> he feels the need I wouldn't presume to psychoanalyze people I don't know. Perhaps you're right, or perhaps you're wrong, but in any case you wouldn't know u

> he feels the need I wouldn't presume to psychoanalyze people I don't know. Perhaps you're right, or perhaps you're wrong, but in any case you wouldn't know unless you asked why and the OP answered. > those other people—the ones creating the circumstances which make OP feel the need to engage in all the preliminaries—are being sexist. Imaginary people, at this point. > a majority of women would prefer not to work while their kids are under 18 It's 50% to 45%, presumably with 5% undecided, so I think you're overstating the situation a bit. You also appear to be ignoring or erasing men. > We can just go ahead and say that it’s bad to devalue their work in home making without dancing around the point. It depends on what you mean by value. The article argues in favor of paying stay-at-home parents, which means economic value. Speaking for myself, I value freedom of choice, in the moral sense of value, but I don't think there's much if any relation between moral value and economic value. Our economy values many things that I find morally abhorrent and devalues many things that I find morally commendable. Capitalism is simply economic supply and demand. I support the personal choice to have children, in the same way that I support the personal choice to play video games, but I don't think the government should finance the playing of video games, even if the majority of women, or the majority of men for that matter, considered it very important. In other words, the personal preferences of women are not specifically relevant with regard to what the government ought to finance. On the other hand, you could argue plausibly that the raising and education of children is crucial for a healthy and functioning society and thus ought to be financed by the government, regardless of how individual women or men feel about staying at home vs. working outside the home. It's an open question, though, whether such an argument would entail direct government payments to stay-at-home parents.