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I am the stay at home mother of five children, four of whom are biologically mine. I’m asked quite often how the heck we get by. I almost never give an honest answer. To do so would only make the person asking the question feel belittled and make me sound superior and that’s not what I would ever want. When I look at the world around me today I see so many lost little faces. Little people feeling disconnected and big people feeling like they missed out on something but knowing not quite what. I have friends who work fifty...

She sews, cooks, knits, gardens and raises chooks. The housewife is back – with younger women embracing traditional domestic crafts in droves, new figures show.

To my Conservative Friends: When my beautiful wife (I upgraded) and I got married 16 years ago, we talked a lot about our future children. We decided to raise them in a loving, catholic, conservative household. We would teach them values, manners and respect. Today they are 11 and 7 and I could not be more proud and blessed to have two such beautiful children inside and out. As everyone, we have made mistakes in our lives, but the best decision we ever made was deciding to have my wife stay at home to have the primary role of raising...

[W]ives don't need income to wield power in their marriages. And mothers don't have much reason to fear losing power if they're not bringing home an equal share of the bacon. A Pew Research Center study released a couple of weeks ago found that when it comes to decision making in the home, wives in a majority of cases either rule the roost or share power equally with their husbands, regardless of how much money the women earn. ... [C]onsumer research shows that with the exception of what car to buy and when to buy it, men rarely claim strong...

When the news came out earlier this week that the family situation of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is a little more complicated than had originally been disclosed, pundits immediately began speculating whether social conservatives -- not least, evangelicals -- would stick with their woman. Surely a person who allowed her 17-year-old daughter to get pregnant while she was off running a state could not be the type of mother and female politician that conservatives go for. The Daily Kos was filled with sarcastic remarks about the hypocrisy of the "family values" crowd. A poster to Slate noted: "I have been...

Polish Women Resent EU-Pushed Gov't Program Discouraging Stay-at-Home Moms By Elizabeth O'Brien WARSAW, August 9, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Polish women are expressing their indignation at a new EU-funded government campaign that discriminates against stay-at-home moms by pressuring women to be self-sufficient wage earners outside the home, Polish Radio (PR) reports.Financed by the EU Structural Funds, the Polish government is launching a massive campaign to encourage women to work outside the home. Beginning in September, the "Woman Fulfilled in Business" campaign will launch TV ads, documentaries, billboards and a website. One of the posters to be put up around cities compares...

Starting this fall Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary will offer a program in Christian homemaking, the seminary's president said Tuesday. "We are moving against the tide in order to establish family and gender roles as described in God's word for the home and the family," seminary President Paige Patterson said in his prepared report to the Southern Baptist Convention this week in San Antonio, Texas. According to the seminary Web site, the bachelor-of-arts in humanities degree, with a concentration in homemaking, will be offered through the seminary's undergraduate college program. "The College at Southwestern endeavors to prepare women to model the...

PRIME Minister John Howard has said he strongly believes stay-at-home parents provide the best start in life for a child. But he has also said it is important to provide childcare choices. "I am a very strong believer in the proposition that the care provided full-time by a parent is the most precious child care of all. I'm a very strong believer of that," Mr Howard has told Macquarie Regional Radio. "But I'm also a believer in choice and that parents have the right to decide what is best for them and best for their children and we've tried to...

In PM's world, girls will be herded back to the kitchen, and gays back to the closet, says Linda McQuaig Oct. 15, 2006. 01:00 AM LINDA MCQUAIG When it comes to equality for women, Stephen Harper is all for it — as long as the women are in Afghanistan. Last May, the Prime Minister told Parliament that ensuring equality rights for women was one of the key reasons Canada is waging war in Afghanistan. Certainly Harper's claims of championing the rights of burqa-clad women have helped him sell that unpopular war to Canadians. But when there's no war to peddle,...

An actress in the school play. Two star high school football players. The cute hostess at a local restaurant. Two busy workers behind the counter at the pharmacy. All teenagers with promise in an affluent triangle of eastern Morris County towns. But all were criminally charged last week in a drug bust coordinated by the Morris County Prosecutor's Office. Operation Painkiller nabbed 47 adults and seven juveniles, including some current students and a host of alumni of Whippany Park High School in Hanover. Police said they seized more than $70,000 in cash and drugs, including 4 ounces of heroin with...

