I wonder, though, how a stay-at-home Dad would have been portrayed in
the strip. Not a dad on paternal leave who nonetheless was working, or a
dad who worked from home, but an actual, honest-to-god Dad who took
care of the children and household needs while his wife worked. Would he
have been villainized like cheater Steve, or womanizer Ted? Or worse?
Or would he not have been as bad? I'd think at the very least LJ
would've regularly made fun of him for being a sissy, and if she wanted
to get more serious, as a terrible person who is preventing his wife
from being a "real woman" by refusing to be a "real man".
And yet Therese went to work, and Anthony stayed home, and Therese was villified, and yet Mike stayed home and Deena went to work and all was sunshine and roses. As for his guessing of how Lynn would have handled a SAHD, I'd say Chucique was spot on. The comic strips in general are not nice to SAHDs. Adam@home being the only one I'm aware of, where he is home while the wife works, and he is taking care of a baby, and he used to have a writing business, but I haven't seen him working at it lately. Other times the guy is retired, or, as in Ted Forth's case, miserably unemployed.
On another note--am I the only one who can't cut and paste any links on LJ anymore?