But right now my husband is the stay at home parent for our son. None of our pastors, even though they lead the Gideon’s posse and make a big deal about teaching men to be Men, have any problems with this.

So I have a feeling that something is getting lost in the translation here.

Not in the least, but I think that media does say something about its audience. This is the same media that is referenced by the local Christians (the audience) when I talk to them. The authors of the books that these Christians read often have prominent shows on those stations. The locals grace the local Christian book stores that stock best selling books by these Christian media personalities and organizations (like Promise Keepers).

So, it is not the only message and by no means do I think that the it represents every facet of all Christians in this area, however (especially on the stations that are “community supported” as a few of the 4 or 5 stations in the area are), I would say that the message being presented is endorsed, both figuratively and literally, by its audience.

Are you seriously stating that the radio represents how people actually are? I certainly hope not.

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It’s not fringe to say that there are different roles for men and women. It’s fringe (and un-Biblical FWIW) to say that a woman’s place is always in the kitchen and a man’s place is always the wage-earner outside the home.

It depends on the individuals involved. Some men are better suited to stay at home, and some women would murder their children if that’s all they did. Some kids do better with homeschooling, some would do fine in a classroom environment. God distributes his gifts among us all.

My pastor was addressing a very specific example of counseling where a young, childless couple decided to let the husband stay home and not work simply because the wife made a significant income. When they were expecting their first child, he chose not to look for employment to allow his wife the option of staying home.

My wife and I are struggling through this right now. She makes a decent living as a pharmacist and it would be “easier” for me to stay home and care for our newborn when her maternity leave is up. But I do feel that I have a responsibility to my family to keep working and progressing through my career so that my wife, if and when we have another, could choose to stay home, which is her preference. So at least for now, we’re going to go through the more “complicated” dance of timing schedules to make sure that we don’t need to leave our child with a nanny.

I hope that clarifies a bit. In terms of men being man enough to stay at home though. At least for my brother-in-law I don’t think that will work. His son refuses to take a bottle and until the kid is on solid food consistently breast feeding’s the only option.

Chris, you wrote: “He is not suggesting that there something wrong with the stay-at-home dad, but wants us to fight against the urge to do so because of laziness and comfort.”

What part of being responsible for full-time care of a child is lazy and comfortable? It is one of the most demanding, most exhausting jobs in existence. I’ll turn that around and ask, why aren’t more men man enough to be stay-at-home dads?

The senior pastor of my church happens to be a member of the council and he’s given a number of messages to this point. He is not suggesting that there something wrong with the stay-at-home dad, but wants us to fight against the urge to do so because of laziness and comfort. Part of what the author of the blog is arguing against is that involved fathers are like mothers. His second to last paragraph is very positive in suggesting that these things that people are attributing as being more feminine is “recovering what is good and right about fatherhood.”

Maybe I should add though that I would have no problem giving my sons a doll, if they wanted one. I still have quite a collection of stuffed animals of my own.

As a Christan working in Christian higher education, I see that type of thinking being indoctrinated at all levels to our students (ie the only movie discussion to teach about what it means to be a man is Braveheart). Raising our sons to be anything but who God made them to be is NOT courage. Nor is raising them to be one-dimensional “manly-men” who are threatened by the thought of a boy not fitting into their Western stereotype of “manhood.”

Please don’t take Gender Blog’s twisting of scripture as accurate. A good place to start is http://www.cbeinternational.org.

@AJ
I think that’s list needs making. Add my Action-Man with non-removable blue pants and pushable pram/tank to the list.

@Jim
Over here in the UK this is definitely ‘fringe’ thinking. Last year the Church of England made more female-clergy than male; of these church leaders about a quarter of them have hubbies who are or have been a home dad (http://cucumbersandwiches.org – clergy husbands united). There is a problem with the ‘normalising’ of fluid gender roles in the church here though, in that the dissenters from our more liberal norm are the really, really noisy ones. —sigh—