So when did raising children become a job less respected than a garbageman?

dear Ive been on both sides of that coin. when my 3 oldest were little, i wasnt allowed to work because of the man i was married to then. but it was always tiresome work raising the kids. i played games with them and got to talk with them a lot and enjoy them. then the 2 youngest, i had to work, but still found some time with them. i mean i had to work outside the home then. anyway, i think its all work. just more rewarding to work at home. so i think inside or outside, the key thing is being a mother that cares and one is no harder then the other. loveing mothers of either kind should be commended for a good job and both should be respected and revered. so you are right. every good mother, should be respected no matter how she works, inside the home or out.

When it is a choice to me it seems like the easy way out. Taking care of kids, a family and home is a lot of hard work. Why don't she take a look in the mirror. I bet she had plenty of help raising her daughter.

I don't know anything about either lady although I assume that Ann Romney is married to that twerp Mitt. In an ideal world I think that a parent, I am ambivalent about which one, or better still both parents, should always be about to raise their chiuldren. I expect that our mothers are of the last generation when nearly all women stayed at home after they had children. By the time that our daughter was born that was not a practical option - we'd have been on the streets otherwise and so we agreed that it would be better for her to be cared for by another from 8 - 5.30 weekdays. In fact she went to a neighbour who loved her as her own and in whose hosue she spent a lot of time anyway. I don't believe that she is maladjusted as a result but to be honest I wish that it had been different. She certainly did not miss out on any love from us and she remains a very loving and close daughter.

Rosen's gaffe has become unnecessarily politicized. It was stupid to single out a likeable and fine woman like Ann Romney to make a point. Today women as a whole get more respect than they got generations ago when they were expected to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Today they have lifestyle, educational, and career choices they did not have even a generation or two ago. Today they are competetive with men on every level except in sports where they are physically disadvantaged. I believe what Rosen was saying is that wealthy women such as Romney who have the luxury of being stay-at-home moms do not face the financial and personal burdens of poor or middle-class women who are forced to work at the same time they keep a house and raise children. It was an unncessary comment since it's self-evident that wealthy people have fewer financial burdens than everyone else. But the political flak over Rosen's silly comment seems contrived and largely phony.

It is certainly a wonderful thing for a woman to stay out of the workforce. That leaves more jobs available for men, who should be the first priority. If managing a household and raising children is a full-time job, then somebody else (Dad or the welfare department, somebody) should pay for it. By this kind of distorted reasoning, single mothers who collect welfare, food stamps, and housing subsidies should be praised because they have their priorities in the right place. As to the claim that they did not have nannies, that is just bogus. Of course they did; they called them "maids" but part of their time on the job was spent tending to the children. One of them recently confirmed, via a phone call, that Ann Romney "never worked a day in her life." Many people work for a living because they have no other viable options. Ann Romney had a choice and she chose to stay home. Good for her for having that option. But her time as a full-time mother was not at all the same as the life of a normal citizen who chooses that route. The point of Hillary Rosen's statement has been totally lost in the furor over the contention that it somehow denigrates mothers. What she was pointing out is that Ann Romney has no firsthand knowledge about what is required to work at a job AND raise children. The point is valid.

So I've heard. Raising children is no easy job. Maybe it does not corresponds to earning money but it does mean earning the respect and affection of your children. I am not a mother yet but I can completely see the picture in this story. I am also raise by a housewife whose job is to make sure and me and my other siblings are cared for while my father is looking for money. And I tell you it is not easy especially with my brothers. I trully admire my mom and the rest of the mothers for their sacrifices they made for their family. Each mother has a different way in making sure that her family gets the best especially her children. Some do work because their husband cannot support them fully while others chose to give up the career to focus in raising their children.

Comments and attitude such as this shows me what many of these folks think of women who make the CHOICE to raise their kids.. The media and the left's treatment of Sarah Palin told me all I needed to know about their attitude about women.. they just could not believe a modern woman thinking of family and children as more sacred than the right to terminate the preborn.. Yes, times have sure changed. Some teens and young adults seem awfully angry..

Personally when I heard this, I even one unable to carry children full term was shocked. I was like how can you personally say this? I truly applaud women who do not have to worry about working, and can stay home and raise their kids. It should not be about working outside the home... It should be about raising Good children and being there for them. Unfortunately too many times kids are raised on their own anymore so that creates a lot of the issues there is. For someone to be like this and this judgemental is wrong. Maybe it is out of Jealousy, but seriously most Moms I know would Love to trade places if they could just to have more time to be home to help raise their kids.

I am with you on this frusteration! When we found that I was expecting our second child, I decided not to work outside of the home. I decided to start a homedaycare. That way I could make enough money to provide and still have other children around mine for social skills. I ran a very good business with great famlies that were like extentions of my own. I did this fulltime for 12 years and have been raising my four children. I have recently cut back tp only a few after school kids that I cared for when I first started. I made this choice because my children are older and I want to be more involved and available for feild trips and class visits.

