As I am frequently too lazy to do any real reporting, let me thank Amy for the wonderful work she has done getting to the core of what University of Texas prof. Gretchen Ritter really thinks. (Last week, I pointed to an op-ed she wrote arguing that at-home moms were generally a bad thing.) Amy queried her on her view of at-home fatherhood; here is the back and forth (as posted in the comments section of last week's entry):

AMY: "My question for you: Would you say that the stay-home dad movement is also harmful? While it doesn't carry the gendered-role freight SAHMhood does, and doesn't have quite the same revival-tent air that the current Passion of the Mother does, it also requires a father to largely give up his career and public life 'at least temporarily', and it raises the other problems you note with SAHMhood."

RITTER: "You've divided the issue exactly right as far as I can tell. There are two different things that I take issue with on the stay-at-home mother movement - one concerns gender roles, and the other concerns the absence of balance between work, community, and family. The stay at home father trend certainly is a positive thing on the first issue - it suggests that men, too, can be engaged and accomplished caregivers. As for the second issue goes, I do think that all adults should try to contribute across these three realms, but it does not necessarily need to be a one third, one third, one third proposition at any given moment in time. What's most important is that we make a life time commitment to care for those who are dependent upon us, but to also give our talents & skills to the public."

Amy's offers some analysis on the end of Ritter's note: "The last part of the reply is a bit waffly, I think, but I suspect it translates to "Apart from the gender-role business, being an SAHD is as harmful as being an SAHM -- both to themselves and to society -- if SAHDs cloister themselves with their children to the extent many SAHMs do, taking no interest in the world outside Kinder, Kuche and Kirche."

Following Amy's line of thought gets the root of why Ritter so effectively pissed so many people off. Let's be honest: at-home parents spend a lot of time "giv[ing] our talents & skills to the public." We do it through volunteering, through community organizations and through -- hello! -- childrearing. Degrading the importance of those activities, particularly the challenge of raising thoughtful, caring kids, doesn't make for a particularly compelling argument about what is best for society.