The title of the article, and the fact that Forbes pulled it, are what are of note here. Everyone's entitled to their experience and opinions, including commemorating them to writing.

What I'm saying is that hyperbolic point is obnoxious and I did not care for it. Attention he wanted, attention he got-- but that doesn't mean that his lead paragraph should be so slanted it distorts the studies.

Swell.

So what was the point of that? I'm going to have a miserable marriage and life and because I already have some education under my belt even quitting now to play the happy homemaker won't work and I'll eventually kill myself anyhow?

These sorts of pieces seem to have a "neener neener" playground quality to them.

Knowledge is power. Too many people blindly enter into marriages without understanding the amount of work that's necessary to maintain them. These kinds of things, when presented right, help reinforce that.

Unfortunately, this one wasn't presented right.

The first thought that came to me was, well, duh it's going to look like it's the result of working women for the simple fact that we're starting from a baseline where it was more common for women to not work. In an equal world, I'd expect the results to show that simple a 2-income household results in more marital problems than a 1-income household, regardless of the gender of the 1 worker. The "woman's fault" slant likely comes from the fact that A) there are more single income families where it's the man who works and B) we're still in a culture where it's the woman in a DINK marriage that, when kids come, gets the brunt of the pressure.

None of this, of course, applies on an individual level. Statistics never do, that's the nature of statistics. A study like this isn't out to prove that there's something wroing with your marriage. It simply is a way to highlight pitfalls to be aware of, something too many people like to ignore. I just wish the findings could have been presented better.

But there was no intention here to present it right. Maybe I just never see them, but these statstics and whatnot never seem to be presented with the intention to highlight potential pitfalls and perhaps help avoid them. They're presented as neener neener gotcha "proof" that working women are responsible for society's ills. Which always seems to go over gangbusters because it appears to confirm what so many already believe.

So I need to quit my job now or remain forever single. Bummer.

Which I acknowledged. But considering that it's pretty much a given that the public presentation of such studies are a load of crap, if it's something that interests me I find it no trick to look right through the b.s. and do what I can to find details on the actual study, not just read an article published about the study.

This guy's sensationalist headline was deservedly thrown out. But that doesn't mean the study itself doesn't have some valid points to glean. No sense throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Ouch. Disclaimer or not, I bristle at the notion that a woman would choose to raise kids because she's possesses less independence, vitality, integrity, strength, or motivation than a woman that chooses a career. Perhaps it could just be different priorities? I have my whole life to have a career. But I happen to feel that *my* kids will be better cared for, educated, nurtured, smarter, whatever because I'm choosing this time of their lives to be with them.

(Prudence, I hope you don't mind if I use you as an example.)

So how about Prudence's husband? Will he be have less integrity, strength, independence, vitality and motivation because he'll stay home with their kids? I'd wager not. Stay at home Dads generally get the, "you are so amazing for doing that comments." Yet it's just the same choice being made by a different gender.

Prudence and I actually share a lot of the same feelings regarding the issue. She obviously feels a great deal of pressure to conform to a more traditional role and experiences ridicule for her "different" choice. Whereas, I get the your-less-of-a-person looks from most people that find out I'm a stay at home mom.

You're going to find boring stay at home moms and boring career women. I don't think that a single life choice, albeit a major one, is an accurate assessment of one's personality.

As for the article, I'm not really sure it is easier for a one income family. Unless the one income is a large one, supporting an entire family on one income is probably just as much stress as being time crunched is.

Not at all.

I'm particularly sensitive to the issue because I do hope we can be a one income (or one-and-a-half income) family. I'm sure as hell not back in school for my health. If I can manage it, I'd like my kids to have the same benefit I had of a parent at home with them during the day. In that sense I'm quite traditional.

However, any discussion on the perils of a dual-income household tends, as this piece does, to focus on the female career as the superfluous one. And it's that attitude that keeps my paycheck smaller than men who are hired into similar positions, but with less experience or education. It's that attitude that helps keep teacher and librarian salaries low. (Nurses, thanks to a little help from aging baby boomers, are in short enough supply now that their salaries are on the rise.) Apparently I'm just working for pin money the mortgage will mysteriously pay itself.