Last week, The New York Post published an article about men who dub themselves “stay-at-home sons,” otherwise known as “hub-sons.” It’s essentially what it sounds like: Some grown adult men are identifying themselves with this little label to designate the unpaid homemaking roles they’ve taken on in, specifically, their parent’s homes: cooking, cleaning, shopping and other miscellaneous household tasks — completely for free and without paying any rent.
The term has seemingly become increasingly more popular right after “trad wife,” which refers to a woman who opts for a more traditional lifestyle of staying at home and tending to a household or motherhood, took off. It became popularized over the past few years with social media influencers like Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman, who frequently post videos showcasing this type of lifestyle.
In their videos, they’re often seen making meals completely from scratch, their husbands and children sometimes making an appearance. It seems like some adult men are now looking to have their place at the table too.
Perhaps the highlight of this is seeing men take interest in household tasks that are traditionally more feminine or domestic. On the one hand, recent numbers show that more married men are participating in household tasks like cleaning or meal preparation than ever before. Back in the early 2000s, married women spent 4.2 hours on household tasks for every one hour that a married man spent, according to Science News. In a 2022-2023 survey, the number of hours for women had reduced to 2.5. It’s also worth noting that these numbers don’t account for childcare — women statistically spend double the amount of time that men do when it comes to caring for their children.
This could be a result of many things, like higher rates of women entering the workforce, pursuing education and getting married later in life. Needless to say, many women are pretty fed up with men right now, so it makes sense that many married women are looking to find more of a balance in these shared responsibilities. Especially when many of them seem to be experiencing “weaponized incompetence,” a phrase that became popular on social media this year, where one partner acts like they’re hopeless at conducting a certain task, often prompting the other partner to take over and creating an imbalanced dynamic.
Regardless of what exactly is skewing married men and women’s hours spent on household tasks, there’s a very major difference between what I’m saying here and what’s happening with these “stay-at-home sons”: The division of labor is something that’s frequently discussed among married couples — not with unmarried sons who are living at their parents’ house and taking on a clickbaity nickname that suggests that a son is acting like a stand-in husband.
According to the Post, the rise of the hub-sons seems to be happening for a few different reasons. For one, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that one in three adults between 18 and 34 years old live with their parents, and back in April, Pew Research Center reported that men within this age range are more frequently living back at home compared to women. Not to mention unemployment rates, inflation and the state of the housing market — combine all these factors together, and it doesn’t make for too great of a scenario.
Realistically, these are all incredibly valid reasons that young adults are opting to live at home. They can’t get jobs, they can’t afford to live anywhere, so what else are they to do? Not go by “hub-sons,” for starters.
I definitely don’t feel like I should have to explain why a “hub-son” is a gross term. I don’t feel like mothers should look at their sons and find ways to position them in their life resembling anything like a husband. It all feels a little Oedipus-y, if you will. I also feel strongly that men reveling in a position like this should take it as a sign that it’s time to make a life change. Move out or get a new job or something.
Like in the Post article, therapist Kathryn Smerling said that this should only be a “temporary, transitional phase,” to which I agree. Sons who are stuck at home don’t need to make it so..weird. Sure, help out your parents if you’re living off them rent-free, but it doesn’t need to take over as an entire identity — especially one so heavily pushed that it created a lack of any ambition for a career or long-term relationship outside of folding your parent’s laundry.
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