I was thinking about this question late last night about what do some of the people who are unemployed. That they are also staying at home. They do the house chores while their wife are out there making money and providing for the family. How will the "man" of the house feel? is there a right and wrong to this issue?

I then usually go to Quora to look for answers. If you don't know yet. Quora is a website where you can ask question or find questions related to you and read about the answer given by millions of people in the world wide web.

I found this answer to be the best one thus far. This man shared his experience of how he went from a high paying salaryman to a stay at home dad. Without further adoo, I present to you the expert on being a home dad, david cheng.

As a recent househusband (last day of employment was 9/26/13) who relocated to Hong Kong, where the white-collar professionals seem to care even more about career status and the size of their paychecks [1] than in Manhattan, I've experienced a few bumps in the road.  

I define myself as a "househusband" instead of "unemployed" because I do 80%+ of the shopping, cooking, and cleaning; and because I could easily be well-employed if I wanted to be.

I decided about 6 months ago to give up my career for my wife's career [2].  I'm actively (but not too actively) looking for jobs and have gotten one solid offer as well as a few promising leads.  As an ex-lawyer who got out of law and back into business slightly over a year ago, I've also been somewhat conflicted since I'm not a huge fan of practicing law, especially biglaw [3], but it pays much more here in HK than it does in the States.  I haven't started on law firm applications yet and have no immediate plans to do so.

Without exception, everyone in Hong Kong (including the lawyers) insist that I should try to return to biglaw for the pay, the stability, and to improve my CV.  Most of my friends in the West (including the lawyers) tell me I should stick with my decision of happiness over money.  

I'm not in a terrible hurry to start working, and given that my wife's job pays six figures USD and that we're expecting our first child in mid-December, I'm fine being a househusband for at least 3 months--possibly longer.

Not having an income has made me much more thrifty.  I used to think nothing of spending $150-300 on a nice meal with my wife in Manhattan on any given weekend--if we didn't have anything in the kitchen or wanted to try a particular restaurant and not necessarily because we had special cause to celebrate.  Now that I do the grocery shopping and most of the cooking, I realize what a horrendous waste of money dining out can be.  A few days ago, we went to a fancy Western restaurant in Hong Kong with a nice view for my wife's birthday that ended up costing us ~$270 USD.  I must have complained for 2 hours afterwards about how we could have eaten amazing local food for 1/10 of that price.

I've learned that I enjoy cooking, do not mind doing laundry, love going out to pick up groceries and other household items, but still do not enjoy cleaning.  Clothes shopping or buying/replacing any necessities for myself have always been my least favorite activities, but when it's for our household, my wife, or our upcoming baby, I've learned to take an odd sense of pride and satisfaction in it.  It has been a humbling experience, and I've learned a great deal about the effort and time that goes into running a household.  I do not find any of the work I do demeaning or "beneath me."  

For instance, a few days ago, I was cleaning the two toilets we have in our apartment.  Unlike U.S. toilets, this task requires certain brackish salt buildup (the toilet water here is saltwater for whatever reason) to be cleaned off the outside and inside of the tank cover behind the seat and certain--let's call them brown and black--stains to be cleaned/scraped off the bowl (due to the poor quality of the porcelain or whatever material it is).  While doing stuff like this, I can't help but remember the days when I had administrative assistants (that's what we call secretaries in the U.S.), paralegals, marketing assistants, dogwalkers, doormen, building superintendents (that's what we call janitors in NYC), and maids-for-hire do my grunt work for me.

I'm more grateful for the things that my parents (and the maids I would hire in college and law school) used to do for me.  Neither they nor my wife would ever bitch about getting their hands dirty. 

Some days are boring.  

Other days, like the last 24 hours, are action-packed.

To give you an idea, yesterday I spent the morning out shopping and running various errands, writing Quora answers (no shame), and the early evening meeting up with a friend of a friend of my wife who is a senior in-house lawyer (also ex-Goldman and ex-PE equity partner) to network at a wine-tasting hosted by headhunters.  He was a swell guy.  He's got 2 kids, and we bonded over tales of marriage and the joy of child-rearing.  He also told me to get back into law.  

You're unhireable right now as a non-lawyer.

You would cost too much for a non-legal role with your Ivy League degrees.  You should go back to law, kiss your wife and soon-to-be kid goodbye for 2-3 years, and build up your legal expertise and network.

The wine-tasting network event turned out to be for legal positions.  Almost everyone lost interest in me the moment I told them I was a full time househusband and wanted to continue to be one for a few months.  I got a lot of condescending smiles and a few people (both lawyers and headhunters) who just turned their back on me and walked away.  Towards the end of the night though, I bonded with a few of the headhunters and one 38 year old, mainland Chinese bachelor in-house lawyer.  We drank copious amounts of free wine and shared relationship stories.  Turns out one of the people there is dating and living with a person that he/she despises but is getting a great deal of familial pressure to marry.  They were set up by their parents.  Last night was their 1 year anniversary, but she/he was spending it out drinking with random strangers like me.  

