I had the opposite experience, I find coding much harder than spending time with kids (I also took off a lot of time for the kids). Also consider that as a stay

I had the opposite experience, I find coding much harder than spending time with kids (I also took off a lot of time for the kids). Also consider that as a stay at home parent, you don't really have a boss, and we have just learned from the interviews that bad bosses are a major reason for quitting jobs. I guess technically your spouse is kind of your boss, but if they fire you the state will still make them pay you, so you can't really lose. Taking care of kids is strenuous, of course - the constant attention you mentioned, and also the sleep deprivation. But you can still watch a kid while sleep deprived, but you can not code sleep deprived (at least I can't - YMMV). As I said, (imo) women get to choose who takes care of the kids and who does the job with unpredictable hours to feed the family. Or ultimately in a way both parents get to choose, because they choose who they marry. But many women choose already when they decide on their profession. As a man, you can not really speculate on finding a spouse that is fine with you being the stay at home parent. Nevertheless, such cases exist - they are just rarer, which is exactly what the numbers show.