‘Who Will Be Taking Care of the Children?’

Re “At-Home Moms Risk Later Impoverishment,” Commentary, Nov. 8: I was really upset after reading this commentary by Caryl Rivers. I am a stay-at-home mom who does not feel that I am less educated than others who are in the work force and so must stay at home with my children. I choose to stay at home and raise my two children because I do not want a stranger raising them. I don’t want to leave them alone with a sitter, not knowing what takes place in my house or another facility. There are too many caregivers not taking care of children properly, leaving them alone in cars, beating them or ignoring them.

I know being at home with my children is the best for them and me. There are plenty of smart and educated mothers working from home and making their own money. Take a poll on that.

LESLIE WASSERMAN

Los Angeles

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I read Rivers’ column with some curiosity. Rivers reports on census statistics showing that stay-at-home moms are less educated and thus are more economically vulnerable to later impoverishment. According to this data, 68% of college-educated women who’ve had children in the past year are already back at work. Presumably, people somewhere, most likely women, with a good deal less education than the professional moms themselves are now taking care of those children.

Rivers concludes by saying that young girls from poor and working-class families must stay in school in order to secure their future well-being, the means to which would be well-educated, well-paid professional lives.

What puzzles me is this: Who will be taking care of the children of all the professional moms in that grand and glorious age when all American women manage to become highly educated professionals?

LAUREL HALL

La Habra