When I set out to write a book about how the first generation of women to grow up with feminism managed their marriages, I never dreamed I'd wind up the subject of a Web article called "Everybody Hates Linda." Everybody started hating Linda, apparently, when I published an article in the progressive magazine the American Prospect last December, saying that women who quit their jobs to stay home with their children were making a mistake. Worse, I said that the tasks of housekeeping and child rearing were not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human...

Women who juggle career and family tend to be thinner and healthier as they approach midlife than long-term stay-at-home moms, a new study suggests. Researchers tracked the health of a group of British women from their mid-20s to their mid-50s and found that full-time homemakers were the most likely to be obese in their sixth decade. Women in long-term relationships who had raised kids while they held jobs outside the home were least likely to be overweight, and they also reported being in better overall health.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released on Wednesday. A mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 annually on top of her actual wages for the work she does at home, according to the study by Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts Salary.com. To reach the projected pay figures, the survey calculated the earning power of the 10 jobs respondents said most closely comprise a mother's...

With the summer on the way, it isn't hard to know what many parents feel as the school year comes to an end. Panic. "Every year it comes to the end of the school year and parents start scrambling,'' says Monica Kortz, recreation director for the city of El Cerrito. "They start coming in our office when we open at 8 in the morning, and it just continues until we close at 5.'' That's nothing new, of course. Parents have been wondering what their kids are going to do for the summer since the days when school recessed so children...

Dutch Feminazis Want to Punish Educated Mothers From the desk of Alexandra Colen on Fri, 2006-03-31 11:49 Sharon DijksmaSharon Dijksma, a leading parliamentarian of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) wants to penalise educated stay-at-home women. “A highly-educated woman who chooses to stay at home and not to work – that is destruction of capital,” she said in an interview last week. “If you receive the benefit of an expensive education at society’s expense, you should not be allowed to throw away that knowledge unpunished.” Hence her proposal to recover part of the cost of their education from highly-educated women who...

AMSTERDAM, April 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An MP of the Dutch Labour Party has suggested that stay-at-home mothers who used state subsidies for their education should pay the government back since their work at home is “wasted” on child rearing. Sharon Dijksma believes that punitive measures should be taken against women who choose to stay at home with children after graduating from university instead of entering the paid workforce. “A highly educated woman who chooses to stay home and not to work: that is destruction of capital,” said Dijksma, deputy leader of the Labour Party (PvdA) in 'Forum', a...

Are stay at home moms a threat to civilization? Those of you who are shocked by this question should take note of the fact that ABC's "Good Morning America" program devoted segments to this question on two successive days, featuring the arguments of Linda Hirshman, a prominent feminist thinker."I am saying an educated, competent adult's place is in the office," Hirshman told "Good Morning America." In other words, moms who stay at home with their children have given themselves to a calling that no educated or competent adult should desire or acceptHirshman threw herself into the debate over motherhood last...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. What’s the most important thing most of us will do? The answer is, obviously, raise our kids. And that’s what New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote in his New Year’s Day column, but believe it or not, he caught all sorts of grief. Brooks was responding to a recent piece in the American Prospect by Linda Hirshman of Brandeis. She criticized the idea that “staying home with the kids is just one more feminist option.” For Hirshman, “the family—with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks— . . ....

Full-Time Motherhood? How Selfish November 5, 2005 BY JULIE SHILLER Across the nation, privileged young women are seeking to be competitive candidates to gain admittance to prestigious universities. Impressive SAT scores, awards, grades and extracurricular activities are of the utmost importance for college-bound high school students and their families. The priorities of many of today's elite young women, however, are surprisingly conventional, according to one survey. The most fortunate and educated women say they will conform to traditional gender roles after completing their Ivy League degrees. They are choosing careers as full-time mothers and expect to be supported financially by...

A stay-at-home mom is on strike giving up her daily chores until her family gives her more help around the house. Regina Stevenson, 41, sat on a lawn chair Tuesday on the sidewalk outside her home in Frankfort, 20 miles southeast of Lafayette, with a sign saying "Mom on Strike." Stevenson has four children, ranging in age from 7 to 19. The youngest three live at home with her and her husband, Dennis, along with their daughter-in-law and grandson.Stevenson says the large household means doing a lot of laundry, cooking, cleaning and gardening. "I do everything except bring home the...

