Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 937.
Being a stay-at-home dad.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 937.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
This episode, like all of our episodes, has a learning guide.
You can find that at ESLPOD.com on this crazy thing called the Internet.
Our dialogue today is between Gladys and Dan about the father in the family staying home to take care of the children while the mother goes out and works.
Sounds like fun.
Let's get started.
Hi Dan.
I'm surprised to see you here at the supermarket in the middle of the day.
Why?
I thought you'd be working.
I am working.
I'm a stay-at-home dad and I take care of the kids while my wife goes to work.
Oh, did you get laid off from your job?
No, my wife works full-time out of the house and I work full-time at home.
You mean that your wife is the breadwinner and you're a house husband?
If you want to put it that way, yes.
Oh, your wife must be a feminist.
No, my wife is just a modern woman with modern sensibilities.
Well, I know that some families like to live radical lifestyles these days, changing up gender roles.
We don't think of it as radical.
In fact, it's quite common nowadays.
If you say so, tell your wife.
I'd be happy to share my recipes with her when you go back to work and she's a housewife again.
Our dialogue begins with Gladys saying to Dan, Hi Dan.
The supermarket is the store you go to to buy food.
The middle of the day would be sometime, usually between say, 8 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon, when people are normally working at least Monday through Friday.
Dan says, why?
Why are you surprised?
Gladys says, I thought you'd be working.
Dan says, I am working.
I'm a stay-at-home dad and I take care of the kids while my wife goes to work.
A stay-at-home dad or father is a dad who does not work outside of the house but instead takes care of the children.
In the traditional family in the United States and in most countries, the mother would stay home to take care of the children and the father would go out to work.
Times have changed, at least in some families.
Not in most, but in some families.
The father may stay home.
I think this is still probably fairly rare in the United States, but it does happen.
I had a friend of mine who was a stay-at-home dad.
His wife worked as a lawyer, and he stayed home to take care of the children.
Dan says he's a stay-at-home dad and he takes care of the kids while his wife goes to work.
Gladys says, oh, did you get laid off from your job?
To be laid, L-A-I-D, off, means the employer said that you no longer have a job at that company.
The employer said, I'm sorry.
We need to let some people go.
We need to dismiss you from your job.
Normally, when we use the expression to be laid off, we mean that the person didn't do anything wrong.
The company.
Let the person go, ended the person's job because of some problem in the company or some change in the company.
If we say someone was fired F-I-R-E-D, then we are saying that person did something wrong and the company got rid of them.
If you're fired from your job it's because you did something wrong.
If you're laid off from your job, it's because the company decided that it needed fewer employees, or somehow you were no longer needed at the company.
Dan says that he was not laid off.
He said, no, my wife works full-time out of the house and I work full-time at home.
Full-time means you're working at least 40 hours at a job.
To work outside of the home would mean to go to another building and work during the day.
To work at home would be to stay in your house or apartment and work.
Gladys, however, is having a little difficulty understanding this situation.
She says, you mean that your wife is the breadwinner and you're a house husband?
You mean is short for, are you saying to me, do you mean that?
Gladys is saying that Dan's wife is the breadwinner.
To be a breadwinner, B-R-E-A-D-W-I-N-N-E-R, is to be the person who earns the most money or the majority of the money for a household.
The breadwinner would be the person who who is making the most money and therefore supporting the rest of the family.
A house husband is a rather new expression.
The traditional term for a woman staying home would be a housewife, H-O-U-S-E-W-I-F-E, one word.
A house husband is a husband who stays home and takes care of the house and family.
Dan says, if you want to put it that way, yes.
The expression.
To put it that way means to say something in a particular way, especially in a way that you hadn't thought about before or that you hadn't considered before.
Dan says, I'm the caretaker of the kids during the day, and I do the household chores.
A caretaker, C-A-R-E-T-A-K-E-R, is someone who takes care of someone or something.
In this case, Dan is referring to him taking care of their children.
Household chores refers to things that you do in a house in order to keep it clean and working properly, to make sure that everything is getting done that needs to be done.
Household chores would include washing the windows every once in a while.
My wife tells me once every three or four months.
I think really once a year is enough, don't you?
Doing the dishes, taking out the trash, cleaning the house, fixing things that break all of these would be examples of household chores.
The word chore, C-H-O-R-E, is something you're required to do that is usually somewhat unpleasant.
If you say something is a chore, you mean it's difficult and not very fun to do.
