I have read, with interest, all of the opinion pieces regarding whether or not mothers/women in general, should staty at home or go to work. It always fascinates me how every person's idea of what a mother and home should be permeates each piece. What I find truly fascinating is that we are still discussing this same issue that has been prevalent since men and women have been having children. Sure, we have openly published discussions about men and women's roles in childrearing, but I have to believe that some of same age-old arguments of work distribution in a partnership with children have been around in one form or another as long as people have been having children.

I can't seem to figure out why the discussion hasn't changed from how women might be happier doing one thing or another to why women are more vulnerable to a partner's whims at 60 than at 30. I can understand the idea that women feel older and less valued from a physical perspective when they turn 60, and I can understand how that might alos make women feel less attractive after rejection. What I wonder about this though, is why being 60 and alone is so much harder? Is it because it's that much later into a woman's life, and she has so much less time to catch a man at her age? Why is it that this changes so much as a woman ages?

Most people would not argue that in a gross generalization of childcare duties, the women get the lion's share of the work. Let's just settle that argument. Women are societally saddled with all kinds of guilt about their maternal duties, and the way a child "turns out" will, in most every discussion, refer back to the mothering. Okay, let's just say all of us understand this. Let's just all agree that women spend more time, as an overgeneralization, doing childraising than men, and let's talk about why domesticity and "lives of domesticity" make women so vulnerable. Vulnerability isn't just about the kids. Vulnerability and domesticity may have more to do with mindframes, lifestyles, chosen marriage roles and personal development than just staying home to raise the kids.

It's true that no one gets paid to raise children, not even most "professionals" who "work in the business." I have worked in childcare, and the pay is really something that could be called a stipend for charity work. The truth of the matter is that we have kids, and we have to raise them. Each parent should be responsible for raising their child, but the long and the short of it is that a parent is responsible, whether it be a man or woman. On that note, it takes two to have children, and even if you have a jerk of a husband who insists on being infantile and not assuming responsibility for his progeny, you are still a parent and have responsibility to take care of your children. This still doesn't address why you find yourself in such dire straits if you are divorced.

There is much talk and threat about a woman being alone, or alone with her kids. Watch out women! Don't be too educated, or you might be alone. Don't be to pretty, because that won't save you either (thanks Oprah). And sure as hell don't be too needy, or God forbid, your husband who is your life and joy and all that is good and worthwhile will leave you penniless and suddenly bereft of all there is in life. I fail to see why being alone is the worst threat there is. Is there no sense of self, no sense of responsibility to/for the self there? Are we talking only about financial vulnerability or the lack of financial support from men, because that would make women truly shallow indeed. There's more to this fear than money.

Rebecca Traister, I like the fact that portray David Brooks as boorish and ill-informed. Perhaps you could also point out that women who fall into this trap of domesticity bliss/dependence also have to wake up to their own adult responsibility to themselves, regardless of their own progeny-induced state? As my grandmother always said: "Go to school, Honey, get educated. It's not the worst thing for your husband to leave you. He could die too. And then where will you be?" In other words: "Take care of yourselves, because there are no guarantees in this world, man-given or otherwise."

Perhaps at some point we could stop discussing where women should be (same old-same old home/office), and perhaps we could discuss the deeper dynamics of women's worth, pay scales that leave women financially vulnerable, and why women and men both focus on the fear of women being left alone.