For many Christians stay-at-home dads are today what "Joe the Plumber" was for the 2008 presidential elections. No one really cared what Joe did, or whether he was a good plumber or a bad one. It was what he represented that mattered. In the same way, the stay-at-home dad is a figurehead, and he represents different things to different people. To some, liberation from antiquated gender stereotypes, a new and improved vision of masculinity and femininity. To others, the disintegration of biblical authority.

Owen Strachan, for example, writes here that the "‘Dad Mom' concept is a ‘man fail.'" "Men are not called by God to be "working at home" as women are in Titus 2:5. For Strachan the Bible clearly teaches that a woman's "intended sphere of labor and dominion-taking was the home (Genesis 3:16). This is true of the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 as well." By contrast, he writes here that the man's God-ordained sphere of labor is outside the home: "the men of Israel. . .leave the home to provide ...