“do not intend to actually do household management and childcare if they have an “excuse to stay home”?”
That is exactly what I am saying. It is one reason why so many marriages fail: The mothers really didn’t want children, they just used them to stay at home. So, when the kids become a handful, and children always do (I know, I’ve seen me do it!), the mothers fall apart and expect the dad to cover things when he gets home. He is overwhelmed and the arguments start, the marriage fails.
I have personally witnessed this countless times.
Sad. All I ever wanted was to be a stay-at-home mother to a large family, but God had other plans and I ended up in a high-pressure career with demanding clients. I was good at it and won many awards. When I finally did have a child I was technically old enough to be a grandmom, but to me, my life finally had meaning and purpose that all the career success had not provided. One day I was cutting a peanut butter sandwich into a star for the kid’s lunchbox and was just overwhelmed with joy and happiness!
Well, here's one way to handle it:
Jamshedpur, India: Rintu Karmakar, 60, flew into a rage when he discovered wife Monu, 55, hadn't prepared a meal or done any of the house work and was fast asleep in bed. He told police that he first tried to cut her head off with an axe while she slept but that had failed so instead he beheaded her with a scythe. He then calmly cooked and ate his own meal before throwing his wife's head in the back of his truck and driving to the police station to make a full confession.
She's 55, probably with no kids in the house any more, and he did this? Possibly she was coming down with flu, and he overreacted? Or maybe she slept in once too often.
Just sayin'...