Question for bluepill: why do all the same rules apply to men who want to be stay-at-home dads?

Gravel_Roads · 2026-06-23T06:06:33+00:00

Bluepill doesn’t say you have to do any of that.

Because Bluepill focuses primarily on compatibility,
BP would actually recommend you let your preferences be known as early as possible so you can screen out women who want things from you that you don’t want to provide.

Also, you seem confused in general about dating:

Ie:
If you want to be a househusband/SAHD, you will STILL have to provide for your wife for a period of time as she will still be the one who is pregnant and destroys her body for at least a year. If you CARE about your kid, you’d also want them to get the extra health benefits of breastfeeding.

(Note, if you are a man who actually does have a uterus/can breastfeed, you would be an exception obvs.)

Or:
It’s NOT default for custody to go to the mother. It’s just more common for the father to not bother trying to gain custody at all. Most men who actually show up to the custody hearings actually do get granted custody.

Solondthewookiee · 2026-06-23T06:54:32+00:00

One of the first people I spoke to on Reddit told me that if I were a stay-at-home dad and my wife leaves me, she's leaving me because I'm not financially providing, so I should lose custody of my children and pay child support. ???

Are you suggesting this is blue pill advice? Because that sounds red pill as fuck.

when I say I want alimony to compensate for a lack of male DV shelters, which was bad faith

Not only does this not answer the question, but it's absolutely bonkers reasoning.

because they know what women do to earn it, so they should assume I'm willing to do the same, and I am: cooking, cleaning, parenting. I'm only willing to NOT switch on weekends or work a half shift in the afternoons, and/or return to work after the youngest is in kindergarten IF my future wife happens to find me more useful at home or on call, like some do.

I legitimately have no idea what you're saying here, but in any case, it's not blue pill advice.

but why do I still have to pay on dates?

That's the neat part, you don't. It is totally legal to say you want to split a date or even ask to be taken out.

Why does the mother of the child get custody, and I pay support if we break up before the birth?

She doesn't. You pay support because it's your child.

can you name me a rule for stay-at-home fathers that IS different than the rules you have for financially provisioning fathers?

There are no rules. It's what you work out with your partner. I certainly don't have any rules because I would never want to be in a relationship with a stay at home partner.

anomalocarus · 2026-06-23T06:02:21+00:00

All of those are things that should be discussed with your partner, not with strangers online. If your girlfriend is cool with paying for everything then its really no ones business whether its ok or not. Same goes for custody and alimony.

love_in_october · 2026-06-23T06:56:36+00:00

I see stay-at-home dads as having the same "rules" as stay-at-home mums, but they often don't choose to fulfil quite the same responsibilities. A more common scenario for someone to be a stay-at-home dad is unplanned, often after they've lost their job, and they're not doing quite the same amount of household labour to the same quality as a stay-at-home mum usually would - so it's reasonable to ask what else they contribute.

CanaryHeart · 2026-06-24T03:49:11+00:00

A stay-at-home partner (man or woman) should be providing childcare and doing more (not all) of the domestic, family management type labor. If you’re a stay-at-home dad, your wife is the breadwinner, and you divorce, you should get alimony.

In my state, men can seek custody as soon as paternity is established, and the custodial parent receives child support.

I’m honestly not sure I totally understand the question, lol. Both my husband and I have been the stay-at-home partner at different points in our marriage and he definitely wasn’t filling the same role when he stayed home?

ChadChasingBReturns · 2026-06-23T09:15:32+00:00

My husband would get nothing in a divorce without our prenup, which was my idea. He’s a stay at home dad. Alimony? Good luck on surviving 1/4 of my actual paycheck. 😂 A woman having money to afford a stay at home husband most likely means that money is already in the bank and is NOT a marital asset.

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BusinessZestyclose86 · 2026-06-23T14:27:32+00:00

Why ask us? Most of us disagree with this stuff.

