In 1983,the Michael Keaton film "Mr. Mom" made a joke about an out-of-work dad who stayed at home with the kids while his wife went to work in corporate America. The movie pokes fun, and is admittedly funny, with scenes detailing Keaton in the grocery store, dropping off the children for the first time at grade school and making dinner and getting it all wrong.

 

But, today, it's not such an obscure idea. There are many similarities to today and 1983. The unemployment and gas price inflation are about what they were 26 years ago, and ironically, Hollywood's portrayal of a struggling family has come true. Maybe it's not such a struggle, though, as many dads report that they enjoy staying at home and spending more time with their children. Other families share responsibilities, bending old gender rules.

The Today Show recently reported that Oriel Sullivan, a sociologist at Oxford University in England who has studied men's changing contributions to housework and child care across the globe over the past 30 years, noted that men in the United States have made a lot of progress. "If you look at changes in the time trend for father care of children, the USA has shown one of the most dramatic rises in that over the last decade of any country, despite the fact that these kinds of policies have only very recently entered the U.S. policy agenda," she says.

Coleman, who has offices in San Francisco and Oakland, said there is still "a lot of confusion in society about what is appropriate for men to do and what is appropriate for women to do," according to the Today Show story. One thing is for sure, Michael Keaton isn't quite so goofy doing the grocery shopping as he was in the 80s. Today, many men are pitching in around the house as women are going after their careers, whether it's by choice or necessity due to lay offs.

Does your family have unique roles in parenting?