It's a very simple and common thing dragon. Many women who either don't, or can't stay home and raise their children feel guilty. To assuage that guilt, they tell themselves that they are better parents because they work AND raise their kids as if being a parent is a part time job. Now I have nothing against working mothers. Whether they do so out of necessity or by choice that's their business and I'm not one to tell others how to be parents. One thing I do see a lot though, is that women can be VERY competitive and VERY judgmental about how each other raises their kids. This is true regardless of whether the other woman is a friend, family member, or stranger. My wife has literally gotten it from every possible angle and she's done her best not to be that kind of person. I believe that the women's movement was supposed to be about women having a choice whether they wanted to be a career mom or stay at home mom and have that choice respected. Some feel that the movement was fought for the sole purpose of making sure all women had careers outside of the home and they act as though women who do stay at home and raise families are hurting their movement.

I love my kids WAY to much! I do stay @ home now and do all I can in raising them right. I could not have someone else raising my kids.. But I to have run into people who disagree with me being a stay at home mom,because we don't have all the nice fancy stuff a lot of people do but by any means do my kids run around with hole in their shoes or dirty clothes or even stained ugly clothes.. I don't have a cell phone for starters..When I get money I would rather spend it on my kids.. I don't have flashy clothes,I cant go and spend 50 dollars on a pair of jeans or 25 dollars on a shirt. but when my kid wakes up in the morning im there for to feed the breakfast and get them ready for school and when they get off the bus im there to get them a snack and there to help with home work and when its bed time im there to hug,kiss and tuck them in...

I am a proud mom and yes it is a choice. I enjoy kids and we had our daughter on purpose and I have never been a career ladder climber. I don't really give a rip about THAT. I worked for 10+ years in a variety of fields BEFORE becoming a mom, so the whole thing people try to look down your nose at you for choosing to be a full time parent is a bunch of crap. Most of us HAVE worked before, it's just not compatible with raising a family YOURSELF. I resent ANYBODY who acts like being a parent is NOT A FULL TIME JOB. IT IS. The only difference between being a full time parent who doesn't ALSO work outside the home for a paycheck is this: A full time parent doesnt' work 40 hours a week and get lunch breaks and go home. A parent is working or at least on call 24/7, 365 days a year. A parent gets no extra benefits such as monetary bonuses or extra vacation days, but they do get the benefit of not missing all the events in their kids' lives AND having vacation time from school with them. And... da da da.... do you guys know how expensive daycare is?? Hah. In order to use daycare for a newborn, an average mom would have to make at least 3 times the cost of JUST the daycare per month in order to make it worth it. When you add in things like commuting costs, clothing costs if your job involves nicer clothes or buying a uniform or dry cleaning bills, extra cost of food for the days you don't pack and bring your lunch, everything you make quickly gets eaten up by everything extra you now have to pay for just to be working in the first place. It makes little to no sense to me to get a full time job or go back to work after a baby if 1. you will barely break even or possibly LOSE money 2. you lose so much valuable time with your baby 3. you hardly ever see your spouse. What are we doing here? Obviously if you NEED two incomes just to take care of the bare minimum and make sure you don't get your electric shut off and your car repo'd and evicted from your house, yes, by all means figure out how you're both going to work, but you'll have to find some pretty cheap daycare or concerned friends or family who will swap you childcare. I can tell you that you won't be coming up with the $800 per month for daycare if your job only pays you after taxes $1100 a month and it costs you $300 in gas and car maintenance to get to and from work and you have to pay an additional $50 a month to park at work. I see nothing admirable about preferring a career to your children, period. There's such a thing as balance and usually that means working part time, not full time. It involves working your schedule so you can take advantage of working while your kids are at school. It involves potentially working from home, working an off shift, or opposite of your partner or spouse if you really want to work THAT bad or HAVE to. I am not trying to be a jerk by saying this but I have seen more people than you want to know about who have had kids and then basically hire a nanny or a daycare as soon as the kids pop out. If you aren't planning to raise them, don't have them. If your job is THAT IMPORTANT, your kids will realize that they are second class. That is NOT fair. If you ever find out WHY people do this, let me know why too. I can't figure it out and it doesn't make any sense. If people are doing it because they think they SHOULD have kids, that's the wrong reason. We have kids because we love them, we want a family, and we want to BE a family together.

