let's not forget, W Green, that the U.S. IS A SECULAR NATION. of course secularists are predictable. that comes out of a tradition of reason and enlightenment. it seems it's often those who call themselves "christians" that are mercurial in nature/action, while using a poorly written piece of ancient fiction as their guide. no wonder christians are seen as unpredictable to the point of making no sense. i'm an atheist, and i welcome "predictable" as a label...thank you! and you can bet because i live in reality i would have had enough sense to unroll the carpet BEFORE forking over the money. duh.

...and what I mean by that is this: My mom stayed home with my three older sisters and me. But this was in the '60s - '80s, and there wasn't this sense of hyper-schedulizing everything under the sun as there tends to be now with SAHMs. I am married (5 years) and semi-childfree. I have two great step-kids who are 11 & 13 and live in another city. They visit once/month around breaks (4-7 days/month), and they spend 8 weeks with us in the summer. My husband and I do not wish to have biological children together. We would never think of "scheduling" anything, even when the kids are with us for the extended period in the summer.

"Oh, you want to go to the pool, great, it's a 10 minute walk in the neighborhood. Call me from the office phone when you get there. Have fun! Bye!"

This is how I was raised, as well how my husband was raised. I agree with a previous writer, "ash" who said that kids are not learning to entertain themselves. Because they are not given the opportunity to do so. I have had conversations about this with my own mom. My sisters and I were not shuttled to nonstop appointments. We were mostly left with the joy of finding stuff to do on our own free time, which I believe made us more independent and mature. My mother says she never felt any "pressure" really because she did what she wanted to do, that is to say, she stayed home to raise her children but she also had a life, and that life didn't include a high-powered career, but that was not what she was after anyway so it's a moot point. We kids were not followed around constantly, we were not dragged to endless shopping, we were not made to feel as if the world revolved around us. My father was the only paycheck earner and it all seemed very ordinary. I do not mean to say that I think everybody had it as good as we did (we were solidly middle-class; my father's job was blue-collar), but you certainly didn't see our parents lives and the family as a whole revolve around us kids.

Currently, sensationalized news dramas and some tragically high-strung parents are making what was once an average (if there is such a thing) childhood nearly impossible. I agree with the other writers who have expressed the their disgust at over-involved parents who seem to think they have to be consumed by their kids 24/7. I can only figure that is ADDING to what is so silly about this debate to begin with. The word "playdate" makes me want to vomit.

So, can somebody explain to me why this angle isn't being explored more? Why don't we begin asking women who were fulfilled in staying home to raise their children what, exactly, it was that WORKED for them while doing so? And how was it that they didn't constantly whine about it...until we begin doing this, learning from the past and examining what worked for parents who chose to stay home when they were raising kids, I'm afraid it's silly to continue to belabor the issue.

...and the people who disagree with him are totally wrong. To all of you who are talking about not "lying" to children, tell me, do you discuss the details of your sexual experiences in front of children? Do you discuss the details of crimes you read about in the paper and hear about on TV front of children? Do you discuss anything and everything in front of children? Probably not. It's not a matter of lying, or denying what happened, it's just that this person does not think it's a good idea for his/her kids to hear the details of the circumstances surrounding the murder, BECAUSE IT'S NOT NECESSARY AND NOT APPROPRIATE FOR THE CHILDREN TO HEAR IT. It has nothing to do with lying.

I agree with the writer who suggested going and spending what time is necessary, and then leave. Give the remaining adults the time and space to grieve/discuss/whatever. It's unrealistic to think that nobody is going to speak of it all day, so put your time in and make an early night of it.

I'm not even a biological parent and I got this one right.