A couple of pages into this thread there was a very indignant post objecting to "the assertion that a parent staying at home with their child is the lowest form of child care".
I don't think anybody on this thread made nasty comments about stay at home mums. What was suggested was that there may also be upsides to children going to nursery - more interaction with other children of the same age, more space, more play facilities, etc, etc
It was also pointed out that a mum may feel unable to take a long period of time away from her job if she is to have anything like the same opportunities for advancement as someone who does not have to break their career.
These were not derogatory statements about stay at home mums.
Conversely, there were several posts that made very negative comments about working mums.
"We are doing them [children] a dis-service by putting them in a nursery for 10 hours a day". (I do have some sympathy with this comment but this is a systemic issue, not one that "mothers" or individual employees are responsible for. If the will was there, many organisations could be much more pro-active in supporting parents - more flexibility in terms of working hours - and, with big organisations, more willingness to provide good and affordable nursery facilities).
"There is no way I would have farmed out my children to a child minder or nursery."
"Some women pretend that they need the money as an excuse to work".
"tots should be at home with their mother"
"Free child care should only be for mothers who have no choice but to work". (I wonder how that necessity to work would be established).
"Why have babies if you don't want to care for them?"
So, in fact, all the truly judgmental statements - and actually statements that could be very hurtful to some people - were about women who go out to work, not women who stay at home.
Nowadays girls are just as likely as boys to continue to further education. They too want careers and a chance to advance, just as men do - and research shows that they are already disadvantaged just by being of child-bearing age. Furthermore, research has also shown that women who take the maximum time off after having a baby are more likely to be made redundant or be removed from their previous position and moved to wherever an employer chooses. No wonder so many women who have a well paid job with good prospects of advancement feel they have no choice but to resume work as quickly as possible.
On the other hand, women who have non-professional jobs and are poorly paid, cannot afford to pay very high nursery fees so they too often have little other choice than to stay at home.
So, in both cases, mothers are faced with serious dilemmas.
Yet it is they that are criticised for whatever path they take while fathers are hardly mentioned. And, as someone else said, women whose partners leave - and who are frequently unwilling to bear financial responsibility for the children they have left behind - are often forced to either sort out some kind of child care arrangement and work, or apply for benefit - leaving them then open to claims of being "scroungers", "irresponsible", "work shy", etc, etc.
As someone else said, is it so wrong that women, who may be doing jobs that they enjoy and for which they have worked hard, should wish to continue in that job? It is accepted that men do this. Nobody says to them "Well, why did you bother to have a baby if you wish to continue working?". Fathers too should be up in arms about this but, in the main, they keep silent and let their wives struggle with both working and taking on the lion's share of the domestic duties too.
