Still waiting for a real paradigm shift

October 18, 2009

A recent article in American Lawyer, “Paradigm Shift: Power-Lawyer Mom, Stay-at-Home Dad,” featured three successful female attorneys, two of whose husbands are stay-at-home dads and one who was such a dad until their child went to college.

Notably, one of the three dads had previously raked in a fortune selling an internet startup. I personally know a partner at a major New York law firm with a stay-at-home husband, and her husband, notably, is independently wealthy, and similarly not living off his wife’s income.

Notably, the one stay-at-home dad whose child had left the home promptly returned to work – not even in his field - when the child left the house.

The author of the article, Vivia Chen, couldn’t help but take a stab at guys. Apparently longing for a reverse return to certain aspects of the Mad Men days, Chen wrote, “Still, the women interviewed for this article seem to participate in the household more than the stereotypical male breadwinner who stays above the domestic fray. Becker, for instance, shops for the kids’ clothes. … Wesely cooks dinner several times each week” (emphasis supplied). As if a significant number of stereotypical male breadwinners still stay above the domestic fray! Statements such as Chen’s makes me wonder if they ever really did.

None of the marriages in the article featured a husband who still did not return to work after the children were grown, galavanting around town having lunch and tea with friends punctuated by some tennis, spa visits, and an occasional weekly meeting for a fundraiser. None of the marriages featured a stay-at-home dad who had the assistance of a full-time nanny, even though he was not working. In other words, nothing in the article suggests a truly complete paradigm shift, including marriages where the wife continues working long hours while the husband lives a life of leisure off her earnings.

That would be a paradigm shift I could get behind!

Until we have the opportunity to marry successful professional women who allow us not to work but still have nannies, and who allow us a leisurely retirement once the kids are grown, we will not have achieved true equality. The fight goes on!

Chen’s article is at http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticlePC.jsp?id=1202434637634

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