u2bonogirl said:
Im not labeling, Im stating that women tend to be better mothers, men better providers, disciplinarians.
Ok, how exactly are men better providers and disciplinarians?
Women have proved themselves (with much effort going against prejudices that are still prevalent in the higher scales of business positions) to be pretty succesfull at being providers. Hell, I have to, I'm single, so no man around to provide for me, even if I wanted him to.
Better disciplinarians? I don't see how, really. I've often heard men complain that their stay-at-home-spouse (NOT intending any degrading connotation whatsoever here, let that be clear) would say ''wait untill dad gets home" when their kids get a bit out of control and that they feel bad being put in the position of being the "bad guy" with little quality time available to spend with the children after work and then being put into the role of disciplinarian.
On the other hand, I've also heard mothers complain that they get to do the "raising" while the father's off playing with the kids rather than parenting because "he's got so little time with them as it is"
Two sides to every story.
I believe that in today's society, children are being shipped from daycare to aunt to grandparents, back to the parents far too much and that there lies the problem mostly. Small children have little sense of right/wrong and being exposed to a different set of right/wrong whenever they're shipped to the sitter of duty, they get confused.
Problem lies with a lack of routine (which a child needs to feel safe) and a lack of consistency (which, again, is needed for a child to feel safe).
In today's society, it's very hard to raise children well, I believe, because there's an economical need to have 2 incomes (at least in Europe there is, I'm guessing the US is no different) and on the other hand, the need to raise the kids as well as possible in those circumstances. Ideally, one of the parents would be home when the kids come home from school, imo.
I think the only way to come even close to that, is indeed to approach this as a parenting fact, rather than a mother/father-fact.
More and more couples have 1 fulltime and 1 parttime occupation, being filled by either the man or the woman, depending of which one has the most desire and ambition and has the highest pay-check.
I see here, in couples around me, equally as much SAH-dads as SAH-moms (parttime, that is).