brighid

You are assumming that a parent who stays at home actually spends quality time with the child/children by default of staying home.

You are also assumming that a working parent cannot achieve a healthy and strong bond with a child because less time may, or may not be spent interacting with said child. I don't think I would disagree that more "quality" time (not simply more time) spent with a child is very likely to improve the bond between parent and child, but that does not even imply that a healthy and strong bond is not created between working parent and child(ren.)

A SAHP is not a better parent simply because they stay at home. I know of far too many poorly behaved, maladjusted children who come from homes where the mother stays home. It's called POOR parenting and there is no distinction between bad parents who work, or stay at home.

The quality of a childs life and upbringing is determined by the approach and parenting methods used to raise said child. No situation is perfect, except perhaps those of wealthy parents who have all the luxuries us working class people don't and actually care about their children.

In contrast I have always been a working parent (by necessity) and I have a very well behaved, well adjusted (even as evaluated by psychiatric professionals), happy, healthy child. I have few behavior problems with my child. He is an excellent student, respectful of his peers and adults, and is a leader in sports and in the classroom. He is kind, empathetic and a wonderful young man. This is because he has been raised properly, despite the fact that I work (and so does my husband, his step-father.) All this despite a horrible custody battle with his biological father and being a single parent for the first half of his life.

Compare that to my sister, who has always been a stay at home mother and has 5 children ranging from 10 to 1. Her children are poorly behaved, so much to the point that my friends ask that they be forewarned if my nieces and nephews will be attending a function I will be holding. They tell their mother to "fuck off bitch", the older ones have disciplinary problems in school, are constantly sick with upper respiratory, middle ear and other childhood illnesses. (My son has missed one day of school in two years due to illness.) She has allowed them to watch rated R movies since they were born, including ones with graphic sex and violence. She certainly spends more time with those children, but it doesn't seem to have made a bit of difference. It has gotten to the point where I cannot allow my son to play with his cousins because they are terrible influences and engage in dangerous activities. She and her husband swing between permissive and authoritarian styles of parenting. I would actually say her children would be better off in day care because they are more likely to get consistent and appropriate discipline, which they are in desperate need of.

I can also site many other parents, both working and SAH that have wonderful and terrible children. It all boils down to the QUALITY of parenting, period. No amount of time spent with a child will make any bit of positive difference when that influence is negative, non-supportive, permissive or authoritarian in nature simply because mom stays at home.

Brighid

brighid

http://healingwellhemonco.subportal....rs/101559.html

http://content.health.msn.com/conten.../27/1728_60655

B

fatherphil

you guys like to dance around the simple stuff. more quality time is just that, "quality time" (you provide the definition). to act like spending the day and evening raising and instructing a child is no better than spending just the evening doing the same thing seems like a huge apologetic stretch. i've made mistakes in the raising of my children and have provided them with a less than ideal situation for their upbringing. i would never try to convince them it was all to their benifit or that it can somehow be made up for in our adult life together.

btw, i heard a buzz about a study reported in the ny times that i'm sure will be discounted.

brighid

No one is tap dancing around the issue, but we simply aren't buying all the gloom, doom and the outright assertation that SAH IS the best for a child. It simply isn't.

Some SAHMs are great, but again it has to do with the quality of their parenting. A bad SAHM doesn't do a damn thing positive for her children. So there is nothing about staying at home that is inherently better for a child's development - that is the point.

Children can and are raised ALL over the world by working parents in supportive families, communities and loving homes who don't grow up unhealthy, maladjusted, etc. Therefore your theory that it is IN FACT better to stay at home cannot be supported.

Furthermore, children can be instructed and nurtured by any caring, capable human being and learn what the important lessons in life. A mother is not inherently better at this simply because she gave birth. Many mothers are extremely poor at their jobs, as well as many fathers and hence the epidemic problem of child abuse and the scars that causes for the lifetime of the child.

Our European counterparts don't seem to have the social and familial problems we do, but then again they invest a lot more time, resources and help to pregnant women and their children and value the roles of parenting and financial contribution of mothers to society as a whole. There is that quality standard again prevailing empirically!

Brighid

fatherphil

children may be better off being raised by the state from birth. they should be taken from their parents and allowed weekend visitation where they could have real quality bonding for an afternoon or so.

yguy

What is the benchmark by which you determine that these kids are not growing up to be malajusted?

brighid

Lower crime rates, better education, lower teen pregnancy rates, few murders and other violent crimes, better established and continued social structures as compared to the US to name a few (all those damned things conservatives complain as being the result of working mothers, liberals, etc.)

Brighid

brighid

Now that statement is just a total crock of hyperbole! No one is stating that parents aren't important and given the state of foster care in this nation I would decisively disagree with you.

Parents are important, but SAH parenting is not the best choice by default.

Brighid

yguy

What makes one social structure better established than another?

Quote:

to name a few (all those damned things conservatives complain as being the result of working mothers, liberals, etc.) Brighid

European countries are somehow morally superior to the US? Is that why Islamic terrorists and pedophiles are so comfy in places like the Netherlands?

yguy

Does that mean if the state of foster care were better you would agree with him?