I did being a stay at home dad for a few years. I didn't like it much, although it was fun in small doses. These days thanks to retooling my skill set as my stay at home dad side project, I'm a dad that works from home on interesting stuff that pays the bills. My inlaws were not impressed with my house cleaning abilities.
We get a lot of things wrong in our culture. But, when all is said and done, and our civilization crumbles into ashes, we are going to most regret the way we treated mothers and children.
I do not see myself as a feminist. I want a career but my kids come first. I think society is so broken in part because we are destroying families in part to promote the idea that women "should" work at paid jobs. I think that's really not the right mental model. I think we need to work on giving families more support and women more genuine options. We really are not doing that currently.
well pre-industrially work was largely home of near the home based. Everybody pitched in, in much the same way you see work being divided up in developing countries these days. While many benefits arose from industrial society, I don't feel that semi-disenfranchising women from large swathes of the workforce was one of them (men get the crappy end of the stick too). The wikipedia page on the housewife indicates that it's a thousands of years old phenomenon, but I think that is making assuptions about money being as important in society as it is today (and outside of industrial society it really isn't).
Great read, thanks. My wife is a SAHM, and so far I haven't had any negative comments about it, but would feel exactly the same as you do if/when I do run into the same situation. Can't say the same when it comes to comments regarding our parenting choice, but that's a different matter altogether. People love to be 'right' (and come off as horribly judgmental) when it comes to certain topics, parenting being one of the worst. I've gotten good at comebacks to those kinds of people.
Your 3 month old is a lot happier to be put down and to be with people other than his parents than your 2.5 year old is. And that's because your 2.5 year old slept with you. (happened tonight, despite the person knowing fully well both children co-sleep).
Oh you don't let your kid eat copious amount of candy? That child is deprived! (Happens on a regular basis, as we avoided candy and food high in artificial sugars for the year and a half, and restricted it to a single reasonable serving since).
You co-sleep with your children? That'll suck when they're 18 and still sleeping in your bed.
Your daughter is STILL rear-facing in the car (was until a week ago at which point she went past the height limit even though she has another 7lb before she hits the weight limit). My children rode in the lap! (same person has conveniently ignored our explanation of safety of rear vs. front facing car seats in the past).
Worst part of all the comments is people always picking on something they perceive as negative. The same people never comment the positives, such as the 2.5 consistently eating the same well-balanced meals adults eat, how well behaved and well spoken she is, etc. I'm well used to it by now, but still I take pleasure in shutting them down with smart-ass replies.
My life would be so incredibly difficult if my wife didn't stay at home. When I come home our 20-month old is ready to play and I just don't see how she does it all day, keeping up with a never stopping, never slowing, ball of energy.
This is clearly an incredibly polarising and sensitive issue - have you seen the (9000+) comments on the blog post? Despite the fact that he specifically says that mothers who work aren't doing anything wrong, that seems to be the first issue that people defend.