Middle-class mothers in France could be paid up to €1000 ($1600) a month - almost the minimum wage - to stop work for a year and have a third child under a government scheme to increase the birthrate, already one of the highest in Europe. Despite female employment statistics that are the envy of Europe, the Government remains worried about the reluctance of better-educated women to have babies. A plan due to be unveiled by the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, is expected to double cash incentives for big families. In a Europe facing serious demographic decline, France's buoyant birthrate...

So why do thousands of career women nationwide opt to put their careers and salary-earning potential on the back burner to stay home to care for their children? A Labor of Love "I had zero experience taking care of children before I had my own," said Laura Mercer, mother of two boys and professional stay-at-home mom outside of Las Vegas, Nev. "Being a career woman most of my adult life, the thought of being a stay-at-home mom didn't even occur to me."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The old adage that "a mother's work is never done" remains as true now as ever. Today's stay-at-home Moms are learning what their predecessors always knew -- they'd be making a lot of money doing their job outside the home. Just in time for Mother's Day, an informal study conducted by Web site Salary.com shows that stay-at-home moms would earn an average of $131,471 annually, including overtime, if they received a paycheck. A sampling of the 5.4 million stay-at-home mothers were asked to come up with job titles that fit a general description of their daily...

THE unwritten, generational rules on "How to Become a Strong Black Woman" are clear: 1. Get an education. 2. Work harder than everyone else. 3. Sacrifice for your children. 4. Never depend on a man--God bless the child who has her own. So why is it that in 2001, many highly educated, highly employable Black women have tossed their careers to the wind, opting to stay home and wholeheartedly depend on their men to support them? Some women say they're making the ultimate sacrifice by relinquishing their financial independence. But these stay-at-home moms say there is much more to life...

"I don't know that she's ever had a real job," Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Sen. John Kerry, said of Laura Bush this week. That says something about both Mrs. Kerry and those involved in her husband's campaign for president. What it says ought to anger those who toil day in, day out working to educate American children. Mrs. Bush, as most people know, worked for several years as a school teacher, then as a librarian before meeting and marrying her husband, George W. Bush, who went on to become president. Mrs. Kerry is, of course, known for refusing to...

AT FIRST GLANCE, the women and their children at the community center in Morris Plains seemed to be a play group or mothers' club. But in between nursing babies and soothing toddlers, the conversation was about paid parental leave, affordable child care, and Social Security credits for at-home moms. A meeting of Morris County Mothering NOW was under way. Yes, that's right, NOW, as in the National Organization for Women, the nation's leading feminist group. "We want to bring mothers' issues to the front burner. We're going to have discussions that might not seem appropriate at a play group," said...

I remember when feminists – even the radical ones – at least gave lip service to the idea that their movement was about "choices." For sure, the Gloria Steinems and Betty Friedans of the world always were rather condescending toward any woman who made different choices than them. But, only now, with the "women's liberation" movement in its fourth decade, are those other choices – those alternate lifestyles, if you will – being characterized as subversive, dangerous and morally wrong by a new breed of pious, feminist fundamentalists. Exhibit A is Gretchen Ritter, who apparently makes her living directing the...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. Gretchen Ritter, a women’s studies professor at the University of Texas, has a problem with stay-at-home moms—actually, several problems. Stay-at-home motherhood, she explains, is bad for men, women, and children alike. It damages our society as a whole and makes lesbian mothers feel bad. Ritter made all these charges in an opinion piece titled, “The messages we send when moms stay home,” published in the Austin American-Statesman. The diatribe was her attempt at starting what she called “an honest conversation about what is lost when women stay home.” Just...

Perspective from Another Planet - A Strange Take on Stay-at-Home Moms Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. Gretchen Ritter, a women's studies professor at the University of Texas, has a problem with stay-at-home moms—actually, several problems. Stay-at-home motherhood, she explains, is bad for men, women, and children alike. It damages our society as a whole and makes lesbian mothers feel bad. Ritter made all these charges in an opinion piece titled, "The messages we send when moms stay home," published in the Austin American-Statesman. The diatribe was her attempt at starting what she called "an...

London, May 13 (IANS) : 'What's mine is mine, and what's his is mine!' New research says this is the maxim of GenX women who want to be housewives who don't really work. Young mothers are rejecting equality in the workplace and preferring the idea of becoming full-time housewives - but not ones who actually do housework. This is the overall conclusion of research among 2,100 British adults that says women are happy to abandon the workplace but not if it means spending all day at home cooking, cleaning and looking after children. Instead they want to play the "role"...

