Ambitious girls told to get a house husband

GIRLS should consider looking for a house husband if they want successful careers, the new head of the Girls’ Schools Association (GSA) has said.

Gwen Byrom, a mother of five, suggested it was not possible for both partners to work full time and simultaneously raise large numbers of children.

Instead the new president of the GSA, which represents some of the leading private girls’ schools, said couples needed to rethink the typical stereotyping and that men could just as easily stay at home as house husbands and women become “breadwinners”.

Ms Byrom, who is also the headmistress of Loughborough High School, said that her husband Andy, a qualified teacher, had decided to look after their children for the past 12 years while she pursued a successful fulltime career. “My husband loves being at home with the kids,” said Ms Byrom, “It is not a stereotypical male role

‘The compromise we made was that I’d be the breadwinner and he would look after the children’

but one he very much enjoys.”

Ms Byrom said that she tells girls at her school they can “have it all” by challenging the stereotype that men must be the breadwinner.

She told the Sunday Times: “The whole thing about gender equality [is] not just about women. It is about men too, about men feeling straitjacketed with their own gender stereotypes of being the strong man and the breadwinner.”

She said men “should be given the chance” to opt for playing “a bigger role” bringing up children.

She went on: “The message is you can have it all to a degree but there are compromises. The compromise we made was that I would be the major breadwinner and my husband would stay at home and look after the children.

“Girls have that choice and I encourage them to talk to their partners about that balance.”

The couple have five children, three boys and two girls, aged from just two years old up to 19 years old, including 14-year-old twins.