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Comment by NovemberWest | Hacker News Reader

We get a lot of things wrong in our culture. But, when all is said and done, and our civilization crumbles into ashes, we are going to most regret the way we treated mothers and children.

I am a former sahm. I like this guy.

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Yes, she is just a mother. Which is sort of like looking at the sky and saying, "hey, it’s just the sun."

I'm a guy and I like this guy

I do not see myself as a feminist. I want a career but my kids come first. I think society is so broken in part because we are destroying families in part to promote the idea that women "should" work at paid jobs. I think that's really not the right mental model. I think we need to work on giving families more support and women more genuine options. We really are not doing that currently.

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I disagree. The stay at home mum phenomenon is a manufactured anomaly originating in (post-)industrial, middle class society.

Really? Could you provide a bit more information? How did it work prior to that?

well pre-industrially work was largely home of near the home based. Everybody pitched in, in much the same way you see work being divided up in developing countries these days. While many benefits arose from industrial society, I don't feel that semi-disenfranchising women from large swathes of the workforce was one of them (men get the crappy end of the stick too). The wikipedia page on the housewife indicates that it's a thousands of years old phenomenon, but I think that is making assuptions about money being as important in society as it is today (and outside of industrial society it really isn't).

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