[geoduck14]

My wife worked for several years. She stopped working when we had our 4th and child care was too expensive.

Now that she is a stay-at-home mom, our quality of life has improved a lot. She has more energy in the evening to read with our kids, she follows up with friends and we are both more social, she makes better food than either of us could do before.

Having a stay-at-home parent is DEFINITELY a luxury and a good decision IF you can afford it.

[mschuster91]

The thing is, for those parents who can afford one parent to stay home, in 99% of cases it's the mothers who end up as stay-at-home parents, and their careers (and with it, their post-childraising perspectives) go down the drain.

The current world abuses schools as whole day care institutions so that both parents can be exploited and worked to the ground, and when parents and children are home they are so tired they lack the energy to do anything meaningful besides eating some kind of processed food, play a round of video games, and go to bed.

In an ideal world, a full working week with a living wage would have 20 hours so that both parents can work four hours a day and then enjoy life with their children in the afternoon.