Mr. Mom and the House Husband Phenomenon

Mr. Mom- The Ultimate Stay at Home DadMichael Keaton was once Batman, and also formerly “Mr. Mom”. Of the two roles, I think   most would agree that Batman was the more glamorous of the two as not every guy wants to be home changing diapers while his wife is away at work. However, due to the “economic downturn” (also termed more ominously as ‘the recession’), more men are out of work and thus, making the natural  (and initially forced) choice to stay home with the children.

The NYT ran an opinion commentary today written by Gail Collins and David Brooks discussing the nature of both house-husbands and cougars. According to the article, men are getting laid off at a higher rate than women because women are better educated than their male counterparts; whether or not that is true, I’ll leave you to debate with the NYT.

David Brooks’ main thrust throughout the article is that due to evolutionary biology, men are naturally going to go for younger, more fertile women while women will more likely be interested in marrying older, richer men for the sake of “security” for their nest. If evolutionary biology is indeed true, the new stay-at-home phenomenon would not be so enjoyable for a working class man such as someone in construction because as David Brooks further argues, “Women are more nurturing.”

None of this particularly jibes well with me. I have to wonder if “evolutionary biology” is the real reason that women prefer older, more financially secure men, or if it is the fact that in the not so distant past, women were not allowed to own property themselves as in the case of the Miss Bennets in “Pride and Prejudice” or the fact that the previous generations had to fight hard for any jobs outside of education and nursing.

Now that women are earning close to their male counterparts and are sometimes dating significantly younger men ala the women of “Cougar Town” and Demi Moore, have the tables really turned that much or are they just starting to equal out?

Are there really that many women dating younger men or is it just fun to speculate about? And are the stay at home Dads really so upset about staying home with their kids while their wives work or really just more or less concerned that their incomes have been reduced from two to one? In the article, even Gail Collins says that society will perceive the stay-at-home Dad as more of a “loser” while the stay-at-home Mom gets accolades. Should it really matter?