Reader comments
Orson Scott Card: Exceptions and expectations in the work force

Cat | 7:04 a.m. Sept. 10, 2009

Good point on expectations. However, where I live, I get just the opposite. Since I am the main support for our family, I often get excluded in my ward because I work. I have even been told that if I want to stay home with my kids so much, why don't I make my husband go and get a job that will support us. Like it's that easy. Most women in my area don't work outside the home or only work a few hours. I am constantly reminded of that by my visiting teachers when they want to visit me during the day and I remind them that I work. I constantly have to defend my choice to feed and clothe my family because my husband isn't able to do it.

The Truth Hurts Sometimes | 8:05 a.m. Sept. 10, 2009

Cats,

Maybe it's time to upgrade.

Mike | 10:05 a.m. Sept. 10, 2009

When we moved to Utah we needed a second income because I was starting over. My wife baby-sat for the next 22 years so she could be home while our children grew up. My married daughters work out of their homes because of the economy. Life is different than when we "baby-boomers" grew up. It's sad but that is life. You can still raise a great family and work it's just a matter of spending quality time with your kids and not just quantity time with them.

Comments continue below

Rodrigo | 10:32 a.m. Sept. 10, 2009

Working mothers are sadly not there to supervise, teach, and love their little ones who require the constant coddling wing and voice of a mother to show them their first lessons in life. The Latch-key kids are more likely to grow up ill mannered, emotionally unstable, lacking confidence or virtue, and with diminished love of country. I believe working mothers to be a primary cause to the growing effeminacy and weakness of the American male population and a contributor to the degeneracy of the American culture. Strong sons only come from strong mothers. How can they when they only see the mother for a few hours a day? I don't blame today's women though. Women must work because with two breadwinners families barely scrape by today. Soon it will require the entire family to work to scrape by, such as is seen in third world countries. It is a sign of the rapidly weakening economic power of the United States, a trend that will continue until we are at equilibrium with the third world. Motherhood is the crowning jewel of humanity. Its too bad we are losing it as our country and all Western Civilization backslides.

Cat | 11:04 a.m. Sept. 10, 2009

To Truth Hurts Sometimes : Upgrade what? My husband, my neighborhood, what?

Lyle | 11:22 a.m. Sept. 10, 2009

You people are astounding! Unsupported assertions, built upon false premises and stereotypes, heaped upon bigotry and self-aggrandizing pride, thoroughly saturated with inaccurate and offensive stereotypes, then sprinkled with a heavy topping of superstition!

There is nothing more or less "godly" about a woman working "outside the home" or not. Individuals in individual situations must make individual decisions that ultimately cannot be judged by anyone else.

And don't even get me started with the hypocrites who pride themselves on "following the Prophet" (Benson) by being stay at home moms, but they run several businesses from home! Like that somehow give you more righteous quality time with your kids than the woman who puts in 40+ at the office?

In my experience, the stay at home moms are overprotective and paranoid, and so their children grow up being socially awkward, judgmental of others, and tend toward over-reacting to everything.

How do you like those generalization?

Mike | 1:08 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

Re: Lyle-it is the working mom who is the one who spoils her kids so she won't feel guilty about not being there.

Anonymous | 1:32 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

Cats,

Both.

That's How I Roll | 1:38 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

Lyle,

Are you gay? Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Steve | 1:41 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

I was raised in a family where my mom worked and my dad had two jobs, the mine and the farm, just to get by. My brother and I both worked the farm to help the family. Lyle hits the nail on the head. Times change and we adapt.
Rodrigo misses the point that Bro. Card is putting out. Lack of "Real Fathers" in the home is very often the problem. Dads who work for all the toys and marginalize the time with family. Dads who prefer their golf time to time spent raising their children. Boys learn to be men from their father if he knows how to be one himself.
We won't be known in the hereafter by the job we had, our profession, how much we made or how many posessions we had. We will be known by what type of husband, father, mother, wife or friend we were.

Mike | 4:09 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

Steve and Lyle seem to have had parent problems. Parents can work and raise good famlies, it is all in the TIME and QUALITY of time that parents give to their kids. You can be a full time dad or mom and still not be a good parent.

Can't Have It Both Ways | 4:35 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

So Bro. Card wants moms to stay home, but he also wants dads to work fewer hours. And we'll live where? drive what? eat what? retire on what? Church welfare??? Wonder how much he pulls down a year. It kills me when well-to-do Mormons try to tell the rest of us tithing-paying schmoes out here in the real world how we should be managing our households. All of the recession survival tips you see on TV these days reflect how we have been living our whole lives on my husband's full-time job and my on-and-off part-time home-to-meet-the-bus income. We have been married almost 25 years w/ three kids in college and one who is disabled. As I write this, we have less than 1/3 of a year's worth of retirement savings, a couple hundred in regular savings, and $80 in checking the night before payday. Don't you dare tell me, Brother Card, that I'm wrong to work when I can or that my husband should have passed up coaching opportunities that bought diapers and formula in our baby days.

Personal Injury Attorney | 5:00 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

My advice to Cat and others is to make sure your husband gets an education that will enable you to stay at home. For example, I know hundreds of Personal Injury Attorneys in Utah and not a single one of their wives has to work outside the home.

