"What on earth is wrong with staying hOme and raising your own children (rather than someone else raise them) - why do so many women view this negatively? It is natural and normal to raise your children and children benefit frOm having a mother or father at home raising them if possible"
Aaaarrrgggghh. I'm going to be repeating myself from another thread, but I'm sorry, it has to be said.
Firstly, I agree with the OP and think it's incredibly presumptuous and downright ignorant to make sweeping statements about what other people's lives must be like. While nobody can really speak for anyone but herself, in my view there are valid points to be made on all sides of the issue about how difficult, rewarding, or important working outside home and/or staying at home with children can be.
What I really can't stand, though, is when people refer to childcare as someone else "raising" or "bringing up" or "rearing" a working mother's children.
Mothers and fathers (obviously there are exceptions, sometimes it's grandparents, foster parents etc.) are the ones who raise, bring up, and rear their children.
Day care providers and childminders are minding children for their parents, they aren't raising them. To be clear, I completely understand the idea of wanting to be a SAHM because you're reluctant to have the minder have such a large role / influence in your child's life, and because you don't want to miss out on precious time and milestones. I think that's a valid and important consideration.
But in my view, language matters, and to say that WOHMs are not raising, rearing, or bringing up their children is both insulting and just plain inaccurate.
From the age of 5 to the age of 18, most of our children will spend the bulk of their waking hours most days in the care of their teachers. Would we be happy to say that our children are being raised by a series of teachers? That we raised them just until they were five, and then the school did the rest? Of course not, because that would be ridiculous and terribly disrepectful of our irreplaceable position in our childrens' lives.
Raising your children goes beyond the quantity of time you spend in their physical presence. It means providing for them, being responsible for making the decisions (both short- and long-term) that affect their well-being, communicating your values and beliefs to them, and most importantly being committed to them and to their best interests from the moment they arrive to you all the way to adulthood, and beyond.
The question of whether one parent will stay home with the children or whether both will go out and work is a unique question for every single family, as unique as the circumstances and value systems that must inform the decision. So a parent who works outside home while I stay at home, or one who stays at home while I go out to work, has not answered the same question that I faced in a different way. S/he faced a different question entirely, and it is therefore not my place to judge her or to make assumptions about her life.
It is a decision that only the parents can make (if, of course, they're lucky enough that it comes down to choice). Like all major decisions about their children, it's the parents' place to make this one because they are the ones who are raising their children.