Mr. Mom..
 

Here is the situation....my "friend" is going to be a stay at home dad. He will do the raising of the children, cleaning of the house and all that good stuff (if that is what you want to call it). "His" future wife is the one that wants a career and wants to bring home the bacon. Now my question is this..... if by some odd chance their was a divorce...would my "friend" be eligible to recieve alimony payments?
I know that the men usually feel the worst part of a divorce (monetarily speaking), and end up paying alimony for a long long time. But if the wife was the main bread earner...wouldn't she be responsible for paying the husband monthly (depending on what the lawyers work out of course)?
Maybe this is a dumb question .... but I have been wondering that because I have never heard of the wife paying the husband off each month.

Yes its the same case, I think in CA. there was a similar divorce, where the man was Stay at home dad and Mom was corp. exec. I can;t remember very well, but i think he got the traditional half and she paid him both alimony and child support, since the kids stayed with him.

Alimony is not as easy to come by, anymore. He would have to have been at home a good number of years, and even then, a judge would still tell him to get a job, since he had worked previous to staying home with the kids.

If they divorced, and he got custody of the kids, he would be entitled to child support. A mother paying CS to a custodial father is not that uncommon anymore.

I'm not sure how it works in the USA but here in Canada (and I only know this from taking a course recently) it is very much even now. Alimony and/or child support is decided based on the incomes of the two individuals regardless of the sex. It matters not one way or the other which was the main "bread winner". The courts only view it as what is best for the children of the marriage and to make it fair for both parties. Sure...there are still lots and lots and lots of money-lusting divorce lawyers out there who will scream SUE!. But that just isn't the way it has to be.
You don't have to go to divorce court and battle it out the way everyone envisions it through tv and their friend's horror stories. You can go to a mediator (which in most cases is actually FREE) where you work out every single detail....the only lawyer action you see is to pay them to finalize the signing. No billion dollar lawsuits....no scrabbling over access/custody.
Sorry...off topic here but what I can tell you is that the courts now don't look at "sex" as the deciding factor at all. Men and women (in this respect at least) are equal now. About time, too, if you ask me! :)

You Canadians are so damn progressive and you guys have so much of your act together it's not even funny.

BTW, don't call Stay at home Dad's "Mr. Mom". It's demeaning. How about "Mr. Dad"? You don't call working mothers "Mrs. Dad" do you?

Not to make too much of a point of it, but speaking as a SAHD, the term "Mr. Mom" implies that women are inherently better at being a parent than men are, and that a man has to assume a motherly way of doing things to be a good father.

Relax friend. I only used that term because I love the movie so much.

That's cool. Just know that if you use that in reference to a real stay at home dad, he will likely be somewhat offended.

Heh heh....

I'm a SAHD, and if someone asks me what I do, I don't hesitate to call myself a 'housewife'....

People that are cool with the idea of the guy staying home think it's funny, and people that can't accept the situation(like my MIL), well, piss on 'em. I don't worry about what they think, anyway.

Who cares what you're called.

YOU know the enormous contribution that you make to your family.

F*ck what the rest of the world calls/thinks of you.

Some guy on family feud (I love the Game Show Network) called himself a "Domestic Engineer".

I for one do care what we call stay at home parents. Raising children is the most difficult job in the world and needs to honored! You are not married to your house -- thus not a housewife. Woman and men are both perfectly capable of raising children -- thus no "Mr. Mom's" please. Domestic Engineer sounds great.

As for the alimony question -- most likely won't happen. However, it is very likely that he will be given custody of the children and recieve child support IF there is ever a divorce.