Part time stay at home Dad

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MiserereMei25

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Me and my wife both work. We have a newborn and are pretty sure we will have more kids in the future. I told her since she makes more money than me and if we were ever in a financial place to do it, I would find a new part time job and stay at home to care for the kids and the home the rest of the week.

Is it morally wrong for a father to do this?
Personally I love the idea and she has no issue with it.
 
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No, not at all. I stayed at home for 5 years, and even though both of us would have liked to to have stayed, it made more sense for her to work. She also wasn’t a workaholic who had to be out until after bedtime or anything, and she was home by dinner. We’re having another, due in a couple weeks, and we might go down the same road again.

Congratulations on the baby.
 
It is your responsibility as a husband and a father to do what is best for your family. If it means that you and your wife decide that you stay at home with the children while your wife works then so be it.
 
If you’re in a financial position to support your family on one income (or one full time income plus a second part time income), it would be preferable for you to be the one working the full time job:

“Mothers, concentrating on household duties, should work primarily in the home or in its immediate vicinity.” - Quadragisimo Anno #71
 
I’ll bite. And show my ignorance. What is Quadragisimo Anno?
And what is the reasoning behind this thought?
 
Nothing wrong with it as long as you and your wife are happy and it’s financially doable.
 
An encyclical written By Pope Pius XI. It addresses the obligations of employers and workers. #71 states that, because mothers should attend primarily to the care of their children, it is incumbent on employers to pay fathers enough to support their families on one income.
 
But not all businesses these days don’t pay men enough to support there families.
 
Padres1969 said:
But the implication that he feels women’s place is in the home can’t be ignored.
Click to expand...
It’s not an implication. He taught it explicitly (of mothers of young children at any rate).

As is often the case with the Church’s teachings, this does not align with the attitudes that are common in our age.
 
It is the place of the father to provide for the family, and the place for the mother to stay at home, unless it is absolutely necessary for her to work outside it.
 
Well to be fair it was a teaching as of 1931. Given the time it’s not surprising that was his view. Would be interesting to see if it’s one Francis agrees with given modern economics and women’s status as equal members of society now.
 
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If the Church’s teachings in 1931 are not reliable, then neither are the Church’s teachings in 2018 (or in 33 for that matter).
 
I suppose we should also throw out the theory of relativity, since it’s equally ancient.
 
N.B. The Church’s moral teaching didn’t align with “progressive” attitudes in the 1930’s either.
 
Considering it was a non doctrinal and non-infallible teaching it wasn’t “the church’s” teaching though, it was Pius’ personal authoritative teaching on the matter in a pastoral manner of his time, no? Doesn’t preclude it from being wrong or countered/amended by a later pontiff?
 
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“Not infallible” doesn’t mean “subject to change at a Pope’s whim (or some guy on the internet’s supposition about the Pope’s whim)”. The reason why non-infallible teachings are reliable is because it is very unlikely that they will be changed.

Certainly, it is not licit for a Catholic to dissent from such a teaching simply because of the possibility that a future Pope might overturn it.

“Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: “He who heareth you, heareth me”; and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine.” - Humani Generis #20
 
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Working primarily in, or in the vicinity of, the home does not automatcially equate to being a better mother.
 
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