Your framing makes perfect sense to me, and I agree with it. It comes down to economic forces requiring parents to sacrifice time at home with their children.

Your framing makes perfect sense to me, and I agree with it. It comes down to economic forces requiring parents to sacrifice time at home with their children. In this framing, being able to have a stay-at-home parent is a privilege to be treasured. Not everyone can manage it, which is a tragedy. Of course, for those who don't want to be a parent and prefer their job, that's fine too. Some people, whether men or women, just yearn for the mines. I wouldn't say that any such people should be pressured to be a stay at home parent. Hopefully they can be happily childless, or else partner with someone who enjoys raising children, or else get support from grandparents or the community. What I simply object to is a framing that views being a "traditional" stay at home parent as an intrinsically miserable or undesirable role, when it's what so many of us factory workers wish we could do ourselves but can't afford to. When a (loving, non-abusive) couple can afford to have one parent stay at home, my wife and I both view that stay-at-home parent as the lucky one.