Love this post, Amy! Love it.

'Cept for this part:

> I believe parents who stay home raising
> children should get salaries (and pensions)
> from their partners.

People should take care of their intimates, and marriage law were designed long ago to do exactly that. (Though Amy, we've noticed you have some problems with state certification of marriage.) Yes, staying at home to raise kids is fundamentally important and time-consuming as hell. But that doesn't mean it's the sort of work that should have a dollar value determined and paid by the marketplace.

The thing about raising children is, almost anyone can do it: Stupid, illiterate, vulgar people do it all the time. And their performance is not always reflected in the outcome. Lots of shitty parents have great kids, and lots of monsters were raised by saints.

Two reason I don't want stay-at-home moms to get 'pensions' for their effort:

1. Their are no barriers to selection of this 'career.' Women need only choose to become mothers, and their fitness and competence is not refined by the market from which they'll demand compense.

2. As a matter of course, 'child-rearers' (women) whose selection of 'employer' (husband) was 'insufficiently discerning' (he's an unemployed alcoholic) will soon petition their Senator to have government guarantee these retirement benefits.

Can't we insist that people who make babies pay a price for the indulgence? Or is fulfillment of this basic human drive supposed to be a freebie, paid for by others?

The payoff to poetic, emotional, cosmically important work like childrearing should be poetic, emotional and cosmic... Not financial. Bachelor says: Momma, get your mitts outta my wallet.

The value of a "stay at home spouse" is sometimes enormous. For people who choose to have children especially, but not exclusively.

Here's what I mean: a man who wishes to have offspring works hard so that his wife/partner may stay in the home and raise the children. He now has a huge support system in place!-- he may pursue his career with gusto, because he knows his children are being cared for and his home is being tended. The at-home partner provides the domestic security for the working partner and is the bedrock upon which his career is built.

It works for either gender in either position, but the upshot, I think, is in the communication esablished before a marriage is made. People "filling roles" are not going to be happy. People "supporting each other's lives" would be.

I think. What the hell do I know? It works for us at Camp Cooper because my husband is brilliant and talented. Adores his children, and even worked his ass off for the ones I brought into the marriage with me. Now that my kids are in High School and College, my career is flourishing. Yeah, I had to wait, so what? Yeah, I am "behind" compared with someone who didn't take "time out" to raise kids. I knew that going into it. I have to work harder now, big deal.

I believe the above "works" when people are reasonable and civilized. A rarity, to be sure.

> in the communication esablished before a
> marriage is made.

YES! Exactly! Women should PERSONALLY insist that men behave well rather than counting on government to meet their needs.

Having kids a awesome exccuse to duck out of work while everyone else has to stay late. Sure it slows down your career advancement, but it's worth it!

Crid, this is part of it -- even though I just did the shorthand above. If you read my column Fetal Attraction, in New Columns,I think you'll see that I'm for male choice as well as female. I think there must be a clear agreement -- preferably written -- that this is the plan for this to work out. As much as I don't want kids, I realise that a woman who does mommy track is screwed in terms of her lifetime earnings and earning potential. You're a guy who wants your DNA carried on, or you think it would be cute to put a couple of kids through rehab and college...well, it's gonna cost ya to have them raised right...which isn't to say I think many parents do that -- or there aren't a whole lot of self-indulgent jerks popping buns out of the oven, right, left, and center.

We mostly agree, but here's the distinction that will get in the way: Love is a deal, but marriage is a contract. You're still counting on government for enforcement one way or the other. Say what you will about olden days, people were less likely to clog the courts (and the rest of the commons) with their interpersonal failures.

I think people should make this contract on their own; not suggesting more government meddling. (They do it so badly as it is.) Moreover, while I believe in marriage for gays and lesbians as long as the rest of the world has it, I think we should have "civil marriage" for everybody -- and the religious nutbaggos can do it in the church, synagogue, or teepee of their choosing. Moreover, I think we should have a registered partner agreement for people who don't believe in marrying for life but are committed to each other, like the PACs in France...permitting inheritance of money, apartment (permission to continue renting), and hospital visitation rights, etc.

I think all the driven, brilliant, obnoxious people who want to make partner at some law firm more than anything else in the world should all have to live in one huge, cinderblock complex, not be allowed to reproduce and forced to socialize only with each other. There's too many lawyers anyway.
If you bungle raising your kids, nothing else you do really matters.

I'm all for a whole lot of people not being allowed to reproduce; many of them, parents at present!

Lame.