Saturday, June 20, 2009

Take the Daddy Shift quiz!

Are stay-at-home dads all a bunch of slacker artistes living off of wives with MBAs? Do they spend all day surfing porn sites and having torrid affairs with dissatisfied neighborhood mommies? Are breadwinning moms dumping their stay-at-home husbands for high-powered lawyers? Who are these guys and gals, anyway? Stereotypes abound about reverse-traditional families, but if you want the facts, take this quiz.

1. During the past fifteen years, the number of stay-at-home dads has:

A. Stayed the same
B. Increased only slightly
C. Doubled
D. Tripled

2. During the same period, the number of working moms has:

A. Plunged dramatically as more and more mothers "opt out" of the workforce
B. Decreased slightly
C. Jumped up and down
D. Increased

3. The fraction of wives who make more than their husbands is:

A. One tenth
B. One quarter
C. One third
D. Three fourths

4. In 2009, what number of Fortune 500 CEOs are women?

A. 13
B. 54
C. 98
D. 250

5. What percentage of American men have access to paid paternity leave?

A. 13%
B. 26%
C. 50%
D. 100%

6. Families with a stay-at-home dad:

A. Have lower than average incomes
B. Have higher incomes than families with a stay-at-home mom
C. Are overwhelmingly educated and affluent
D. Are predominantly European-American

7. Cross-national studies have found that widely available day care and early childhood education is correlated with:

A. Low father involvement
B. Emotionally disturbed children
C. High levels of sexual abuse
D. High father involvement

8. According to most studies, the attitudes of men and women towards work, family, and sex have:

A. Grown apart as people embrace more traditional gender roles
B. Grown together as more women go to work and more men spend time with families
C. Become more selfish and casual
D. Stayed the same

9. The "mommy wars" are:

A. Something that most moms have never heard of
B. A tool for undermining natural solidarity between parents
C. A fake conflict incited by newspaper and magazine headline writers
D. All of the above

10. Which ethnic group divides child care and housework most equitably when the dad lives with mom?

A. White
B. Latino
C. Black
D. Asian

11. When men become fathers, their testosterone:

A. Spikes
B. Decreases
C. Both
D. What testosterone?

12. Rebeldad is:

A. A bar in San Francisco's Noe Valley
B. An evangelical Christian men's magazine
C. The name of the next Ice Cube film
D. A blog for stay-at-home dads

ANSWERS:
1 - C, 2 - D, 3 - C, 4 - A, 5 - A, 6 - A, 7 - D, 8 - B, 9 - D, 10 - C, 11 - B, 12 - D

SCORE YOURSELF
12-9 = You're a reverse-traditional genius
8-4 = Not too bad
3-0 = You need to watch less TV

Want to know my sources? Consider buying my book, The Daddy Shift, on which this quiz is based.

[This gimmick was inspired by Deborah Siegel, author of the very fine book, Sisterhood, Interrupted, and the forthcoming Man Enough.]

1 comment:

Kaitlin said...

Wow, this was really interesting.

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