Debating whether staying at home or working is missing the point entirely, because it assumes that every parent does in fact have a choice. Despite the fact that the decision on whether or not a parent stays at home with a child or works usually has to be based upon financial or outside influences, the decision is defended as “what is best for the child.” Both mothers who work and mothers who stay at home are often forced to do so because of financial or other constraints, yet both will defend their situation as one of their own choosing.

Most of us do not want to admit that we do not have much control over our lives, especially when it comes to parenting decisions. But the reality is that we do not live in a society where every family is well-off enough to have one parent quit earning income. The idea that mothers who have to work are somehow choosing money over our children is fallacious: most mothers work because they have to make money in order to provide for their children. Most of these mothers will also tell you that they want to work, and that this is “best for their children.”

Some mothers who stay at home do so because their family is well-off and they have no desire to work, but other factors can cause this situation. If the parent who stays at home would not make much money working, then it makes more financial sense for that parent to stay at home and care for it and the children than it would for that parent to take a job that would not cover the expense of daycare and cleaning. Other parents are trained in careers that would require long hours or travel, and the choice is made between working at this type of job and seeing their family. These “choices” in fact are mostly out of the parents hand: they could choose to take a job that would ensure that they never saw their family or that wouldn’t even pay for the cost of daycare, but then the working parent could also “choose” not to support the family. Yet, most of these parents will defend staying at home as the “choice” that was “best for the children.”

The time has come to stop the debate! Making someone else feel bad for a situation they do not really control is unacceptable, especially when the ones criticizing are just trying to make themselves feel better about a situation out of their own control. While it might seem empowering to take control by claiming that most of us have choice about whether or not to stay at home, we are missing the real concern: what is “best for the children.”

Stay at home parents and working parents face different choices about their children. We should concentrate on determining which of those choices is “best for they children,” rather that studying and debating the work vs. stay at home question. The debate is irrelevant because it is a situation that will not be soon changed: some families cannot have a parent at home, and some families cannot have both parents work. Let’s skip the debate about this fact, and concentrate on helping parents figure out “what’s best for the children,” no matter what the family’s working situation.