Well actually, like a Grizzly defending her right to raise her cubs as she sees fit according to her own personal circumstances and based on the availability of spawning salmon and wild blueberries.
A recent discussion on childcare quickly derailed when I impetuously posted an emotional vent on Miss Vicky's blog. Oops. My bad! Turns out there is someone who has read my comments as slagging Stay At Home Parents. I didn't mean it that way but haven't had a chance to address this misperception. The conversation on Offhand Remarks has ended. So here goes nothing:
Hi Liss76
I'm very sorry you took my comment personally. I had been a single parent for 8 years and at one point was forced to relocate to Hull to take advantage of the (fantastic) $7 a day daycare policy. I understand you are sensitive to issues around Stay At Home Parents just as I am sensitive to issues around Sole Support Parents.
We're all just trying to do the best we can for our kids - aren't we?
I'm concerned that you didn't feel like you could participate in the discussion. I would have been far more interested in listening to you, as a fellow primary caregiver rather than accept someone who isn't a child's primary caregiver telling me I've got the right "plumbing" to be a Stay At Home Parent and that I'm only working to "feed the machine". If you feel like having an actual discussion please feel free to post here on my very neglected blog.
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3 comments:
I didn't take anyone's comments personally--it was the whole tone of the discussion that bothered me. I think single parents should have the right to stay-at-home, if that's what they want. I also think that they should be supported to go back to school or to be a contributing member of the worforce, should that be what they chose to do.
If the post in my blog didn't make that clear, I apologize.
My concern is that the current system is going to be slapped with a bunch of band-aids to "fix it", rather than create something new and functional that will meet the needs of all parents. Parenting isn't cheap, whichever way you do it.
I would prefer that people not assume my husband shares the same POV as I do--we have a similar outlook on things most of the time, but he does not speak for me.
"I would prefer that people not assume my husband shares the same POV as I do--we have a similar outlook on things most of the time, but he does not speak for me."
That's EXACTLY why I adressed you directly when I'd heard you had wanted to contribute to the earlier discussion but didn't.
Thanks so much for taking the time to post here about this issue. I guess blogger was indeed wonky when I posted to yours.
I do agree with you that parents should have all options available to them. I doubt I would have chosen to stay at home with my daughter when she was wee and I was single. I was still in university and heavily involved in student politics and activism. But, 12 years later things are different. If my husband and I ever decided to have another child together I'd like to think that he'd be able to easily stay at home with our child.
You probably don't want to hear from an old fart like me rememering the old days when there was a division of responsibilty: the husband was responsible for providing the family income; the wife was responsible for the household and caring for the children. Most women today see that as a patriarchal society, which I totally disagree with. In my experience both the husband and wife were in charge within their domain of responsibility. This system had 2 distinct advantages: child care in the hands of a parent rather than strangers; hardly any marriage breakups, probably because of this division of responsibility.
I can understand women wanting to be in the work-force, but maybe this could wait until after all of the kids were in school
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