“I have a secret disdain for people who stay at home.” Thus writes Dan Kois in an article for Slate, describing the ”stew of envy, disrespect, thankfulness, and resentment” he feels toward stay-at-home parents (mothers, more particularly). While he tries to give stay-at-home parents (SAHP’s) the benefit of the doubt in some instances, Kois’s article really boils down to this sentiment:
I do, deep in my heart, view working for a living as preferable to not working for a living. Where does this view come from? From my own working parents, I guess; from watching as brilliant women I knew in high school and college gave up the careers they might have led in favor of caring for children; from growing up embracing a kind of 1970s feminism that celebrated women breaking the shackles of housewifery and ascending, rapturously, to the workplace. … And because I can’t help but feel that my way of doing things is the best way of doing things, I respect people with jobs and subtly disrespect people without them.
What this quote reveals is that Kois, like many other people, has no idea what the “stay-at-home” position traditionally entailed (and often, still does entail).
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Recommended Resources
Adventurous Femininity
Whose Daughter Are You?
Queen of the Home
The Hidden Art of Homemaking
Beautiful Womanhood 