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While gender roles have long been "set in stone" so to speak in western culture, those roles are changing and the line between what guys and gals are supposed to be doing becoming blurred or erased all together. In an age where women can be astronauts and brain surgeons, why cannot men be stay at home dads? The trend is becoming more and more popular as the marketplace opens up for women to earn and do as much as their male counterparts in predominately male occupations.

Couples choose to have the man stay at home and raise their children for many reasons. Sometimes the woman has a higher income or is on a fast paced career track that is monetarily beneficial for the family than the mans. Sometimes the man decides to stay home to be more accessible to his children and deal with a child crisis such as an illness or behavior problem. Sometimes the couple decides even before they have children who will stay at home. Whatever the reason, Stay at home dads are just as vital to the rearing of their children and management of their households than stay at home moms are.

Though the trend is on the rise, there are a number of negative myths associated with the stay at home dad due to the stereotyping of gender roles which we find present in every level of society. Such myths include:

1. Stay at home dads are lazy. Well if they were lazy, they wouldn't make much of a stay at home parent. Parents who do the primary care giving are filled from dawn to well after dark with a multitude of tasks to accomplish, the least of which are household chores, feeding, bathing and monitoring children, and cooking supper. The stay at home parent is usually responsible for the majority of household management including scheduling, school related activities and extra circular activities. The role of the stay at home parent can be summed up in these few words: babysitter, housekeeper, taxi cab driver, scheduling coordinator, first aid nurse, disciplinary supervisor, cook, accountant, chauffeur, gopher, janitor, maintenance worker, counselor, telephone operator, messaging service and psychoanalyst. Try doing all those jobs in one day let alone everyday, seven days a week without a day off.

2. Stay at home dads are wimpy. No, they are just too busy trying to keep the kids from killing each other in the back seat on a free way to chase you down and beat you to a pulp for cutting them off in traffic. Men are no less "manly" for having the majority of child rearing burdened on them. In fact,

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