People need to buckle down and get an education that will guarantee that their wives can remain at home with the children. It's not rocket science folks.

the truth | 5:48 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

IT all comes down to how much you value "things" over that which is of real value and import.

can we live with less "stuff"?

Yes, but most of us are unwilling,

and like the rich young man go away sorrowful.

JAYEG | 9:09 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

Re: Personal Injury Attorney

I suggest you stick with advising people regarding personal injuries and leave off advising Cat or anyone else about what they should or should not do in regards to anything else in their personal lives.

Have you ever considered the fact that not everyone is suited for college, nor will all ever be capable of 'making the grade' in order to obtain the kind of career necessary to allow for the wife to stay at home?

JAYEG | 9:12 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

Fact...I have known many stay at home LDS moms who had no business trying to raise kids in the first place. I've seen a LOT of such women who resented their children, and even their husbands although they would be the first to deny it.

And I have also known many working, non LDS moms who managed to raise fantastic children.

Successful motherhood is not limited to stay at home LDS moms.

JAYEG | 9:19 p.m. Sept. 10, 2009

Re: Cat...those in your Church which have deigned to judge you regarding your employment are not living the teachings of the Lord they profess to worship.

All any of us can do in this life is our best. Regardless of our circumstances. The Creator knows our hearts, and only HE can or SHOULD judge.

And I have no doubt that as HE watches you, HE is filled with pride at your strength, your courage and your fortitude in doing what you have to do to assist in providing for your family regardless of what your Church peers might believe.

I also imagine that as HE watches those who would judge you, or presume to try to make you feel guilty somehow for the choices you have made out of necessity...HE will not take pride in their behavior.

hbeckett | 12:24 a.m. Sept. 11, 2009

thank you for the article, we each must do what we can as our circumstances allow. We are not all cut of the same cloth nor are we given the same talents. Each will follow the pull of his/her needs.

Cat | 7:24 a.m. Sept. 11, 2009

To Anonymous (The Truth Hurts Sometimes): So you would have me divorce because there's someone out there that's willing and able to support a 40+ year old woman with 6 kids. Because divorce is always the answer when you don't get what you want in another person. As for moving - would love to but can't seem to find someone who would buy my house and then find one that I could afford. It will be paid for in 5 years.

to Personal Injury Attorney: How about you pay the tution for my husband to return to school. Also provide the tutors for him since he's severly dsylexic and really struggles in school. Also while you're at it, how about throw in some extra money for his diabetes medicine and the two cataract surgies that he has to have because of genetics.

To JAYEG: Thanks for the kind words. I try to not take people too seriously. I try and look on it as a challenge to rise above it. Somedays, I'm better at it then others. You're kind words help. Thanks.

Personal Injury Attorney | 10:14 a.m. Sept. 11, 2009

Excuses, excuses, excuses. Anyone can do (or be) anything they want. This is America, the free. People with all sorts of disabilities and limitations succeed everyday despite those limitations.

This life is what you make of it. If you want to be to be happy and support your family in such a manner that your wife doesn't have to work, then it is up to you to get off your fanny and make it happen.

Cat | 10:37 a.m. Sept. 11, 2009

To Personal Injury Attorney: Yes this is America.Yes we are all free to a point. I'm pretty sure that I'm never going to be a Michael Jordan, or a Marie Osmond. My talents don't lie in that direction. I'm happy that your life has apparently been unaffected by disability and that you had the support you needed to achive what you wanted in life. Not everyone is given that. I would love to show you why things are the way they are in my life, but I can also see that you would have little compassion for someone who doesn't do what you think they should do. It would be of little use to talk to you. If my husband was missing limbs or had cancer, you might have more sympathy and understanding. My husband is a good dad and kind person who tries hard despite physical, mental disability. Some women who stay home don't even have that.

Personal Injury Attorney | 12:00 p.m. Sept. 11, 2009

To Cat 10:37 a.m.,

I wasn't addressing my comment to you. I don't even know why you are or anything about you. Sorry if you were offended, but I wasn't even talking to you.

To Personal Injry Attorney | 12:34 p.m. Sept. 11, 2009

I really hope you're not a real Personal Injury Attorney, your lack of compassion or understanding will make you go broke.

Personal Injury Attorney | 2:00 p.m. Sept. 11, 2009

Let's just say that I am seriously thinking of retiring this winter and I am only 46 years old. I have more than enough to last me my lifetime thanks to my educational and occupational choices and my living well within my means. Don't envy, it's bad for you.

To Personal Injury Atty | 5:41 p.m. Sept. 11, 2009

Don't boast. It's bad for you.

Mom First | 12:27 p.m. Sept. 16, 2009

Mr. Card's point of view is colored by his wife's experience, i.e., she felt there was an expectation from inside the church that she should work outside the home because she made the decision not to work. Had she decided to work outside the home, she would have felt that there was an expectation from inside the church that she should not work. Any caring, devoted parent continually questions and analyzes their decisions and the affects those decisions have on each stage of child rearing and is willing to change their course direction if such a change is necessary for the happiness and success of their children and family. I respect Mr. Card's effort to understand what women grapple with; but, I frankly do not think that he, regardless of how devoted and caring he is as a father and husband, can fully comprehend the judgment that women feel on either side of the work issue. Unfortunately, I find Mr. Card's column only serves to widen the divide between moms by suggesting that his wife's choice is the best choice and the only way to be "devoted to [your] children."

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