So I guess it could be worse.  Instead of not having a job, I could have a job or a significant other that I hate.

I got back home at around midnight, showered, put my suit away, canoodled and chatted with pregnant wifey for a couple hours, slept for 2 hours, then got up at 5 am to catch up on emails (and Quora), hit the gym [4], made my wife breakfast (stir-fried eggs and cucumber plus a napoleon pastry I picked up from the local bakery; her favorites), went to the Chinese consulate to pick up my visa (2 hours), went to a mall to buy gifts for relatives I'm visiting this weekend, got groceries, came home, packed, made a few calls/emails, shopped online for used strollers [5] and other newborn supplies, and made a ton of pasta with sausage and broccoli to stick in the freezer for my wife for the next 3 days while I'm out of town.

Had half a glass of wine and now ready to pass out for about an hour before I catch a train to Shenzhen and then a flight to Beijing to see relatives I haven't seen in 3+ years.  Looking forward to the trip and to being offline and out of pocket for a few days.  Going to miss the wife.  

Last thought: a couple weeks ago, a headhunter told me that if I didn't go back into law, "it wouldn't be fair to your wife."  That stung a little.  Thinking about it though, I don't think it would be fair to my wife for me to spend 90+ hours a week in the office doing a job I don't enjoy.  It wouldn't be fair to our future child for him to learn English from a Filippino nanny [6] instead of his father or to receive more childcare and attention from his mom than his dad [7].  It wouldn't be fair to me to miss the chance to see my kid grow up.

I'm happy where I'm at right now.  I'll probably have a non-legal job in 3-6 months, but in the meantime, staying at home and taking care of my family is, as you said in the details, satisfying and challenging.

--

[1] Dave Cheng's answer to What's the best way to respond when someone asks how much money you make five minutes into your first conversation?

[2] Dave Cheng's answer to Would you give up your career to be with the person you love?
Dave Cheng's answer to Would you marry the woman you love and give up your country, career, future, and self-esteem?

[3] Dave Cheng's answer to Why are so many lawyers unhappy with their jobs?
Dave Cheng's answer to How do I survive life as an M&A associate at a top law firm? I routinely find myself working until 3am. What are the tips and tactics I can use to improve my work-life balance? Am I not pushing back enough?

[4] Need to look good for my sugar momma; also being shamed to look good due to images online like this:
What do you think of Fit Mom, Maria Kang’s, picture of herself with her three young children, showing her in-shape body, with the caption, "What's your excuse?"

[5] Strollers are SHOCKINGLY expensive.  If I was still a lawyer, I would have just bought a new brand-name model without even thinking about it.  As a househusband, I searched with my wife online for used ones, and we will save $300-500 USD as a result.  I also felt great about finding a good deal and reusing two perfectly good strollers that someone else didn't need anymore.

[6] Nothing against Filipino (or any other kind of) nannies.  They're quite prevalent here in Hong Kong and speak great English.  I just wouldn't want a stranger raising and educating my child instead of me.

[7] Shared Earning/Shared Parenting Marriage
In 1971, psychologist Dorothy Dinnerstein in The Mermaid and the Minotaur (released in the United Kingdom as The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and The Ruling of the World)[27] speculated that the change to this type of upbringing from the archetypal female-dependent and female-dominated childhood (especially in infancy and early childhood) prevents developing in boys' psychology a type of compulsive dominance, aggression and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nar... and in girls' psychology a type of compulsive co-dependence (or "inverse narcissism") and passivity or passive-aggressionand would allow both sexes better access to cognitive and emotional processing and assertiveness skills and prevent problems with dissociation.
Child psychiatrists Kyle Pruett and Stanley Greenspan have also considered the needs children have for care by their fathers and how they are helped by this type of marriage.[28]
Educator John Badalament has considered some of the ways these marriages meet the psychological needs of children as contrasted with marriages set up in other styles.[29]
Others have considered empirical data on the school performance, emotional health, and reduced rates of teen pregnancy, drug abuse, eating disorders, and criminal behavior of children raised in shared earning/shared parenting families.[30] Research by sociologists Scott Coltrane and Michele Adams found that in families where the men have increased their share of housework and child care, their children are less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD, less likely to be put on prescription medication, and less likely to see a child psychologist for behavioral problems. They have lower rates of school absenteeism and higher school achievement scores.[31]
A study has found that children with dads actively involved during the first eight weeks of life manage stress better during their school years.[32] And, as Dinnerstein predicted, a Harvard University study found paternal involvement with young children was the single strongest parent-related factor in adult empathy.[33]
A recent empirical study in the United Kingdom found that "the most beneficial working arrangement for both girls and boys was that in which both mothers and fathers were present in the household and in paid work." This result held for all levels of maternal educational attainment and household income. The study found that five-year-olds whose mothers had been unengaged in paid work had more emotional and behavioral problems than those who had mothers who worked. The longer the mother was out of the paid workforce the greater the behavioral problems.[34]