[mcd]

> Perhaps you could ask some women.

Quite a few women I know would rather be at home with their children than work. I hear that same complaining line from a family member often. It is not torture for someone to stay at home and raise kids.

I personally would like to be a house-dad when I eventually have kids (while my wife works). I think the importance of raising children is quite underrated. And the modern trend of outsourcing the raising of your kids (to day-care centers and after school programs, etc…) is wrong.

> I'll offer just one feature: If you have a job outside the home, you are free to quit your job and take a better job when conditions change. Not so easy to "quit" the "job" of raising your kids, or of living in your home when you have no other home to live in and no work experience that you can use to find a job somewhere else.

You can’t really quit raising kids – whether you like it or not. I would also offer a flipside: In my parents’ generation it was common for women to work half-day (half-day secretarial work, etc…). Yet today it isn’t so – the majority of jobs require you to work from 8 to 17h00.