“It’s a blessing to share time at home with the kids, and I’m grateful to be home," stay-at-home dad Tom Yager says. "I think fatherhood is a great way for character development.”

Kids color at the kitchen table while a casserole crisps in the oven. The kids look up at a loving parent, who tenderly watches over their work. Just as the clock hits 6:30 p.m., in walks the breadwinner, “Honey, I’m home.” For a growing number of Wisconsin families, the voice of that income-earning spouse is feminine, not masculine. And the loving parent is a stay-at-home dad. In these households, Ward and June Cleaver have swapped roles. But has society forfeited the Leave it to Beaver stereotype?

According to a 2005 study in “Psychology of Women Quarterly,” a majority of people, both male and female, viewed nontraditional families, with stay-at-home fathers and full-time working mothers, more negatively than traditional families, indicating society favors the stereotype.

“I don’t have very much patience for anybody who makes a big deal out of what I do. It’s a little annoying and almost condescending,” says Jon Shemick, a stay-at-home dad of two living in Eau Claire. “But, I get why people do it. There is that stereotype of dads being negligent [of] their responsibilities, which is probably largely based on truth, and that’s very disappointing.”

Many people also still expect mothers to be better parents than fathers, a stereotype that continues into the 21^st century. Current pop culture also encourages the ideal housewife and lax father stereotype.

“People probably think that dads wouldn’t do as much of the housework or take care of the kids as much as a mom would,” says 24-year-old Kathryn Hughes of Eau Claire, daughter of a stay-at-home father when she was growing up. “But I don’t think it’s really that different, having a mom or a dad home, because both have to learn what it’s like to take care of kids all day, and both moms and dads have an emotional tie and are attached to their kids.”

Kirk Myhre of Eau Claire, who stays at home with his three kids, says the idea of a stay-at-home father is not “earth-shattering” and says he and his wife, a pediatrician, both believe he actually does a far better job of being home with the kids all day than she would if she were the constant go-to parent.

“She could not stay at home with the kids, and she freely admits that. She would go crazy,” Myhre says. “I hear her saying every once in a while, totally out of the blue, ‘Kirk has the much harder job,’ so I think she’s happy where she is.”

According to Human Development and Family Studies Professor Dave Riley at UW-Madison, no research backs up the stereotypical idea that mothers are more skilled parents than fathers and should be the ones staying home. There are individual differences, attitudes and social skills parents need to consider before assuming the mom should be the one carrying the diaper bag and packing the lunches.

“It does not matter whether God created you with an ‘innie’ or an ‘outtie.’ It is your personality and your love for children that makes you successful or not successful as a parent,” says Jay Van Zeeland, stay-at-home dad living near Green Bay. “But society still thinks the men should be doing the ‘hunting’ and the ‘gathering’ and that the women are the nurturers and the lovers.”

Schemick says the difficulties of being a stay-at-home parent are not related to gender. Balancing time and the kids’ lives, keeping up the household, and doing everything else that comes with the hectic, yet rewarding, job all comes down to the personality of the individual, he says.

“It’s just person to person. I don’t think you can make any broad generalizations about gender,” Shemick says. “I’m not trying to make a statement for men or anything, but at the same time, I think it’s no big deal if a man is the stay-at-home parent.”

Myhre, too, says he thinks the skill of stay-at-home parenting depends upon the actual person taking on the full-time task of organizing, cleaning, running errands, and doing all the other in-between jobs for the household and kids.