barriomulas.com - Stay Home Moms?

Class assignment:

Should Mothers Stay Home With Their Children?

No. I think that it can be dangerously sexist and chauvinist to state that specifically mothers should stay home with their children. Mothers should have just as much right as fathers to pursue education, work careers, and economic autonomy. Though it would be ideal for at least one parent to directly bring up their youth, the economic realities of modern America do not permit for this.

In some cultures, such as the Aka of Africa, it is the male who stays home and rears children as the women out and search for food. The fathers of this tribe even let babies suck on their nipples. In the Handa Clan of New Guinea's Highlands, uncles and aunts play a major role in the raising of children. Fred Beauvais wrote about how many Native American tribes allowed for all members of the extended family to participate in the upbringing of children.3 The concept of exactly who gets to raise children is obviously a cultural one, but one can say that it has traditionally been a universal quality for at least some family member to bring up the children of a society.

One convenient concept is one that I lived through personally. Shortly after the birth of my daughter, her maternal grandmother would take care of her during the day while her mother and I worked. Unable to to have the luxury of placing the child in daycare, she was kept with her grandmother during much of the workday. This concept of a two-income household (though we were separated at the time) while the retired, elder members of the family take care of the children is quite popular in my native Puerto Rico. It would be difficult to suggest this arrangement for U.S. living, for it would require a drastic change in the way people live. Most American families, one could suppose, do not live so close to their parents and grandparents as do Latin American. Concepts of privacy and independence are much more jealously guarded in American society.

By suggesting that at least some family not bring up children, one indirectly suggests that they be raised by a third party institution. This approach was first explored by Plato, who proposed that children from a young age be removed from their families and be raised by the state as model citizens. The most literal implementation of this concept was implemented by Nazi Germany and Fidel Castro's Cuba, where children are brought up by the state in order to assure a population of followers and the transmission of a preferred ideology.

Nor am I fond of the concept of "nannies" as mentioned by Claudia Wallis' essay. Not only do I see it as a very elitist thing to do ("even tough one of us earns enough to allow the other to stay home, earning even more money is more important than personally raising our own kids"), but in a sense it is forcing many nannies to to find alternate care for their own children. One could perceive the contracting of a nanny as the outsourcing of parenthood. This accompanies the practice of relieving ourselves of the responsibility of our children's morals, religious upbringing, nutrition, and physical health by pushing issues such as ethics courses, school prayer, school breakfasts, and school sports.

By suggesting that family members refrain from "staying home" with their children, one is entrusting the state with the culturalization and upbringing of their offspring. Secularism, civics, and politics can all disrupt the morals, religion, and cultural continuity that characterizes the traditional exchange of culture between generations. Though I believe that this is enough reason for at least some family to "stay home" with children, I see no other reason to insist that it be specifically mothers aside from romanticist nostalgia of the traditional family.

Possible ways to promote such practices could come in the form of a "GI Bill for Mothers", as joked by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels. Other possible methods include a government income for stay-home mothers and smaller family sizes (allowing for parents to take up their professional lives later). Finally, another option to promote such would be a tax deductions for non-working parents equal to the amount that they would have paid if they were to earn the same income as their partner.