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Cal- it's not a rule but I guess it's because we give birth. But I do know of a few mothers that abandoned their kids and couldn't care less. Being female doesn't guarantee being nurturing or even caring about our offspring. Though that behavior tends to be more of the exception than the rule. You tend to hear about more absentee dads than moms. I don't know why, does anyone?
But being male doesn't preclude bieng nurturing. My husband is a great example of a very caring and nurturing dad. It's one of the reasons I married him. He made a decision a couple of years ago to stop putting in the long hours and to be home by 6 almost every night. When I was working for a year or so, he took turns with me staying home when the kids were sick (and with daycare it was a lot) and he didn't care what anyone thought. I can leave the house for a couple of hours or a couple of days or weeks and know that my kids will be fed, read to, hugged, kissed and told how much they are loved in mass quantities.
The fact that for years women didn't make nearly the same $ men did in the work place made it almost impossible for a man to stay home while his wife worked. Now that's not true. If a man wants to stay home, he can do so. I don't think it's a huge issue because most men (I'm assuming here..) don't want to. My husband is a great dad, but would he want to stay home and take care of the kids and house? NO. But like Yvette said, it CAN be done... it IS allowed. However, the male ego that Canada spoke of is alive and well and not many males (I'm guessing) can overcome the urge to be the breadwinner. I don't think that's a bad thing either. It just IS. Yes, some people raise their judgemental eyebrows at unconventional families, but if it's important enough to a family to do it, who cares?? I think there's a TV show now about a stay-at-home dad... maybe it's off the air now. Hollywood gave it a shot though... First Ellen, now stay- at home dads!!:p
Canada-- you bring up some very valid points. A couple of years ago my husband and I went to counseling, seperately, to work on some stuff. And one of the things he talked most about was the fact that in this modern society, men really don't have any one thing marking their passage into manhood. Women menstruate.. pretty obvious, but boys don't have a ceremony (except BarMitzvahs for Jewish boys) that marks their passage into manhood. There is a book called 'Big John' that my hubbie read and really liked that addresses this issue. It might sound like a minor issue, the passage into manhood ceremony thing.... but it has interesting ramifications.
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