THE ROLES AND CHALLENGES OF STAY-AT-HOME-FATHERS IN SALATIGA, CENTRAL JAVA, INDONESIA

Abstract

This paper describes six men who decided to be a stay-at-home-fathers lived in Salatiga. All respondents believe that parenting roles is a kind of common responsibility for both parent. However, there are also challenges faced by stay-at-home-fathers which divided into the practical challenges related to the double role as father and mother, and also the emotional challenges. Nevertheless, no respondents stated that the roles of stay-at-home-father affects to the concept of masculinity itself but rather a responsibility of a father to protect the family. The division of house works based on gender roles have a close relation to the traditional Javanese concept of a family, which explained that men play an important role as the leader in running all domestic matters as well as being the breadwinner, while women should be responsible to take care of the children and doing house chores. Meanwhile, the idea of equality promoted by feminist thinkers deconstructed the meaning of family that has been understood since a long time ago. The research of this paper uses qualitative phenomenological method, with data collection technique by snowball sampling. In-depth interview conducted for three weeks long to five single fathers and a stay-at-home father living in Salatiga.