Before the list mothers step in and tell people to take the stay-at-home vs. working mothers flame war to private email . . . . . . The real questions are not "Should all mothers stay home with their children" or "Should mothers feel fine going back to work" or even "What percentage of mothers REALLY need to work to survive economically?" or "What constitutes a good daycare situation?" The real questions are "Why do we live in -- and accept and promote -- a society where work and breastfeeding (and childrearing in general) are incompatible?" "Why do we not DEMAND more flexibility for women's work so that it is compatible with child care?" "Why can't all women have on-site child care?" For most of human evolutionary history and still in most traditional societies around the world today, women WORK and they TAKE CARE OF THEIR CHILDREN at the same time. They work in the homestead or village, they work in the fields, they work in the factories and even in offices, and they have their children right there with them. We do not have to accept the artificial dichotomy that work is "public" and childcare is "private" or domestic. But most women do accept it, and buy into the idea that work women do in the home isn't really work because it isn't given an economic wage, and that work women do in reproduction (childbearing and rearing) isn't as important as work women do in production (wage labor). The American style is most often one of childrearing in isolation -- where women are stranded out in suburbia, or in apartments in town, or out on farms, away from the satisfaction of productive work, the camraderie and conversation of other adults (especially other adult women), and the support and help with work and childrearing from other mothers that many women around the world can take for granted (women we often pity because they have so little "stuff"). As long as most American women buy into the division between home and work -- as long as we perceive our only options to be "Stay home by yourself with your kids" or "Leave your kids in daycare and work for a wage outside the home" -- then we are doomed to perpetuate the system. Neither of these options are particularly good or useful -- not for the children, not for the parents, not for society at large. Women should not have to apologize for their choices, no matter what their choices are. Those who go back to work for whatever their reasons may be, should not have to apologize to anyone. Those who stay at home with their children for whatever their reasons may be, should not have to apologize to anyone. All women work. Reproductive work is important. Productive work is important. Not all daycares are awful. Not all stay-at-home moms are wonderful. Leaping off the soapbox and into the fire . . . . . . . Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D., who works more than full-time (often in the early morning or late at night, or on the weekends, from home) and who always meets the school bus at 3 pm mother to Miranda, born 8/8/80 -- mother and baby back at school/work full-time by 9/1/80, with occasional babyminding help from husband, professors, secretaries, and graduate student friends, with a nanny 1/2 time in Mali from 1981-83, in preschool 1/2 time from 1984-85, then in school 2/3 time, now away at college mother to Peter, born 5/17/85 -- mother back at work fulltime 9/85, baby with dad at home for first year, in daycare 1/2 days in 1986-87 for the social stimulation, in special ed preschool 1/2 day and daycare for 2 hours from 1988-90, in school 2/3 time from 1990 to present mother to Alexander, born 8/10/91 -- mother and baby back at work full-time by 9/1/91, including all day at the office every Monday (office hours, tutorials, faculty meetings and dissertation defenses -- all done while latched on), with a babysitter for 4 hours each Tuesday/Thursday, in daycare 1/2 days beginning fall 1992, 2/3 days beginning fall 1993, in school 2/3 time from 1996 to present --------------------------- "We get what we accept." *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html