Household just refers to things done in a house, where house refers to an apartment, a townhouse, a condominium or an actual separate home.
Gladys says, oh, your wife must be a feminist.
A feminist, F-E-M-I-N-I-S-T, is a difficult word to define.
Everybody has a slightly different definition.
In general, people understand the word to mean a woman who is in favor of equal rights for men and women, who doesn't believe in the traditional roles or responsibilities and duties that a woman would have, for example, in a marriage.
However, the term has taken on all sorts of political meanings as well.
So when someone uses it, you have to be very careful to understand what exactly they mean by it.
We're not exactly sure what Gladys means by saying that Dan's wife is a feminist.
It might be a criticism of Dan's wife or a suggestion that Dan's wife is somehow unusual in wanting to work outside of the home.
Dan says no, my wife is just a modern woman with modern sensibilities.
That's an interesting response.
Dan is saying no, my wife is not a feminist.
Again, because the word feminist can sometimes be used negatively as well as positively, Dan doesn't want to use that term to describe his wife.
Instead, he says his wife is just a modern woman with modern sensibilities.
Sensibility refers to the way you think about something, the way you feel about a particular thing or a particular way that something works.
The word modern refers to the way things are done now, in comparison perhaps to the way they were done 20 years ago or 50 years ago or 100 years ago.
Many people believe modern means good, that if it's something we do now, then it must be good.
This, of course, is a rather naive way of looking at the world.
Naive, N-A-I-V-E, means innocent but not very intelligent.
I'm not saying, of course, that it's a bad idea that Dan's wife works outside of the home.
I'm just pointing out the use of the word modern here means more than just the way we do things now.
It's meant to be a very positive description of something typically.
Gladys says.
Well, I know that some families like to live radical lifestyles these days, changing up gender roles.
Gladys is saying that what Dan and his wife say Our doing is radical, R-A-D-I-C-A-L.
To be radical means to be very extreme, to be very different than what normal people do.
A lifestyle is just the way that you live, the style in which you live, the manner in which you live.
A radical lifestyle would be living in a way that almost no one else does.
Gladys talks also about changing up gender roles.
To change up is a phrasal verb that here means to change something in an unexpected or unusual way.
Gender roles refers to the way that men and women, boys and girls, act and behave.
To change up gender roles would be to have the man do things that traditionally the woman has done and the woman to do things that the man has traditionally done.
And in a way, that's what Gladys is talking about here with Dan and his wife.
Nowadays, the most common situation is not always the woman staying home and the man working, but both the man and the woman, both the wife and the husband, the mother and the father working outside of the home.
Dan says we don't think of it as radical.
In fact, he says it's quite common nowadays.
Nowadays, N-O-W-A-D-A-Y-S means currently.
This year or in the past five years, Dan is saying it's quite common for women to work outside of the home while the father stays home and takes care of the children.
I don't think that's true.
Although it might depend on what you mean by common.
How common does it have to be to be considered common?
I'm not really sure, but that's what Dan thinks.
Gladys says, if you say so.
That expression, if you say so, is said when you don't believe what the person has just said, but you don't really want to argue with them.
Gladys says tell your wife I'd be happy to share my recipes with her when you go back to work and she's a housewife again.
A recipe.
R-E-C-I-P-E is a set of written instructions about how to prepare a particular type of food.
Normally again, in traditional gender roles, the woman, the mother, would stay home and cook food and would use recipes.
Gladys is perhaps making a little joke here, or perhaps trying to criticize Dan by saying that When Dan's wife goes back to being a housewife and Dan goes back to working outside of the home, then she can share recipes with the wife.
Pretty sure she means this as a criticism of Dan and his wife.
Dan just sighs at the end.
He goes, meaning he's frustrated.
He decides perhaps that it's not worth continuing to argue with Gladys.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Hi, Dan.
I'm surprised to see you here at the supermarket in the middle of the day.
Why?
I thought you'd be working.
I am working.
I'm a stay-at-home dad and I take care of the kids while my wife goes to work.
Oh, did you get laid off from your job?
No, my wife works full-time out of the house and I work full-time at home.
If you want to put it that way, yes.
I'm the caretaker for the kids during the day, and I do the household chores.
No, my wife is just a modern woman with modern sensibilities.
Well, I know that some families like to live radical lifestyles these days, changing up gender roles.
We don't think of it as radical.
In fact, it's quite common nowadays.
Oh.
Our scriptwriter works full-time trying to give you the very best scripts on the Internet.
That is, of course, our wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
