De-constructing the house husband

In my new role as Indianhousehusband (how much longer can I use the term new role)? I have become more curious as to the extent of house husbandry around the globe. I wonder if - as I think in some of my more paranoid moments - it is viewed as career failure on the male's part, plain laziness, a sign of weakness or just plain weird! I think all these thoughts have gone through my peers - and family's -minds when told what we were planning to do but discretion being the better part of valour thought again about voicing it. I have to admit that from time to time I have sat and thought about our reasons myself, particularly when- like this morning- I get 'the fear'!

The fear is an odd little idiom that arises some morning's on 'A's' departure to work. It is not a literal thing, just a small nagging doubt in the back of the head that suddenly screams:
"she is gone, now you are all alone, how ya gonna cope"?
It disappears as fast as it comes but it is there long enough to make an impression. I think it will eventually go for good and I now think I know why it happens. This is all essentially alien to us bloke's. We are not - so the scientist's tell us - genetically predisposed to looking after children, we just do not have that maternal instinct. There is probably an element of truth to this but as far as I am aware, it is not proven that women are better at childcare than men, it is just that we have not had the practice. Well this myth is about to be destroyed, trampled under the size 11 feet of the Indianhousehusband. I vow to Finally bring us house husband's out of the closet, liberate us from our shame. I am going to become the poster boy for the stay-at-home-dad generation! Once I can make a decision on what to give the boy's for lunch!

Now this is essentially the problem and mainly what the difference is between mum's and dad's and I don't know if it is instinct or just practice. 'A' always seems to be completely,effortlessly in control. She never seem's to have to think about what to do for lunch or where to take them for fun or even what to dress them in. When I think of lunch I struggle to get passed beans on toast and some mornings it can take me an hour to get the boy's dressed! Is it just me or is this the norm for all men, working or not? Is this a maternal instinct kicking in or practice and planning?

I think it is fair to say that house husband's in India are a bit of a rarity, a google search of house husband in India tends to turn up things like this:-

Woman found buried in basement of HOUSE, HUSBAND arrested.
Woman beaten to death in her HOUSE, HUSBAND charged with murder.

Or my personal favourite:-
A man who becomes a HOUSE HUSBAND in India has taken leave of his senses and clearly has some mental health problems! (quote in the Indian express)
Despite this it does occur, although less frequently than around the world. Canada would seem to be the most liberated place when it comes to house husbandry, mainly down to the parity in men's and women's renumeration. This gives the couple the option of deciding who would like to be at home rather than who has to. All very civilised I am sure you will agree and our decision was taken along these lines. Like our own Tony Blair, who made a Faustian deal with Cherie - and no doubt beelzebub - that whoever got elected to parliament first would be the one who's career they followed (even at the possible detriment of the other's equally high flying one). The only difference's being that our decision was about who could get us to India first and there was only really one high flyer in our house and it wasn't me! All things considered though I still prefer the Indian explanation of it all. It is typical that this fiercely spiritual country should come up with one word to describe how home life should be, GRIHASTASHRAM.

In the Hindu family there is a Griha swami who is the head of the house (the man) and the griha swamini (his wife). In our case 'A' becomes the Grihalakshmi (the wealth of the house) and I become Grihashoba (glory of the house). The Sanskrit word to describe my house-hold duties is Grihast which is derived from the word Grih meaning home. When things are working perfectly a couple are said to live in a state of Grihastashram which literally translates as nurturing your family young and old through the travails of life! Sounds perfect to me, forget maternal instinct, alpha male's, house wife's and house housband's, aren't we all trying to be Grihastashram's?