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While many of the most active threads yesterday were ones about which I have already written, that was not the case with the most active thread overall. That thread was titled, "Are you offended when someone says they ‘didnt [sic] want someone else to raise my kids’?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster asked if the expression, "I didn't want someone else to raise my kids" is an appropriate response to questions about why one spouse chose to not to work out of the house or to work part time. This is a classic "work out of the house moms" vs "stay at home moms" debate. DCUM doesn't have these arguments as much as we used to, but — as this thread shows — they have not gone away completely. The fact that this thread generated 30 pages of discussion in just one day shows that this topic can still animate posters. After 20 years of reading variations of this dispute, I really have no interest in reading 30 pages, or even 3 pages about it. The fundamentals of the argument are well known. Some moms want to stay home and raise their children and they have the luxury of being able to make that choice. For these moms, being a stay at home mom is fulfilling and they enjoy it. If they are asked why they made that choice, responding by saying that this was something they wanted to do would be perfectly honest. I am not sure why anyone would object to such a response, but I expect that someone would anyway. Problems arise, however, if the responses is phrased some what differently. For instance, if they say that they wanted to be the one to raise their children or that they didn't want someone else to raise their children, it implies some amount of judgement that women who didn't make that choice didn't raise their children. Women who didn't stay home often find this implication rude or insensitive. Predictably, therefore, many posters respond to the original poster by saying that they are not necessarily offended by this expression, but that they do find it inappropriate. Moreover, these posters often go a step further and explain that they believe saying such a thing is revealing about the person who said it. For instance, it might indicate that the person has a myopic view of things or might be trying too hard to justify her own choice. A number of posters who did not stay home argue that they still raised their kids. While a nanny or daycare might have cared for their children for a few hours a day, the most important parenting decisions and involvement still came from the parents. The other side of this coin is the negativity with which work-out-of-the-house moms often view stay-at-home-moms. Remarks about staying at home not being intellectually rewarding or wasting an education or career are not uncommon and are often hurtful to moms who stay home. As a poster on the first page pointed out, the tables are turned in this debate once elementary school starts. Nobody accuses moms of having someone else raise their children when the kids are going to school. However, criticism of moms who continue to stay home can rapidly increase with suggestions that they are sitting home doing nothing while their kids are in school. The bottom line is that neither group likes to have its choice criticized. The more that everyone can learn to respect the choices of others and understand that people are different and have different priorities, the sooner we can get past threads like this. Mothers, and fathers, may take different paths, but they almost all have the same goal and are doing their best.