I agree with joey. Children should be raised by their parents not a day-care. When a married couple has kids, one parent should agree to stay home and raise the child until they are older. It really has nothing to do with "moms" but a parent should stay and raise the kids. I think that day-cares and things are part of the reason that these societal trends are occuring. Single parent homes and kids out of wedlock are others, but those are different topics.

You know, I don't entirely disagree with Joey. I mean, I don't actually think he's blaming females, more the society. The point is, in middle class America, both parents have to work to make ends meet. Now, whether this started in the 50s, I don't know.

I think that, if a family can be supported by only one parent working, and the other parent doesn't object, let them stay home with the children. Regardless of whether it's the husband or the wife, this is beneficial. Far too many of us we (or are) "latch-key" kids. I know I was. I was always babysat by my sisters, and I deeply resented Mom having to work. We (my sister and I) all turned out fine, for the most part, but I think in general, kids need adult supervision and guidance.

Furthermore, all of you making snide comments about stay-at-home moms, I work with two women who both chose to stay home and raise their children. AND LOVED IT!!!!! Absolutely. They told me that there was nothing more hurtful than hearing people say things like "Why don't you have a real job?" and "So you just sit around all day?" Being a parent is tough work! And these women devoted their lives to it. Frankly, I think there's no harder job. So I reccommend that you all take a step back and think about what it's like to raise children, and then see if you still feel the same. When I did, I realized that, when I have kids, if I can afford to stay home to raise them, I will. I will not feel like my rights are being infringed upon or I'm being submissive. It's just a career difference.

I want to be treated as an equal, and not some helpless little ditz. I can pull my own weight, and if I have to prove it, I will. I can open my own car door, and hold a door open for people. How do you figure that we have more rights than our parents now? We have limits on: when we can be out at night, when we can drive, what we can drink, who we can hang out with... I could keep going with this. So if you aren't saying that women shouldn't be equal to men, then what exactly are you saying?

Yeah I guess people aren't polite...but I mean that's going to HAPPEN when there aren't as many set class restrictions. When people used to be chivalrous it wasn't usually to people below them

quote:

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Children used to have manners growing up. People were told "yes ma'am, no sir," gentlemen opened doors for ladies and girls, young boys opened the passenger side door for their dates before getting in their car.

We had a system of chivalry almost in this country. We had parents who were involved and who cared and loved their children greatly.

Now we have a society that raises our kids to do whatever the hell they want, when they want to do it. Children have more rights than their parents now.

Why did it come to be this way?

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I so agree with this statement. I mean, most teens and kids now dont have any manners at all, not just in America, but all over the globe as well. I think this should be stopped and that we should look back and try to recapture those good things in the past. In my country, guys still respect women by offering their seats to them and sometimes opening doors, but mostly, these traits are seen in provinces and not much in the city. However, even if times are changing now, i still try to say and act like those good traits before. I still say the basic "thank you", "good morning" and other friendly greetings.
It is true that times are changing fast, but i never lose hope in it. Whenever someone is being kind to another or even just standing up while answering in class are those little ways in which i know that kindness and chivalry and all those good stuff are still with us. We just have to improve ourselves more.....for the better.

American problems started with some left racism and too much hipocrisy and arrogance against the face of the Earth.

As I always say, if a man tells me I can't work because he says so, I'm getting the gun. Boom.

Wow, That is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard. Yes, ALL of American's problems have to do with Women going to work...why didn't the historians see that sooner. Well, sh*t...i might as well drop out of college and take parenting courses...there is no way my child will grow up disrespectfull because I was selfish enough to pursue a career. Shame on me!! Shame on everyone!!

I agree with quarter333. I have a stay at home mom now but when i was 1-6 years old she wasn't and i have no problems what so ever!!!!!!

It started becoming this way when men like yourself thought their di** was too big and had to become sexist pigs. I'm sure that you'll find a woman with self dignity in the future though, (not!)

I think that you are just angry your mother neglected you, and so now you are taking it out on all the other mothers who are trying to support their families! Here's an idea... call a shrink!

first of all, i don't think all of society's problems can be blamed on one issue, especially working mothers. what are parents to do if their husband leaves them, live on wellfare? starve? second of all, as most reponders to this post have said, you have no proof. I know a lot of really screwed up kids whose moms are home, but prefer to take the Leave it to Beaver approach of letting their kids do whatever they want without the rewarding family discipline in the end. also, moms who go to work don't abandon their kids, a lot of times their dad stays home, and they have just as good a childhood as kids whose mom stayed home. oh, and btw our country was screwed up before moms went to work. moms went to work to help pull our country out of trouble. ya know World War II, without women working in factories the US may have lost the war.

