Househusbands abound in this city, and they’re ready to man up for the domestic challenge

We pulled up to an enormous house in the Jinqiao area; you know the kind – set in a secure compound, surrounded by manicured lawns and with private driver parked outside in a private car. We were there to meet Devin Silloway, not the homeowner in the traditional sense, but a stay-at-home dad. “My wife has been blessed and has done phenomenally well,” says Devin, a board member for Community Center Shanghai. “She’s now with her third company here.” Devin organizes ‘guy-tai’ meet-ups once a month to address the growing trend of househusbands in the Jinqiao and Kangqiao areas. “We often get between 10 and 20 men at each meeting,” he adds.

An increasing number of husbands like Devin in Shanghai are willing to swap the conventional breadwinner role with their wives for a domestic lifestyle. They put their families first and their personal career ambitions a distant second. Call it what you will – a byproduct of the economic crisis perhaps, where sensible financial decisions have to be made to support a family; or maybe a societal gender blurring and a gradual progression of equality in the home and workplace; or maybe it’s just a man’s ticket to a free ride. Whatever the sociological cause, it’s clear that more and more husbands like Devin are now trading in their day jobs to improve their lifestyle.

Surprisingly, househusbands seem to be an accepted concept here in Shanghai. In 2006, a city survey stated that “70 percent of the working males in Shanghai prefer to stay at home to become professional househusbands” (source: China Daily). Apparently, a whopping 46 percent of Shanghai men also crave to marry rich women.

“I could never go back to my former career,” admits Devin, whose fulltime role now involves organizing the household. While his wife works as a succesful head-hunter, Devin makes sure his eight-year old son Duncan gets to school, does his extracurricular activities and finishes his homework in the evening. Although they have an ayi to clean the house (one of the luxuries of living in China), Devin does all the shopping, house repairs and maintenance himself. “Men really never had this choice before,” he says. “If we did this just a few decades ago everyone would have thought we were closeted homosexuals.”

TV programs such as Footballers Wives (UK) and Desperate Housewives (US) have beome exceptionaly popular, and the recent reality TV series Househusbands of Hollywood explores the flip-side of the same scenario. While it shamelessly skewers the lifestyle (they all seem to hang out playing basketball and getting drunk), the show also muffles the stigma towards this particular outlook on life.

“I’ve followed my wife Jeanne for the last 15 years,” says Marc Leslie, another househusband who also lives in Jinqiao. “Our agreement is – whoever had the best chance for advancement and better salary would decide where we’d go.” When asked if he gets stick from his working male friends, Marc answered: “My ex-colleagues (in England) threatened to take me to the pub to talk some sense into me for following a woman around. I explained to four of them that if we combined all five of our salaries it still wouldn’t be equal to Jeanne’s [who works in the oil industry].They certainly quieted down a bit after that.”

When Marc is not organizing his children and his household he enjoys playing golf whenever he wants. “Most of the trailing spouses are women; I have several ‘golfing girlfriends’ who along with the trailing male spouses try to organize golf outings on a regular basis.”

He agrees that Shanghai appears to be very progressive in terms of opinions and perceptions towards househusbands. “I know of six couples in our building alone where the male is the trailing spouse,” says Marc.

“Most guys say, ‘Wow, I wish I was in your shoes,’ but most would suck at this role,” reckons Devin, who has to maintain all the orchids and fresh flowers throughout the house. “I hate this, but am fairly good at it. I score extra points on Fridays by getting my wife’s favorite almond croissants and the latest People magazine and placing fresh flowers by her bathtub.”

Martin Leung, an American-born Chinese guy-tai living in Jinqiao, agrees it’s not all lounging around doing socials. “You quickly see how difficult this job can be,” he says, “but then you want to work harder to help your kids and wife succeed and to make a difference in their lives.” The latter, it seems, is especially gratifying. “There’s nothing more rewarding than a happy child asking for help in homework, or second servings of food that you have cooked,” he adds with a smile.

But Devin says there is also a downside. “It’s trying at times, and grinding – having the ultimate thankless job. But I’d still definitely recommend it.” Marc agrees: “We’re part of a growing population of househusbands, and it’s a good trend.”