I am most grateful for the fine work of my children's educators. But I've got a job to do, too Whatever happened to the good old days, when stay-at-home mothers watched soap operas, munched bonbons and gossiped about the neighbors? In a disturbing new trend, the Stay-At-Home Cabal has turned its attention outward and is bent on creating make-work for the rest of us. Case in point: Last month I found a memo in my son's knapsack from the PTA announcing Teacher Appreciation Week, May 2-8. Now, I have nothing against saying a sincere "Thank You" to the professional educators...

I am a member of the most under-represented minority...." This is a great essay, however it is so copyrighted I can't even cut and past from it. For all Stay-at-Home moms and Homeschooling moms, this one is for you!

Change better for babies and state, official says Welfare mothers with newborns in Tennessee can choose to stay home until their babies are a year old under a major policy shift that state officials say is better for the mother and child, as well as taxpayers. The change, which could begin in early April, would exempt these mothers from work, job training and school requirements for a year, rather than the current four months after giving birth, and still allow them to receive a monthly welfare check.

The cause of women's liberation just took a huge step forward. The mainstream media, in the form of Time magazine, has finally recognized as legitimate the choices of those women who decide to stay home with their young children. In a cover story headlined "The Case for Staying Home," the magazine reports, without sneering or condescension, the trend toward more new mothers leaving the work force. This is an important cultural benchmark, because until now, the media, feminist leaders and other opinion-makers have tended to portray stay-at-home moms as a regrettable throwback to what should be a long-gone era of...

The cause of women's liberation just took a huge step forward. The mainstream media, in the form of Time magazine, has finally recognized as legitimate the choices of those women who decide to stay home with their young children. In a cover story headlined "The Case for Staying Home," the magazine reports, without sneering or condescension, the trend toward more new mothers leaving the work force. This is an important cultural benchmark, because until now, the media, feminist leaders and other opinion-makers have tended to portray stay-at-home moms as a regrettable throwback to what should be a long-gone era of...

It's 6:35 in the morning, and Cheryl Nevins, 34, dressed for work in a silky black maternity blouse and skirt, is busily tending to Ryan, 2 1/2, and Brendan, 11 months, at their home in the leafy Edgebrook neighborhood of Chicago. Both boys are sobbing because Reilly, the beefy family dog, knocked Ryan over. In a blur of calm, purposeful activity, Nevins, who is 8 months pregnant, shoves the dog out into the backyard, changes Ryan's diaper on the family-room rug, heats farina in the microwave and feeds Brendan cereal and sliced bananas while crooning Open, Shut Them to encourage...

Working mothers demand choice to stay at home Ministers are under mounting pressure to raise maternity pay and give mothers "a genuine choice" between staying at home or working when their children are very young. The Maternity Alliance, a national charity, issued its demand after a survey of 2,000 working mothers found that only one per cent would have chosen to return to full-time work after the birth of their baby. Although a third were happy to work part-time, two thirds would rather be at home. Nearly all said they were too tired for sex and that their relationships with...

Can we get honest about sex? I know it seems all we do is talk openly and honestly about sex. But while we blather on about it on "Oprah," there is one set of sexual truths we have all rather studiously repressed: gender. For 30 years, elite women have insisted we all talk and act as if we believed in androgyny (or the idea that there are no natural differences between men and women). Which, mind you, is a very different matter than equality (which is the idea that social institutions should do justice to both men and women). Until...

The scene in this cozy Atlanta living room would -- at first glance -- warm an early feminist's heart. Gathered by the fireplace one recent evening, sipping wine and nibbling cheese, are the members of a book club, each of them a beneficiary of all that feminists of 30-odd years ago held dear. The eight women in the room have each earned a degree from Princeton, which was a citadel of everything male until the first co-educated class entered in 1969. And after Princeton, the women of this book club went on to do other things that women once were...

We've failed mothers who stay at home, admits Hewitt By Rachel Sylvester (Filed: 15/10/2003) Mothers who stay at home and bring up their children, rather than going out to work, have been under-valued for too long by the Government, Patricia Hewitt, the Trade and Industry Secretary, admitted yesterday. Patricia Hewitt She told The Telegraph that Labour ministers had created the perception since coming to power in 1997 that they believed that all women should get jobs. This had been a mistake. Policies, such as tax credits for working mothers, and support for childcare had left those who raise their own...