Kaleidoscopetide · 2026-06-23T17:21:29+00:00

Some people are sexist. Most people are not part of the niche online subculture that is TRP. That means that there are a lot of sexist people who are not part of the niche online subculture that is TRP. I’m sorry you’ve run into those people, and im sorry that the laws of many countries are sexist. I’m a feminist, so I believe that men and women are similar in most respects and should be treated equally; this means that parents should be considered, socially and legally, based on their parenting, not their sex; that SAHDs shouldn’t be held to different standards than SAHMs, and working mothers shouldn’t be held to different standards than working fathers.

GroundbreakingAlps78 · 2026-06-27T01:20:08+00:00

> Ok, fine, just buy me my machines then

Not sure what your point is. I’m not suggesting that the clothes are being hand washed, or that it’s especially time consuming to throw clothes in the machine. I’d say folding and putting away a load of clothes takes about a half hour, unless you have “help” from the kids, in which case it takes longer.

This is really an incredible parallel you’re making here. I’m impressed.

I mean, it's not really a hard argument. During Jim Crow, slaves had their children taken from them, and were made to work and give their earnings to other people (even if it was going to slavemasters who paid for the children's food, water, and shelter, and "took care" of them)

Funny. I thought you were comparing stay-at-home mothers to Janisseries as though they were simply slaves serving their husbands/sultans. I thought you were suggesting that the patriarchy was the longest-lasting empire, and that it survived by convincing women that they were important household leaders rather than slaves.

But alas, it seems you think men are the modern janisseries. Are you suggesting that women are slaves working under these janiseries, or that women are somehow leading the men?

So yeah, go haul ass to the coal mine, and pay child support to him and lose custody if he arbitrarily decides he wants to break up with you, enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xZm2UOam74

I agree with you that fathers deserve the opportunity to co-parent their children, and I’m glad that policy has been trending in this direction for the past few decades. Both parents should be held equally responsible for supporting their children, financially AND otherwise.

The Tom Sawyer fence chapter is legendary; I remember reading it in school and I appreciate the clip. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to suggest that men have been somehow tricked, as Huck Finn+friends, into performing their social role, but maybe we’ve all been tricked that way? Wealthy and powerful people benefit from a populace that feels autonomous while acting as a cog in a massive machine.

A video for you! https://youtu.be/YR5ApYxkU-U?si=ufDBivRkRrrPn36s

I mean, I often mop the kitchen more than once a week, but only because I am a messy baker

I do know I have more to learn about the kikimora triforce of parenting, cleaning, and cooking, but I know some things that people who actually do this stuff don't (like statistics on how daycare sucks) so I think I'm halfway there

I’m a pretty messy cook myself. Also, when the kids were younger, throwing and/or spilling food on the floor while eating was a daily issue, so quickly mopping once a day became a habit that I don’t plan to abandon anytime soon.

I’m a big numbers geek, so I personally think there’s a lot of value in using existing statistics and data to optimize anything you do. Unfortunately, I don’t think the daily chores are really the hard part, they are just stress points when they get delayed. The real effort is the constant parenting. I have been fortunate in having really well-behaved kids, and being a SAHM was still a really isolating and emotionally difficult experience for me.

I feel weird, half getting advice from you and half insulting you, especially since you actually are one of the few people on Reddit who didn't bully me first, but whatever. Reddit really changes people, the constant gaslighting of it, I'm not the the person I was 7 months ago

You’re allowed to argue with me. I’m wrong sometimes; I’d rather know than not know, even though it doesn’t always feel good. Insulting me is kinda lame. I’m still human, and damaged enough as it is. I hope I haven’t personally offended you. I try to steer clear of that but there are times I’ve definitely been rude during arguments.

GroundbreakingAlps78 · 2026-06-29T17:23:27+00:00

“The idea is the Janissaries could do things the sultans couldn't, like hold political office, but they were \still* the sultans' slaves. Similarly. men *might* be able to do things like hold political offices that women cannot, but they are still their women's, well, slaves.”*

I think you are being disingenuous when you suggest that women are the “sultans” in this analogy. Historically, women have been legally considered the property of their husbands—this is the very definition of slavery. She had no legal autonomy, could not cast a vote, could not enter a contract, and her husband controlled her finances, her movement, and her daily behavior. If anything, women were led to believe that they were important Janissaries managing the children according to their husband’s preferences.

