The Changing Face of Mr. Mom: Gender Roles Today and Gender Roles Ten Years Ago
This 3-page undergraduate essay concerns the changing phenomena of “Mr. Moms”, or men who care for children full-time. This essay argues that a number of changes in gender roles have taken place since the late 1980s and early 1990s. Men are becoming more involved in parenting duties and household tasks, although equity in these areas remains an ideal rather than a reality. Men participate in childcare and housekeeping tasks more today, and their attitudes about these duties is different. While ten or fifteen years ago, men still idealized the breadwinner ideal and the idea of gendered work, both men and women today are likely to espouse the notion that both partners in a family or household should take equal part in housekeeping and child-rearing duties. Women still take care of children and household duties than men, but recent cultural and economic changes have pushed men to participate in households more and have even created more households in which a man is the primary caregiver and housekeeper.
