8 Silliest Things People Say When I Tell Them I Don't Want Kids

[SheilaT]

184. The lack of support for

parents, most specifically for mothers, has been making me crazy for at least thirty years.

Among the reasons I persisted in being a stay-at-home Mom (often considered the lowest of the low) is because I could clearly see at least thirty years ago (when my oldest was born) that there was almost no support for the working mother. Even while there was constant and on-going cheerleading for women who had jobs. Well, a job is nice, and a career can be even better, but when the woman winds up handling everything involved in childcare, I'm sorry but I'll opt out of one part of that rat race.

When my children were young, there were times when my husband wanted me to go to work. I'd patiently explain that since I'd never had a career path, that any job I could take would cover child care, so why work just to pay for someone else to take care of my kids? I do understand that women at a much higher level of pay can cover child care and still have money left over, so for them going to work may be the right decision.

Back around the time my first son was born, 1982, it was common to say, Why have a kid only to let someone else raise your child? A few years later that question totally disappeared. I can recall, around 1986 being somewhere, and a woman who was expecting her third child, fussing about the fact that her total childcare costs were now going to be more than she earned. When I suggested that she instead stay home with the children, she stared at me as if I were suddenly speaking Martian.

It's a completely individual decision, of course, but sometimes staying home to raise children makes economic sense.