Role Reversal: Stay at home Asian-American Husbands

By Jeff | Sunday, September 27, 2009 | 5 Comments

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20040804 Milwaukee Dads Packer Practice 31 Small Web view Role Reversal: Stay at home Asian American Husbands This past summer, I didn’t go to work. While my wife went to her job as a Registered Nurse, I stayed home and spent my time doing bringing the kids to summer school, basketball games, and other activities. I did most of the cooking, laundry, and kid chauffeuring. According to this article, apparently I wasn’t alone. In many Filipino-American and other immigrant families, wives working as registered nurses or other lucrative professions make so much more money than their husbands that it stops making practical and economic sense for their husbands to work. This is in stark contrast to traditional gender roles.

“There is an oft-repeated joke among Filipinos here that if you meet a Filipino man at the grocery store with kids in tow, especially in the middle of a working day, and you ask him what does he for a living, the common reply will be, ‘My wife is a nurse,’” said Narna Macasaet, a Filipina immigrant.”

Some of the husbands in the article felt degraded by the change in roles, which in some cases has led to domestic violence. Did this role reversal bother me? Not really. I figure it was only fair after my wife was a stay at home Mom for five years after our youngest was born. Plus, after working full time, it was in many ways a welcome relief. What did bother me was how time consuming it was. I wanted to work out a lot, play pickup volleyball games, take a few classes, do some house renovations, and write a bunch for 8 Asians and other forums and publications. I thought I would have lots of time. It didn’t work out that way. I have new admiration for stay at home parents. I also found that I was gaining weight at home, too!

After the summer, I had to go back to work. I was lucky that I was not working because I was taking a sabbatical, not because of unemployment or because or other financial considerations. Being a permanent stay at home dad is not an option, given how expensive Silicon Valley can be and the fact the my stock options, which once enabled my wife to be a stay at home mom, are all underwater. Despite my change, I know families who have been in the same situation as described in the article, and I expect that I’ll know more.

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abusedhusband

Well I'm Filipino, and I've been a stay-at-home dad for 4 years now. i have established a business, and it was perfect timing that I had to quit my full time job right after my daughter was born. Now the economy went down the drain, and business is not good, I'm contemplating on finding work again by the end of the holiday season.
Its hard to be a stay at home dad, as I work from home and do all the household chores at the same time. I still pay for more than 75% of the family expenses, as my wife doesn;t earn much compared to me. What would I give in this world just to have a nurse as a wife !!! those guys are f___n lucky as hell!!!

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abusedhusband

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erika888

I wonder how much of the work tying in with self-worth thing has to do with societal pressures; it seems like a man's worth is not measured by his family, personality, looks, etc. but by his work.

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johnklin

Glad to hear your employer still has a sabbatical. I have to imagine in Silicon Valley, what you do/work is who you are, that the role reversal for men can be especially hard. I have read that studies have shown (and from some personal observations), that men (in general) tend to more personally identify themselves with their work (which is not necessarily a good thing for themselves or society as a whole).

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feedbucket

"Some of the husbands in the article felt degraded by the change in roles, which in some cases has led to domestic violence." -- That's pretty sad.

But yeah... Salary.com did a report a short time ago which showed that the kind of work times billable man-hours that a stay-at-home parent put in equalled something in six figures. It's totally not a vacation.

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