I see the "mommy war" is still ongoing.I find Rosen's comments very offensive. SAHM are looked down on by many feminist. I don't know why. It is really none of their business and who really cares what they think. All that matters is that the mom be happy with her choice.

being a full time mom is the most hard work you can do and as far as her never working a day in her life no one really knows what she did before she got married or had kids she may have worked when she was a teen no one knows but anyways a mom is the most important job any one can do . i dont even pay attention to stuff like that with th ellection comming up there is going to be trash talk about every one

Hi Dragon, Ya, I got a bit put off by those comments too. I know her implication was to give the impression that the Romney's had so much money that Ann Romney did not have to work outside the home. And the thing is, maybe they did. The problem in such a statement is that many who really did not have money also found ways to stay home and raise their kids without having to work outside the home. I did have to work and earn money to support my kids but I can say that they did not go to a daycare. I worked from home, babysitting and doing odd jobs sso that I could be home with my kids when they were young. I worked part time at night after my husband got home from work and after dinner was cooked. Sometimes my mother or my husbands mother babysat but even that was rare. My husband and I divorced when the kids were quite young. He had the kids on the weekends and so I got a job working long hours all weekend long and got almost all my hours in while the kids were with their dad. I pulled off one night per week in which my mom came to the house and babysat. There is no shame in raising your kids on your own whether you work outside the home or you are lucky enough to have a husband who earns enough that allows you to stay home. I actually would not go as far as to knock those that work and pay for daycare. I may not understand it but it is their choice. Hillary Rosen basically made a major faux paus with her remarks against Ann Romney. I am not even a Mitt Romney fan but I am a mom.

Yes being a mom is a full time, 24/7/365 job for which you dont get monitary payment, no medical/insursnce, no holiday pay, no sick leave, no pension or retirement. Yet those that don't or have never done it, think it is so easy, just cause you dont have to hit a time clock every day. We all get up early as the "workers" do, and go till we drop into bed. At least workers get to leave their jobs a 5:00. Moms don't. And when they go to work, they only have to do that one job... a mom has dozens to do and do them every day! Yeah, moms get a bad rap and that is so wrong. I was a full time working mom of 2..4 years apart, so most of the time they were in different schools, different school times, day care for one and not the other and after school activities for one here and the other there...I'd like to see most any "working" person trade jobs and keep up the pace!

Our current society does not respect the job because it is done by women, and anything women do is less valued than male work, and because it is not paid. I have learned over the years that unless you work for money, no matter how low skilled the job, it is more highly valued than any work for which you do not earn money. Employers regard stay at home mums as women who do nothing all day but pain their nails, they do not regard running a house and rasing children as work it is just what women do. They really should try it themselmes and they might change their mind. They regard any form of unpaid activity as simply unemployment with no regard for the activity or the skills the person might have gained doing it. I remember when I graduated uni an employer insulted me with the question would I know how to set an alarm clock. I had worked really hard to get an honours degree and she just saw it as unemployment and lying in bed all day. If I had worked as a waitress part time she would have regarded it differently because money was involved. Being a mom should be a highly respected job but as long as it is an unpaid one then it will continue to be devalued unles we change our attitude towards work.

My friend, who's no flaming lib or anything, was arguing about these comments with me earlier in the week. Supposedly what Rush Limbaugh said was worse and I should be more upset. I've heard folks on the news downplaying Rosen's remarks as if they're really meaningless and if she was only suggesting that Romney led too cushy a life to have to work or to understand what someone her financial lesser could be going through. When I hear the implication that mothers don't "work" when raising their kids, that literally hits home for me -- and it obviously hits home for many people--both women and men--around the country. Guys know that they'd have a hell of a time raising kids. I believe most would rather work. Although a man most certainly can raise a child, a man's biological programming isn't as adept at it. Women, since they have the children, are more adept at the JOB. And even still, some find the JOB to be so hard that they do hire out help and shop their kids off to babysitters. Some women fear the JOB so much that they put their kids up for adoption. Others fear the JOB so much that they abort the mission before it really gets started! So, yeah. A moron like Rush doesn't offend me. I know my mother's not a sl*t. I feel bad for the person whom he's insulting, but I can't relate. But to have the opinion that a stay-at-home mom doesn't work and doesn't know the economy pisses me off. Every once in a while, these idiots reveal themselves. And at times like these I like to look deeper behind the mindset. It seems like many share Rosen's sentiments by how the country is starting to operate. Mothers, don't focus on raising your children. Focus on careers. Find someone to raise your kids. Let the public schools do it. Pay teachers a lot more and don't question them at all; just let them raise your kids. Let government have more say over how your kids are raised. You don't have to worry about it, faux mom. Your children will be raised well by the community. As a mother, go be a real productive member of the community, giving according to your ability, receiving according to your need. Hey, Rosen -- FU!

I agree with Taskr. Liberals are all about choice, except when you choose to actually have your child and raise your child. Isn't that what 'pro-choice' is all about?

What Hillary Rosen said was nothing but dragging up Ann Romney,however she belittled the importance of staying at home to raise children.I doubt if she has done it.Raising children is a kind of demanding work where you must practise great patience and have a wide range of knowledge.You have to teach children how to conduct themselves and how to study,etc.even sometimes you put in much hard work, but get very little result.Our granddaughter is 6 now.Since both of her parents are at work,She is brought up all along by us.Although we have been retired without making financial sacrifices , who know how many hardships we have gone through?