About staying home with one's kids, Rachel Barlow wrote,

<< It is a matter of choice with rare exceptions like single Moms and women
with husbands making the minimum hourly wage. >>

And Patti agreed, <>

I do not think either of those cases are rare.  All over the United States
"workfare" is sending mothers of 3 month old babies back into the full time
work force, with NO option about it -- we're talking about millions of
mothers.  And that is only the ones who were on welfare before -- the ones
whose husbands are minimum wage delivery men in the restaurant industry, or
who sew in sweatshops, etc etc etc are not even in those numbers.

Certainly there are plenty of middle class folks who are making a choice
between values.  And I know at least one lactnetter who chose to be on
welfare for a while rather than leave her kids.  But that is a choice she
would not be given in most places any more, even if she still had the
fortitude to make it.  And it took, I think, considerable fortitude even with
the availability of welfare.

I, personally, am grateful to have a choice about the way I work.  But I
think my privilege is much rarer than other people's struggle.  And I would
be very, very slow to diminish the difficulty of those struggles.

Elisheva Urbas
not quite a limousine liberal, but very consciously counting my blessings in
NYC

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