The Home Body

Perhaps the world has been screwed up from the beginning. Maybe men are better at staying home and minding the kids and women are supposed to go off to hunt and gather?

Except for the guilt they both feel, one British couple recently wrote up how well the economic downturn that sent dad into redundancy and mum off to win the family's bread seemed to be working out. (Not surprisingly, the kids have reversed to with their daughter missing having the misses do her hair and their son delighted at the opportunity to bounce all day off the man of the house.)

And then there are supermen — like rhyme dad Larry Shine, single father of nine — who both work and take full care of his children.

Given the ability to create life in a test tube, there have often been jokes about whether men are necessary, but the idea that men can handle it all does give one pause: are scientists also working on procreation possibilities that could make women unnecessary as the next evolutionary step?