We're making progress (at least in the UK). More than a year ago, I wrote this post flagging a report from Pregnancy & Birth Magazine that showed that a third of dads would be willing to stay home with the kids if economics allowed. (Orginial links have largely died. Click here if you're curious enough to pay.)

I was excited by the results, thinking that it suggested that the old dads-don't-really-want-to-stay-home argument was getting more and more bogus and that caring for kids was increasingly socially acceptable (despite what you may have read elsewhere).

Now, Pregnancy & Birth Magazine has released its 2004 numbers for what appears to be the same sort of survey. And would-be at-home dads are even more prevalent. According to this story in the Daily Record, this survey found that this year "... almost half of dads claim they would give up work to be stay-at-home fathers, if they could afford it."

Given the caveat that this probably ain't the most rigorous survey, scientifically, I'd still like to celebrate a couple of points. 1) Getting almost 50 percent of guys to express interest in being a stay-at-home dad is mind-boggling and suggests that, indeed, the idea of separate sphere continues to fade. 2) A year ago, the number was down around 33 percent. That's a heck of a gain in a year and suggests that the men-ought-not-stay-home canard is not only fading, but fading fast.