A topic close to my heart --and of import for all the net artists having babies in NYC

Begin forwarded message:

> From: [email protected]
> Date: Fri Mar 19, 2004 8:28:36 AM America/New_York
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [Parent-DirectedEducation] Stay-at-home moms get their due
> Reply-To: [email protected]
>
> http://www.townhall.com/columnists/richlowry/printrl20040318.shtml
>
> Stay-at-home moms get their due
> Rich Lowry
>
> March 18, 2004
> The cause of women's liberation just took a huge step forward. The
> mainstream
> media, in the form of Time magazine, has finally recognized as
> legitimate the
> choices of those women who decide to stay home with their young
> children.
> In a cover story headlined "The Case for Staying Home," the magazine
> reports,
> without sneering or condescension, the trend toward more new mothers
> leaving
> the work force. This is an important cultural benchmark, because until
> now,
> the media, feminist leaders and other opinion-makers have tended to
> portray
> stay-at-home moms as a regrettable throwback to what should be a
> long-gone era of
> child-rearing. Now, perhaps, we are ready to honor the full range of
> choices
> made by women struggling with how to balance career and family.
> The workplace participation of married mothers with a child less than
> 1 year
> old has dropped for the first time ever, reversing a 30-year trend. It
> fell
> from 59 percent in 1997 to 53 percent in 2000. Women have realized
> that "having
> it all" – i.e., leaving their young kids with someone else all day
> long –
> is not as wondrously fulfilling as they were led to expect. "Common
> sense is
> winning out over the ideologies of the 1960s and 1970s," says family
> expert
> Allan Carlson.
> According to Time, it has mostly been well-educated white women over
> 30 who
> have accounted for the drop in working moms. Twenty-two percent of
> women with
> graduate or professional degrees are at home with their kids. One in
> three
> women with M.B.A.s is not working full time, in contrast with just one
> in 20 men.
> These women have the resources to eschew a paycheck. A generational
> shift has
> also taken place, as young women are less interested in taking orders
> from the
> feminist "sisterhood." According to one survey, 51 percent of Gen X
> moms were
> home full time, compared with 33 percent of boomer moms.
> Many of the new stay-at-home moms have realized that day care might
> not be an
> adequate substitute for the attention of a mother. Time quotes one
> woman who
> left her consultant job to stay home explaining her experience
> exploring day
> care: "I had one woman look at me honestly and say she can promise my
> son would
> get undivided attention eight times each day – four bottles and four
> diaper
> changes. I appreciated her honesty, but I knew I couldn't leave him."
> The option to stay at home shouldn't be a privilege of the
> well-credentialed
> few. Public policy needs to make it easier for families to choose
> whether to
> have mom, or dad, stay home, rather than forcing both parents into the
> work
> force. High taxes do just that. About half of married couples with
> children in
> the mid-1950s paid no federal income tax, thanks to a generous $3,000
> personal
> exemption. If this exemption had kept up with inflation, it would be
> $10,000
> today.
> Although the steadily increasing child tax credit (now $1,000 per
> child) has
> eased the burden on families, more tax relief will make it still
> easier for
> them. Meanwhile, the tax code's dependent-care tax credit, which is
> only
> available for parents who go to licensed day-care providers, could be
> broadened to
> include parents who provide their own child care. The tax code could
> make it
> easier for moms and dads to maintain home offices as they search for
> creative
> ways to spend more time with their children while still working.
> But no one should underestimate the importance of the signals sent by
> our
> culture. Stay-at-home moms have been bombarded for years with messages
> disparaging their choice. Now they should hear something else: that
> staying at home is a
> great and admirable act of self-sacrifice; that a career is not the
> only
> venue for important and meaningful work; that it is not unambitious to
> want to
> give your young children the full measure of your energy and attention.
> Then, women facing difficult trade-offs will feel truly liberated to
> make the
> choices their hearts and consciences desire.
> Rich Lowry is editor of National Review, a Townhall.com member group,
> and
> author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
>