I don’t believe a parent needs to stay at home, nor should anyone be telling people that’s what they need to do. However, I do believe when making the choice to have kids, those kids should definitely be the priority.

I think a big problem today is that parents want to have their cake and eat it too–living beyond their means financially to pay for extra luxuries and in turn, sacrificing time with their children.

You’d think that parents, of all people, would know better than to tell other parents what to do. As Britgirl says, maybe it’s about time we just stayed out of each other’s business and got on with raising kids fullstop, instead of being so damn concerned with everybody else’s opinions. Everyone’s situation is different. Some women are thrilled to be SAHM’s, and others would go stir crazy. Some kids thrive on being away from their parents, some don’t. Some mothers have to work just to make ends meet, because living is expensive and getting more so every year. And some parents are so screwed up that the more time their kids spend with others, the better off they are.

I remember a very similar debate when they bought in the federal family tax credit. There was a lot of screaming about how the money should be spent on licensing and improving standards in approved daycares, but the government’s take (quite rightly, to my mind) was that the money should be spent in whatever way the family needed – because every family unit is different. Hallelujah. At least someone recognised that.

It’s just like everything else with raising children. There is no black and white, it’s all shades of grey and highly dependent on our makeup as individuals. What works for one isn’t going to work for all, so give up trying to find the universal solution. As long as the kids are happy and healthy, who cares how they got there?

Whew. Let’s shake off my Canadian politics rant.

I guess I can see how she meant well. If more people really considered the many, many ramifications of having children, some people who aren’t financially ready would put off sailing in. And I do think that if people are going to make the decision to raise children, they ought to parent more than a couple of hours a day. But to imply that people should abandon daycare and stay at home is ludicrous. Kids are too expensive for most people to live that way.

Here is something I was surprised to learn when I moved here that may shed a little light for some of your readers: In the article, she condemns putting children in daycare. At least in Ontario, the term “daycare” can mean anything–from an actual facility with childcare workers, or just a home where people drop off their kids during the work day. Anyone can have a daycare here.

http://www.gov.on.ca/children/english/programs/beststart/care/STEL01_136527.html

Let me quote: “In Ontario, caregivers who look after five or fewer unrelated children under the age of 10 do not have to be licensed.” Basically, anyone can babysit five children and legally call that a job. Let me tell you–in my dinky little suburb, there are a LOT of people who do this for a living, and the slots fill quickly. When the flyers go up around the mailboxes to announce openings, the little tear-off strips at the bottoms are gone in hours. Otherwise-qualified childcare is vastly more expensive and even harder to get into. In Alberta, they’ve experienced a population boom in the past ten years or so, and I’m sure the situation is even more dire there.

I think where she dropped the ball is that she implied that parents who use daycare are expecting the daycare provider to “raise” their children. People who expect that from an unrelated provider whose attention is split between several children–no matter their qualifications–are sure to be disappointed. This is not to say that helicopter parenting is called for, either. To me, stay-at-home mom-ness (or dad-ness) starts the slippery slope to homeschooling (and don’t get me started on *that* today).