Stay-at-home Dad in Latin America

I have yet to meet one person in Latin America who I know was raised with a male as their primary caretaker. Nor have I met anyone who did not assume that my father was the primary bread-winner and that my mother was in charge of cooking and cleaning.

When asked about my parents, the first question is usually, "what does your father do?" or, occasionally, "what do your parents do?" I tell them that my mom is an accountant and my dad stays home with my sister and my dog. The next set of questions is usually a combination of some of the following:

• Why? (Mom made more money when I was born.)
• Are they married? (Yes.)
• When does your mom cook/clean? (She doesn't. My dad does.)
• Did you have a nanny/maid/house cleaner? What about an aunt, grandma... that helped? (No.)
• How did you learn to sew, cook...? (Some of these things I never learned and never really desired to. Others my dad taught me.) 

Finally, they are left with only one option, reality: my father is a stay-at-home dad who does all the normal "feminine" tasks of cooking, cleaning, and child-raising in addition to the traditionally "masculine" chores of yard work, killing spiders, fixing broken things, etc.

But they are not done yet. They usually feel the need to offer some sort of commentary on the situation. So far, I have gotten two types of responses. One is admiration. Many women who are or have been stay-at-home moms admire what my dad has done. In many ways, I agree with them, but I also think it's because they don't realize that it is easier to be a stay-at-home dad in the US than in Latin America.

The second response is the regurgitation of cultural messages about gender roles. It usually involves implying that he is "poco hombre" (not very much of a man, effeminate) and informing me that "many latinos would call him a faggot." I get the feeling that they would call him that if they weren't talking to me. 

I love my dad and I wish people here could first see him as a great dad instead of a different dad or a dad being a mom. There is no reason why a man should not be a stay-at-home parent.