I applaud all of you(except Joey, sorry! well not really...), you've all pretty much written what I think.

Joey, I've got a question, all these posts you make, are they for real? Or is this all a big joke?

It _is_ ridiculous. And it's not even a coherent thought.

To first say women should have equal rights, opportunities, and independence, but to say it would then be wrong to exercise those rights by working. And moreover, that moral culpability for what you consider to be the downfall of morals then falls on their shoulders for daring to make such a choice.

To at the same time say you're "not calling for a return to anything", but nevertheless you advocate mothers satying home, like they used to do. How can you say something is "the utter destruction of the United States", yet not insist that it not happen? Do you not have convictions? Are you moderating your views so as to not make it look like you actually would rather women not be independent?

You're saying that how it is now is worse, but you don't want it to exist in a way that you consider preferable?

That's talking out both side of you mouth. Straddle the fence that much and your *** starts to hurt.

And, importantly, to make the overriding assumption that it's necessarily the women that should stay at home.

You say it's horrible that the media you detest is raising the children, and then logically conclude it's the fault of the working mother? Right, and since al Quaeda attacked us, we should necessarily invade Iraq.

That seems like you just have a beef with feminism and are looking to warrant attacking it by cooking up a justification that people can rally around.

You yourself said this was simply asymptom of a consumerist society, overconsumption. So why not direct your anger there, the cause. Why not rant against corporations and advertising?

Why not try to change the media?

Why make the argument that women should change (at the behest of a man no less)? When you say that they were merely drawn into this to try to support their family in a changing society?

You next say "[c]hildren used to have manners growing up. People were told 'yes ma'am, no sir,'". Does this not happen anymore? You certainly seem to indicate that this sort of mentality has vanished from the collective conciousness. I don't know what sort of den of iniquity you're living in but this still happens every day. You would also need to prove that it is the children of the feminists you so loathe that are the ones without such manners. This you flatly have not done and cannot do. It is hypothesis at best, and more likely is prejudice, you see feminists as degrading to morality and as such they get your ire when manners decline.
One could even logically postulate it would be the sons of feminists, tought to respect women that would treat a female how she wants to be treated, holding the door by default but also letting her decide whether she wants to hold the door for herself or not. Or whether she wants to pick up the check. Chivalry is not dead if a woman of independent means decides she wants to pay for her own meal on a date. It would be wrong to assume chivalry as you believe it to be, it necessarily desireable or the best of all worlds. Should a women be foreced to accpet generosity?

A man holding the door for a woman by no means should be looked down upon for the offer, but a woman is also perfectly able to say that she prefers it not be expected of him.

You end that paragraph with this gem: "We had parents who were involved and who cared and loved their children greatly." Let us all regreat how no parents these days have a deep love for their children and move on to...

Evidence. You have none. No quantifying of declining "morals". No causal linkage. At best you can associate an idealized time - one which you never youself experienced which makes your assumptions interesting - with a warmer fuzzier feeling than you do the present. The grass was greeener, so to speak. It's called nostalgia. Every generation has it, which effectively means you're basing this all on your spite for feminists and feminism.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Right? Of course. Must be.

And this is all assuming "morality" is even on the decline. In the 1950s, in many states, looking at the equivalent of a Playboy magazine or an R-rated movie could land you in jail, homosexuals were thrown in prison, working on Sunday was a violation of "blue laws," unmarried couples who slept together risked jail, blacks and whites were forbidden to intermarry, etc. Not a very free or libertarian place. Maybe what you see as morality's decline is really the natural effect of more freedom. You purport to be of a libertarian mind and here are laws, laws enforcing morals, that are no longer on the books. You make find premarital sex immorral, you make find homosexuality immoral, but would you rather there were laws against it? Would you sacrifice freedom to decrease the immorality? Or are you willing to live now with the fruits of freedom even if that means you dislike the moral climate it creates when a people don't show enough personal responsibility?

We also did not have the same sort of access to knowledge and information then. We now see our government wage war. Access to challenges to our belief systems is a mere NOISEboard away. These were not true of the 50's. We saw an expansion of college-bound students withe the GI Bill. An explosion of the university population learning and interacting with an ever-increasing variety of races, classes, creeds, and genders.But are we not better off for being less ignorant?

