I would like to be able to stay at home all day, without too many worries on my mind and only a few kids to watch over and a few dishes to wash. I want a husband who will bring home all of the income and be counted on to do this every day. I want a husband who will land a job that makes him half happy, but also half angry. I want a husband who will come home every week day slightly disgruntled, but will announce that he is doing all of this just to support me and my children. I want a husband who will wish each day as he drives on his half hour commute that tomorrow’s the day he is given a raise. Tomorrow will be the day he is promoted. He will relay to me excitedly that he won’t have to work on the bottom floor of the office any more. He won’t ask how I feel when I realize that we will now have to push the time we normally eat dinner together back an hour because he will be working later shifts. I want a husband who will make sure our finances are in order and take care of our taxes. I want a husband who will have our bank accounts in order because he would never admit it, but he does not trust me too much with his money. I want a husband who will keep a job, even after he should retire, because our children need to go to college and I cannot work to help out with the money.

I want a husband who will do all of the household handiwork. I want a husband who knows how to fix pipes, grout floors, and insulate windows. I want a husband who will mow the lawn every weekend in the summer and shovel the driveway when it snows in the winter. I want a husband who will keep up with the maintenance of our swimming pool, the one that he also picked the design out for entirely on his own. I want a husband who will plan our family vacations, and book the airfare or drive the entire way there. I want a husband who will take charge in all of our family activities, after a meagre attempt at a democracy that ends in no agreements as to where we want to go. He will make the ultimate decision.

I want a husband who will be the disciplinarian. I want a husband who will know how to punish our children when they misbehave. I want a husband that I can rely on for this and throw under the bus when the children do something wrong: “Just you wait until your father gets home!” He will give them a lecture when they get a poor grade at school or when their teacher gets annoyed at them for talking in class. I want a husband who cannot only tell them what they did wrong, but tell them to not do it next time and finally relate it back to an amusing anecdote of his own childhood that the kids will not really understand and not leave the conversation worse for wear. I want a husband who will give the “becoming a man” talk to the son he hardly bothered to watch, let alone got to know.

I want a husband who will stay at work while the children are sick so that I can take care of them at home. I want a husband who may sometimes miss parent teacher conferences or after school soccer games because he is still at work. I want a husband who, however, taught the kids how to ride their bikes and play soccer and hit a baseball. I want a husband who knows only one meal, cooked on the grill outside, special to summer. I want a husband who will take out the garbage. I want a husband who will carry heavy packages and boxes into the house, and move all of the furniture when needed. I want a husband who speaks to repairmen or any other maintenance visitors in the home. I want a husband who will understand all of the terminology that they use.

I want a husband who will take total control of our lives in the bedroom. I want to never have to worry about any of the responsibilities that that entails. I want a husband who will do what he wants at his discrepancy, and by G-d he’ll get what he wants too because does he ever really ask for much around here? Can’t you just do this one thing that he asks?

I want a husband who will not have to worry about gender roles.

Who wouldn’t want a husband?