One of my recent callers came up with what I'm sure she thought was the singular most legitimate reason for not being a stay-at-home-mom: "... it's not all enjoyable." I kid you not, she actually said that, followed by, "... and I just don't seem to be able to do it well." She did say that being with the kids was fine, it was all the other stuff: housekeeping, shopping, cooking, and so forth – that were described as unrewarding and relentless and, well, just not enjoyable. She also complained that she just couldn't do it all well. I asked...

Does it pay to go back to work? Full-time job versus full-time mom. Does it really pay to go back to work after you have a baby? Melissa Baldwin of Upper Arlington had a tough time making the decision to quit her job as a lawyer. "It's dreadful, it's dreadful." says the mother of two. "The forks in the road kind of decision. Do I get married? Do I not? Do I have kids? Do I not? Do I work? Do I not?" Financial Analysts say you should make a list of "can do's" and "can do withouts" and...

If there's anything that we all care about, it's "the children." Almost everything Democratic President Bill Clinton ever did was for "the children." Republican President George W. Bush long ago made the slogan of the liberal group the Children's Defense Fund -- "Leave No Child Behind" -- his own. We will do everything for "the children": spend untold taxpayer dollars on them, tuck them away in bicycle helmets, get hysterical about any perceived threat to their health or safety -- anything but acknowledge the harm done to them by day care. In a devastating new book, "Day Care Deception," Brian...

Guess what? For the first time since the '50s, stay-at-home moms are on the rise. Ten and a half million children have full-time stay-at-home moms, up 13 percent over the last decade, according to the Census Bureau. And that is taking the most restrictive definition of a full-time mom possible: If you worked even one hour in one week over the last year, Mom, you did not make the Census count. Gender-equity specialists, take note: By contrast, only 189,000 kids are cared for by a stay-at-home dad -- 105,000 brave male souls in the whole country. A funny thing...

Starting her family later in life, Newtown Square resident Joanne Torrillo knew she would appreciate the support of other at-home mothers. The MOMS Club provided the encouragement she needed. The MOMS Club (Moms Offering Moms Support) was founded in 1983 by a California woman who discovered there were no groups that met during the day and allowed her to attend with her baby and preschooler. The organization currently has more than 1,500 chapters and 75,000 members in the United States, including 100-plus clubs in Pennsylvania. The Newtown Square chapter was co-founded by former Havertown members Mrs. Torrillo and Beth Gowie,...

More women are stay-at-home mothers than 10 years ago, according to the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau reports that the number of married moms who are staying home to take care of their children has increased over the last decade. It seems to signal a shift in attitude towards stay-at-home parenting. The last time a study of this magnitude was done, nine years ago, a more than 9 million kids had moms at home. Now that figure is 11 million. Jason Fields, the Census Bureau researcher who conducted the study, said the numbers should be extremely accurate because of the...

(AgapePress) - A growing number of Christian, pro-life mothers are leaving lucrative careers with a national kitchenware company because of the new owner's support of abortion. "The Pampered Chef" is one of the nation's largest and fastest-growing kitchenware companies. The company, founded in 1980 by professing Christian and stay-at-home mother Doris Christopher, has been driven mostly by stay-at-home moms who sell the products from home. The company boasts more than 67,000 "Kitchen Consultants" and sales of $700 million annually. But now, according to Citizen magazine, many Christian mothers are walking away from the company because Pampered Chef's new owner, billionaire...

<p>June 17, 2003 -- A fast-growing number of mothers are choosing to stay home to take care of their kids full-time while their husbands work, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report. Nearly 10.6 million youngsters under age 15 who live in two-parent households were raised by stay-at-home moms - up 13 percent in less than a decade, the bureau found.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — Almost 10.6 million children were being raised by full-time, stay-at-home moms last year, up 13 percent in a little less than a decade.</p> <p>Experts credit the economic boom, the cultural influence of America's growing Hispanic population and the entry into parenthood of a generation of latchkey kids.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Nearly 10.6 million children were being raised by full-time stay-at-home moms last year, up 13 percent in a little less than a decade. Experts credit the economic boom, the cultural influence of America's growing Hispanic population and the entry into parenthood of a generation of latchkey kids. Of the 41.8 million kids under 15 who lived with two parents last year, more than 25 percent had mothers who did not have a paying job, according to a Census Bureau report. That was up from 23 percent, or 9.4 million children, in such situations in 1994, a bureau analyst...