If you stayed in your same town with the same people and had little access to the outside world, no wonder not much morality changed. You were raised a ceartain way and there was never anything to challenge that. Is a person in that situation acting morally becasue he believes it is the right thing to do given all options or simply becaus he knows no other way? Is that still considered being moral?

There's always more to be said. But, for now at least, I will just end with this: methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Are you seriously going to back up your statement that this country's problems started when mothers went to work?
Even if you leave out problems that don't involve families, such as hell, slavery, or poverty, which i'm assuming you are for your own sake, problems in the familiy didn't just appear the day women stepped out the door and into the work force.
In the first place, women started working to serve their country, i suppose that's patriotism, but that's not really something you want to teach your kids by example anyway. Women stayed in the work force because rising prices on consumer goods forced most families to utilize two incomes.
And i don't know where you're getting your information about families of the past, but i don't think it's the ideal situation you somehow have engrained in your brain. Just because there was less reported abuse, both of women and children, doesn't mean it didn't exist. It just means there were almost no options open to people in that situation.
Besides, as DrStrangelove so eloquently stated "Remember that those parents in the 50's gave birth to a lot of hippies". Why? Because their parents, in general, were unfulfilled and unhappy.
How well children turn out doesn't depend on how much actual time a parent or parents spend with their children, rather the quality of the time.

okay dude sit down and take a chill pill my mom works and I have chivalry that would have made King Aurther's Knights feel like bar room brawlers Honor and Chivalry are like religon your parents can show some of their view to you you need to find your own path that make those ideals real to you I mean dude my mom works a lot but me and my siblings are good kids hell I'm trying to go to the US Naval Academy my family is one example of both parents at work and every thing working out because my parents work together to raise us Father-Child Relationships are needed just as much as Mother-child relationships

haha I agree with Iwannastayfree, and I have to ask you, what the hell? I'm a girl, why can't I open the door for my boyfriend? Should a really say "yes ma'am or no sir" to someone who called me a hypocritical neanderthal, jut because they've lived 10 years longer than I have? Please, get a clue. I will NOT respect someone who does not respect me, regardless of the persons age or gender.

That's great! Now I fulfill my dream of growing up and becoming a stay at home mom!

JoeyDauben, have you ever heard the saying, "tis better to stay quiet and have people think you're an idiot than to speak and remove all doubt?"

That might apply here...

Er. Are you seriously saying that America's problems started when women entered the workplace? Unless you're using Leave it To Beaver reruns as honest-to-god proof here, I don't get it. Let's think of all of America's problems BEFORE women went into the workplace. I'm going to discount the period of time when women in low-income families went to work in low-paid factories because they were in poverty, or when they worked for the World War efforts, or for any other wars, for that matter. In the interest of space, and to keep it relevant.
1) Wars with Native Americans based on blatantly taking their land for little reason other than we wanted it. And they were "inferior."
2) Rest of the world trying to take advantage/generally get ride of the US as it grew as a country
3) Let's lump all the religious persecutions in this country into one section. Well, the Puritans persecuted...everyone. Basically. Very repressed sect. The Quakers, probably one of the friendliest branch of Christianity yet, were generally tarred and feathered and estranged. The Catholics were sortof roped off into one state when the colonies were form, and the Irish and Italian Catholics were the victims of racism when they started working in factories.
4) Several economic depressions and recessions occuring from the nation's founding til...well, til any date you can name
5) Civil War - Americans killing Americans in order to accomplish hundreds of years of racism and geographical partyline boundaries.
6) Mexican War - manifest destiny...a little screwed up.

ok, I'm bored with listing hundreds of years of America's problems, and everyone's probably bored of reading it. But yeah, just because social problems weren't as blatantly obvious, there was still a lot of racism and a lot of sexism. Which was learned from the parents, who believed in specific gender/race roles. I don't think society's problems relate directly to women entering the workplace...I think that's an easy thing to point the finger at. Women and men both need to shoulder the responsibility of raising children - not just one gender.

No I don't think this is so ridiculous. Clear gender roles and the nuclear family are a good thing in my opinon. While I'm sure I don't interperet this the same way Joey does, I do agree that the destruction of the nuclear family, and the fact that both parents tend to work full time now, has been extremely detrimental to our society.

People just don't have any common sense or character anymore. This results in a bunch of weak people in my opinion. It doesn't neccecarily have to be the mom that stays home. But you need parents and role models who have clear moral codes to raise kids. I don't think the 50's were the best example. Remember that those parents in the 50's gave birth to a lot of hippies Joey.

THIS IS RIDICULOUS