Even today, men have no legal obligation to serve women. There are some voluntary social norms, such as the expectation that a man will act as a financial provider for a family, but no man is forced to participate. As always: men can choose where they work, they can choose who they marry, and they can exit relationships at will. Child support is legally required from both parents; historically it has been primarily provided by women. You are conflating the existence of responsibility with the absence of freedom; it is not the same thing.

“People like Obama and Trump have to serve women, or they are thrown out of office, which is why there are women's-only programs, etc.”

Politicians make an effort to appeal to as many voter groups as possible. This is how they win elections. Special programs exist for every group that has been historically disenfranchised: Veterans, people with disabilities, seniors, farmers, you name it.

And people like Trump still have to answer to divorce court; that's like the one area where Trump, Bezos, etc HAVE to answer to anybody, even if it's muted for rich men compared to poor men.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I suspect you are implying that divorce court treats men unfairly by dividing marital assets equally across couples and by occasionally awarding alimony to the party with lesser income. Is this what you believe? It’s funny—when I was younger, before actually entering the world of marriage and parenthood—I would have agreed with you.

This is only because I failed to understand the real economic value of having a stay-at-home parent. And I don’t just mean saved costs such as daycare, cooking, laundry, and cleaning, though those are real too. A stay at home parent sacrifices their own earning potential so that the other parent has the opportunity to focus on work and can actually do well at their job.

Even when kids are in daycare or school, there are typically several days a month where a parent’s work must be sidelined (often at the last minute) to care for kids. Sometimes kids must stay home sick, which means a parent needs to stay home with them. Other days they get hit with a ball during gym class and you are expected to immediately leave work to pick them up and then stay home with them, no matter how many critical meetings were scheduled for that afternoon. Kids have routine doctor, dentist, orthodontist, etc. appointments during typical working hours. And if your child has a band concert or baseball game on a night you need to work late, what are you going to choose? It feels like it is always happening, and always at the worst time. Even top performers become less-reliable employees after having kids, unless they have a stay-at-home parent managing these things in the background on their behalf.

Meanwhile, that stay-at-home parent is not earning their own salary, not contributing to 401ks or social security, not getting promotions or establishing seniority, not gaining new professional skills, and not developing a professional network or list of references. Both professional and social skills will atrophy over time, and returning to work becomes increasingly difficult. Most people have their own personal dreams and ambitions, too. They sacrifice these things not only for the benefit of the children, but also so that the coal miner can come home to eat, recharge, and enjoy the kids rather than cooking and cleaning every night.

Who is the servant in this scenario? Do you believe that the work performed by the stay-at-home parent is less valuable than the work performed by the coal miner?

“So I was saying, if I was the stay-at-home dad, and you were the female coal mine wife, I would be the sultan saying, "I would be lost without my jannisaries," because the genders would be flipped”

Yes, I got what you were suggesting, but I think the analogy fits better when women are acknowledged as the janissaries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq-0cKlVo7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpFo\_E9Fq2k

Love both!

And what do you know about "the wall"? :P

Aw man. My parents and their friends were major Pink Floyd fans, so I grew up listening to this stuff. Every year my family goes together to see Brit Floyd which puts on a great cover. Coming up again next month in Cleveland woohoo!

A personal favorite: https://youtu.be/7jMlFXouPk8?si=MFdf9-YqNsp1NOXy

Title	Question for bluepill: why do all the same rules apply to men who want to be stay-at-home dads?
Author	bigdonut100
Upvotes	4
Comments	173
Date	June 23, 2026 5:55 AM UTC (1 month ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1ud8prt/question_for_bluepill_why_do_all_the_same_rules/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/question-for-bluepill-why-do-all-the-same-rules.1583437 https://theredarchive.com/post/1583437

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