A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that the number of dads who choose to stay home and care for their children and families has quadrupled over the past 25 years. Can social and economic factors explain the change? Make no mistake - fathers who are the primary caregiver for their children are far from the norm.

A housewife is a woman whose occupation is running or managing her family's home-caring for her children; buying, cooking, and storing food for the family; buying goods that the family needs in everyday life; housekeeping and maintaining the home; and making clothes for the family-and who is not employed outside the home.

Hence, the purpose of this essay is four-fold: (a) to synthesize the literature on fathering, gender, and nontraditional family structures from a communication perspective; (b) to theorize the construct of the stay-at-home father; (c) to develop a model to understand a constitutive view of the tensions of fathering discourses and gender discourses at both the societal and relational levels; and (d) to privilege the standpoint of the stay-at-home father as a valuable alternative model for 21st century families.

This is a place for dads to bitch and moan or sing the praises about the trials and tribulations of raising a child or children while the...

Join other stay at home dads or work at home dads in discussing everything from parenting to beer brewing.