David Monk is quick to label his wife, Kristy, as the family's "breadwinner" because of her full-time job at American Electric Power.

Monk, who used to work in human resources, calls himself a "Mr. Mom" now that his primary job is caring for the Pickerington couple's two sons.

The situation no longer is the stuff of wacky 1980s comedies.

In 2006, there were 332,000 stay-at-home dads in the United States, 83 percent more than in 1996, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

Even more say they'd consider caring for their kids full time if money were no object -- 37 percent, according to a CareerBuilder.com survey, to 68 percent by Monster.com's count.

Chalk it up to "a real generational shift," said Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit research group. Today's parents are more willing to rearrange their careers to make children a priority, she said.

"I think this is a generation of mothers and fathers who were raised by working mothers," Galinsky said. "Managing work and life is not the mystery for them as it was for their parents' generation, who were pioneers of it. They know what it takes, so they're making more intentional decisions."

And with more mothers than ever in the work force, the decision often is made to leave more of the parenting to the dads.

For David Monk, staying home was "a no-brainer. … It was economics." He and his wife didn't want Nick, 11, and Gunnar, 8, to grow up in day care, and hiring a nanny didn't make sense financially.

"We looked at the prices and said, 'Well, that's crazy!' For what we wanted, it was basically my salary," Monk said.

Tom and Kristin Richner of Linworth also made career adjustments to raise their children the way they wanted.

The couple had been living in California but moved back to their home state of Ohio to start a family. When Kristin, a lawyer, was hired by a law firm, they decided that she would be the one to work full time.

Tom, a longtime animator for The Simpsons, quit his job and found part-time work teaching animation classes at the Columbus College of Art & Design. He spends two days a week, plus summers, at home with Lauren, 4, and Christopher, 2.

Family-friendly work benefits such as part-time employment, flexible scheduling and paternity leave are in higher demand but not necessarily in abundant supply, said Jennifer Schramm, workplace trends and forecasting manager for the Society of Human Resource Management.

According to data from the organization, 57 percent of companies offer flex time and 13 percent offer paid paternity leave, percentages that haven't changed much since 2001.

Schramm said it's difficult to predict whether companies will be able to afford increased benefits, with millions of baby boomers retiring.

"If there are major skill shortages, organizations will have to offer more benefits to lure employees, and one of those benefits could be work/life balance and flexibility," Schramm said. "And that seems to be increasingly attractive to men, as well as women."

asaunders@dispatch.com