I’d like to share my perspective. My wife and I got married and immediately left the D.C. area (where we both grew up) so she could pursue a big job in Seattle. I quit my job (software developer) and sold my condo and gleefully moved. We dinked around for a couple years before we had kids. We were in our late 30s by this time. Because she made so much more money than me I stayed home with the kids for a couple years but eventually put them in daycare so I could go back to work because I was going out of my mind. Women are not kind to men that stay home when it comes to a support network. They think you are nuts or something. It was better for all of us that I went back to work. The kids survived daycare and eventually made it through high school and both are in college now with no ill effects. Did my wife want to stay at home with the kids? Sure but we also needed food on the table. We were good a splitting up chores and childcare. I think you are right. If you take away all the assumptions about who does what. Then things will be more equitable. In my house I cook and we split the cleaning and she does laundry. Both sexes are still sold a perfect vision of what a marriage is and try to force themselves into that ideal and it doesn’t work. Hence we have a 50% divorce rate.