[syracusa]

Prettyredhead,

I pretty much agree with everything you said.

I did not say that being a mom does not require dedication and work - it deifnitely does. But like you said, I feel that men DO have it harder especially that they do not have a choice between job and stay-at-home as equally acceptable occupations for a man.
And I WOULD surely be grateful to a man who offered me the chance to stay at home and raise my kids.

See...you cannot sanely make the choice of having a child unless someone in the family - typically the husband - has a job. (At least in theory; some people are in big doo-doo and have childern anyway - but that's insnane). This is what I meant by "job is not a choice". I meant for MEN (and for some women). You gotta eat in order to live, but you don't need to reproduce in order to live. Know what I mean? ...

Now...I did get your point with the women who CHOOSE to have "careers" / jobs while having babies. It shouldn't be that way, especially when the kids are very young, in their formative years (up to 7 yo). It's nice to have the mom at home even after that age, but I also understand the need (later) to provide financially well enough so you give your kid a good start in life (good school, college, maybe even some help with the down payment on a mortgage, etc).

And as it is more and more the case, the dad by himself cannot provide financially up to that level.

As for living in small towns...well, there aren't many jobs over there. I know what you are saying...definitely must avoid a lot of commute, but it is often easier said than done.
But yes...with kids, you have to make extremely tough choices.

What bothers me tremedouly is that too many people treat "having kids" as something "cute" or "normal" to do, when they are not able - emotionally, financially, availability of mom at home and otherwise - to offer their children a really good start in life.

Like I said before, if more rich people had (more) kids, and more struggling families had fewer kids (or none) we would gradually head towards a better future for everyone.

But we are a very long way from that type of reality. Too bad.