1) The title of your article, which may have been referring to Tsing Loh’s view, but I thought was referring to your own opinion that we should go back to a pre-feminist, woman-at-home structure.

2) “Traditionalists won’t win the marriage wars; many women, especially those in the professions, will stay in the workforce, and many children will be raised in daycare.” from your Jon and Kate article, which gives the assumption that it would have to be women, not men, that stay home if traditionalists could have their way.

3) Your comment about men & women sharing domestic duties, which again somewhat gives the impression you’d want to go back to the old way, pre-feminism. Actually, no matter who works, I don’t really understand how anyone could make a case against sharing domestic duties. It just seems like common decency. Tsing Loh just sounds hard to get along with in general, to me.

I commend you on your arrangement, and I hope that my wife and I can work out a similar setup when we decide to have kids. Unfortunately, economic circumstances often make it hard for people to do that. But as you’ve said elsewhere, if it’s a matter of a bigger house or someone staying home with the kids, I agree it should be the latter.

And I also agree that government should encourage efforts for parents to stay at home, especially in the early years. I would definitely support efforts for us to become more family friendly like Europe with child allowances, paid maternity leave, and health care.

The true numbers on divorce are hard to find, since the National Center for Health stopped collecting detailed data from states in 1996. I’ve heard 15 to 25 percent of 1st marriages get divorced, but it’s definitely not the 1 in 2 number always cited in alarming tones by the media. I think the best way to prevent divorce is not making divorce harder or bringing back its stigma, but to encourage people not to marry young (aka use birth control) and to be selective when they do marry.

I don’t think those groups are hypocrites. I was just trying to say that this finger pointing at feminists and liberals as the cause of the breakdown of the American family doesn’t jibe with the statistical record. I particularly don’t like feminism being blamed, as its made the lives of women all over the world freer and richer – like my wife, who wouldn’t have been able to be a minister prior to those walls being knocked down. She may still want to stay home with the kids one day, but she appreciates being given the choice.

Your assumption is in fact wrong. The best arrangement for children, and arguably for both the husband and wife, is for one parent to stay home. Our family does a version of this. I take care of my daughters two days a week and my wife one day. Call it neo-traditionalist. But consider that many women, especially middle- and working class women would prefer to stay home with their children. By my lights, government policy should encourage them to do so, not to mention their husbands.

Two in five first marriages fail. Is that a vast majority? I don’t think so. Far too many children are scarred by divorce and grow up in homes without a father present.

It is true that Baptists and Southerners divorce more than others. But it’s also true of blacks and Hispanics, two groups that are rarely called conservative. Does those four groups’ expressed concern about family breakdown make them hypocrites. Maybe. But it also means they are looking for government to help them out.

Divorce rates are highest in the Bible belt (Baptists, to specific) and among those who marry young. I’m guessing those aren’t bastions of gender equality within marriage.

The lowest rates of divorce:

- are in the liberal Northeast (the lowest being brie-elitist John Kerry’s state, MA)

- are held by atheists/agnostics

- college-educated women with a separate income have a divorce rate fully half that of women who marry young and depend on their husband financially.

So, this is yet another example of conservative jawboning about family values running smack dab into actual statistics demonstrating conservative incompetence in the area of family values. A classic case of protesting too much, methinks.

The whole hysteria about the divorce rate is silly anyways. It’s been going down since the 80’s and has always been wildly skewed by people on their second and third marriages. The vast majority of first marriages are permanent.

* I’m assuming this is what Mark means. It’s always obliquely hinted at, and I’ve never heard him suggest that the man should be the one to stay at home.

I don’t know what people think will be gained by other people staying in relationships that no longer work for them (leaving aside cases where minor children are involved). Where is it written that marriage is the be all and end off of the human condition?

Seriously I’m not getting where you’re going with this.