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This ongoing debate between working and stay-at-home mothers always seems to occur in a vacuum where there are no men. Dad is always assumed to be the full-time working stiff and main breadwinner, except that this isn't true in many families, including mine. My wife works full-time outside the home in a very demanding job. I work full-time, but am based at home (kind of like Caitlin Flanagan, except that I don't pretend that my job isn't really a job). I know at least three other families in our neighborhood who follow similar working schedules. Our kids all seem fine, but who gets credit for that? Do the working moms get to use us as an example of successful two-career families, or can the stay-at-home moms claim us as reasonable facsimiles of traditional families, but with some gender issues? In the end, you can't change the definition of femininity without also changing the definition of masculinity--they're two sides of the same coin. Ignoring dad provides the clearest evidence that this battle isn't really about what's best for children and families, it's about confining men and women to traditional roles.