This is definitely a topic that I can relate to.
Before I met and married my wife, I was a stay-at-home father to five children. I did this for 5 1/2 years before our relationship ended (we weren't married). It just made sense for me to stay home since I was going to make much less than my girlfriend. We were living in Upstate, NY with one vehicle. She just made more money, so she worked and I stayed home and took care of the children.
Now that I am married, I still stay home and take care of our daughter (and soon-to-be son come February), but also my wife. She has an illness that comes and goes, and when it comes it hits hard and can essentially debilitate her. I fully believe that the time that I spent at home with my five children was preparing me to stay home now. I also fully believe that my time spent as an EMT was also for now as it gave the medical knowledge needed to handle a wire array of medical issues. I also have this caregiver role engrained deep within me. I don't mind being home for long stretches of time and am a bit of a home body.
I will say that there is still a bias against men who were stay-at-home fathers who are looking to get back into the workforce. I experienced it myself back in 2008 and still hear rumblings of it today. Back in 2008 I went to Rita Staffing in order to find work, but was told that they cannot help me because I had been out of the workforce for 5 1/2 years and I am not ready to work. My response was that I am sitting in front of you, I am wanting to work and clearly am able to work. I was further told that I wasn't marketable to any of their clients because of me being a stay-at-home father because I didn't have any current experience. She told me to get a job at McDonald's if I want to work and then come back to Rita Staffing in a couple years.
I did try McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and other fast food places. No one wanted to hire me. Mainly I was told that I was over qualified because of having been an EMT.
It is my belief that either the father or mother can stay home with the children while the other spouse works. That this notion that the man must work outside of the home and women to be in the home wrong. The Bible just says that the man must provide. Provision comes in many forms, and not just in the form of money.
Thankfully, even though I do stay home now, I do pet sitting when a client calls me and I do freelance photography for a company that insurance companies call who want pictures of damage down to vehicles or other property. While it cannot be considered a living income, it does pay for my child support each month and anything extra that we may want to do, like go to the drive-in or a dinner night out.