A few decades ago, it was rare to see a father home before dinnertime, let alone one taking on full-time household and childcare duties.

Back then, being a househusband carried a heavy stigma. The idea of a dad taking on the primary caregiver role was seen as so unusual it became a punchline, in comedies such as Mr. Mom and Daddy Day Care.

But times have changed. A 2015 study of 1,100 millennials found that 51pc of men would be happy not to work if their spouses earned enough to support the family. Fast forward a decade, and the number of dads stepping away from the workforce in the UK to care for their children is on the rise.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the proportion of stay-at-home dads increased by a third between 2019 and 2022. Despite this shift, they remain a very small minority. Just 1.7pc of men living with dependent children identify as primary caregivers, compared to 13.9pc of women.

Attitudes are softening, but the expectation of men as primary breadwinners still lingers. What's the reality for these high-flying career women and their husbands taking charge at home?

When David Hitchcock's two older children from a previous relationship, now teenagers, were young, he was often working 50-hour weeks as a mechanic. He felt he missed much of their upbringing.

So when he and his wife Emily Wilkinson, 43, who live in Andover, Hampshire, found out she was pregnant in 2023, Hitchcock, 44, felt this was his second chance. When their daughter was born, he had already handed in his notice on his £43,000-a-year job.

Wilkinson left for maternity leave in the middle of a big project at work at a luxury wine and spirits brand. After five months off she was keen to get back and see the project through. While she initially experienced guilt for being away from her daughter, she found it easier knowing her daughter was being taken care of by her dad.

If they had both gone back to work, due to Hitchcock's hours, Wilkinson would have had to take on more of the childcare responsibilities before and after work. "It would have made the whole environment unhappy," she says.

Now, they alternate who goes to the gym at 6am while the other wakes up with their daughter. When Wilkinson starts work, Hitchcock will nap while their 17-month-old naps, or get on with chores around the house. "I'm not as good at tidying as I probably should be," he says. "But equally, I appreciate I'm here all day. The house needs to be tidy."

On Wednesdays, their daughter spends the day at her grandmother's. "I get a Wednesday afternoon to myself, which again normally ends up being taken up with admin or a big sleep," says Hitchcock. While he has tried out local dad and baby groups, none of them have stuck. Most of his friends still do shift work, so much of the time it is just him and his daughter.

"It's not like you can just rock up for a cup of tea, because they're all at work," he says. "Or you have to start making friends with a lot of women with kids," Wilkinson adds.

Wilkinson will finish work at around 5pm. Hitchcock is conscious not to dump childcare on her as soon as she walks through the door. "I know being the breadwinner, it's very frustrating when you get home and you want your bit of time to decompress," he says. "I'm conscious I can't just throw our daughter at her and say I've done a full day's work, because it works both ways."

Hitchcock tried not to have any preconceived expectations coming into being a stay-at-home dad. He was looking forward to it - however, he's been surprised at just how tiring being the main caregiver can be. "There is no escaping to work to get away from the stress of home life," he says.

The change of pace has mostly been positive. He has been working in a garage since the age of 15, but in recent years he has been considering a career change. It has allowed him time to take stock and think about the type of work he does in the future.

Coupled with Wilkinson's higher salary and earning potential, when it came to discussions of who should stay home with their daughter, it just made sense. "If one of us was going to take that time off, it should be David," she says.

The financial side has taken some adjustment. "I've always had money in my pocket," he explains. "Now to share our money, it takes a bit of getting used to." Wilkinson earns £80,000 a year. There's never any resentment from his side, although Hitchcock admits it requires a strong relationship. "I think if you're not in a good place, it would probably break a lot of people."

Hitchcock has struggled with the self-imposed pressure to provide financially for his family. "I am fortunate Emily is so emotionally supportive," he adds. "She has had to remind me when it has got to me, that I am still providing in an even more important way."

Now, when Hitchcock tells people he is a househusband, he says they usually pause for a second. But he has never experienced any negative reactions; if anything, from the point of view of his former colleagues, he is lucky.

In the future, Hitchcock will look for part-time work that fits in with his daughter's school terms. So far, he's found the options are limited. "A lot of the jobs are women-centralised," he says. "I couldn't get a school-term-time job in a garage, it just wouldn't work. So I need to broaden my horizons."

Francesca, 38, gave birth to her son a year before completing her PhD, and after taking a year off she was itching to get back to work. At the time, her partner David, 37, also took six months off his job. "It was the best six months of my life," he says.

In 2023, they had their second child. When the time came for Francesca to go back to work as an academic at Manchester Metropolitan University, David was feeling disillusioned with his work as a social worker, where he earned £35,000 to £40,000.

Due to circumstances surrounding their son's birth and the first few months of his life, they didn't want to put him into nursery when the time came. "We didn't want our children raised in nurseries or after-school clubs, so one of us needed to be able to look after them." They weighed up their options and David decided to quit his job. For the past two years, he has been a full-time stay-at-home dad to their two-year-old, six-year-old and 16-year-old foster child.

The concept wasn't anything new for David. "My father was around a lot," he says. "He wasn't a stay-at-home dad but he was a primary caregiver." The type of work he was doing prior to quitting took a toll on his mental health. He says: "Right now, there's not been a single day where I have thought, 'I wish I was getting up and going to work today'."

On the other hand, for Francesca, her career in academia was something she couldn't wait to get back to.

Francesca and David live in Derbyshire, and don't have family nearby to help with childcare. She has looked into using a co-working creche space like Kindhaus, but with David at home, she doesn't have to turn down any opportunities at work.

"I feel quite spoiled," she says. "There aren't compromises constantly to be made on whose turn it is to finish work early and get the kids." David was more than happy to support her. "My partner's a brilliant, brilliant person and she spent a very long time trying to get to where she is," he says. "She could change the world with what she does."

While David takes on more of the household tasks, Francesca will also help out. "It's not like a 60s housewife situation," he says. Whatever money comes in is shared. Neither of them are particularly big spenders, David admits, which has made it easier to make things work on one wage. While Francesca is currently the sole breadwinner, when she was studying for her PhD from 2016 to 2021, David's wage supported her. "I want her to do well and if that means her earning the money and me staying home and picking the kids up from school, so be it."

While he is in no rush to go back to work, David has found being a stay-at-home dad isolating at times. "I'll go to the school playground and there's not a single other dad doing what I'm doing," he says. Playgroups that David attends are almost exclusively women. Still, he relishes being present for every moment of his children's day. "You get to go to all the things which some dads miss out on because they've got to spend a little bit longer at work that day."