker-dad-breadwinner-mom/?scp=13&sq=families&st=cse