Aside from the typical organizational problems of dual-income families ("Honey, it's your turn to pick up Betty Sue from ballet today. I picked her up at gymnasics yesterday!" ... What does this do to Betty Sue's self-esteem, when her parents don't even want to handle their basic duties to her?!), working mothers create all sorts of problems outside the home!

Wa-ay back when, when more mothers stayed home with the children, life in the United States, in general, was less complicated. Things only seemed to get hairy once women entered the work force in large droves. Okay, sure, you can place the blame on the highly-technical world in which we live (but wait! was it not the job of technology to make our lives easier?!), but I believe mothers in the work force also contribute to the complications we all deal with nowadays.

First, I will start with the highway and road problem: congestion. The roads on which we drive, for the most part, were not designed yesterday. They were designed and built about 50 years or so ago. Hence, they were created when most families had one parent (the father) driving their one car to work.

Now, there are many more women (mothers) working. I believe this is where the traffic congestion, the grid lock, the bumper-to-bumper problems started. Most families now have two cars, both of which are driven every day with only the driver in them. The roads were not built to handle this kind of traffic!

Gas prices now (2001) are at an all-time high and are expected to reach more than $3 a gallon this summer! Supply and demand, folks, that's all it is. Theoretically, if all working moms were to quit work ... there'd be less demand for gasoline and guess what? They'd have to lower prices! Even if prices did not drop, families would still not spend as much on gas with just one parent working. Families would have less need to buy gas for two cars. Some, of course, would get rid of their second car altogether. Others, like us, who kept their second car, would drive less. For example, I went from being a working mom who drove more than 1,500 miles a month (and bought gas at least twice a week) to an at-home mom who drives less than 6,000 miles a year, and I now buy gas about once a month!

Along this same line of thinking, if all the mothers in today's world up and quit work, there would be a huge problem in the economy. Jobs would be vacant, work would not get done. Families would not need two cars, so they would try to sell one -- and no one would be buying since all families would be doing the same thing. Let's be honest here: On one income, families would not be able to afford to keep their way of life the same and they would have to cut expenses. Hence, the economy would "suffer" because of the lack of buying power in families.

So, society encourages women (mothers) to work -- and the government encourages mothers to work. Related to this point is the fact that in 1998, the US federal government considered a proposal by then-President Bill Clinton on subsidizing day care.

This is government at its worst: with its nose in my business, trying to manipulate families. By subsidizing families with both parents working, by subsidizing or giving those families tax breaks because of the money they spend on day care, the government is only encouraging both parents to work. (And using taxes from our one income to pay for it, no less!) Who gives money to day care centers in this proposed bill? The "government" would, right? Wrong: tax payers, you and me; one income families as well! So who's caring for the kids? The government? Not exactly, but government would have more say on how children are cared for, what they're exposed to, what they are supposed to learn.

Whose job is it really to care for children?

The most serious problem I feel working women (mothers) have created is a generation (or more) of children who were raised by day care workers, baby-sitters and after-school-care program supervisors, rather than their parents. Why is this a problem? Because mommy and daddy were not around to tell little Junior that certain actions are right and wrong in this world. These children have no morals or values on which to base their thinking or actions. Their own parents' actions have shown them that they, as children, weren't worth as much as mom or dad's career or golf game. Their parents weren't around enough to set good examples. Thus, children feel outcast, perhaps; at least they are more independent at younger ages, because they have been forced to be so by their absent parents. They never had parental love, so they go looking for the wrong kinds of love elsewhere.

Lack of parental supervision is also at the root of the education problem today. Test scores are dropping. Literacy rates are declining. Teachers are "teaching to the proficiency test" rather than truly educating children with real facts and skills. Grades are dumbed down. Expectations are lowered so that all children can achieve a "norm" rather than have many strive to be above average.

If parents were around, they would see their children are not learning what they should be and more problems would be caught in time. Instead, kids are being promoted to the next grade in school, despite that they can not even read or write. I have an acquaintance who is a teacher in one of our county's top suburban school districts. She has told me that, as a second grade teacher, she has known a high number of children who did not know their ABCs or 123s, shapes, colors and that did not possess simple first-grade skills! Both my children knew their ABCs, 1-20, shapes, colors and could write their names before they were 3 years old -- because I was around to teach them!

If parents were around, they would be more involved with the state of the schools to which their children go; they would have a say on what materials are taught, what books their children read. If parents were around, they'd know what little Junior was doing after school on his computer or in the basement with his friends.

A parent's number one priority is their children!

The climbing divorce rate at the end of the 20th century might also be related to working mothers. Think about it. When mothers started working, divorce rates escalated. Parents were more stressed, since both of them were out of the comfort of the home for nine or more hours a day. There was not only the stresses of home life -- raising kids, housework, meals, upkeep on the home -- but there were the added stresses of a two-working parent household: getting the kids to day care or school, getting them home and to their now-numerous activities and practices, both parents having job-related stresses that carry over to their home life, etc.

With all this work-related stress on both mom and dad, and their lack of time together because of the conflicting job schedules, no wonder divorce rates climbed! Add to that the lure of the opposite sex in the work place -- men and women both are tempted into extramarital affairs by their co-workers. (Sure, dad may have been tempted if he was the one income-earner, but with mom in the work force, that's a 100-percent increase a job-related affair could happen!) Since parents spend more time away from home, at work and at work-related functions, and spend more time with the coworkers than with their families and spouses, who is more convenient to talk to, to spend time with, to "release stress" with? Coworkers.

Yes this is all speculation on my part; I don't deny it. However, all my comments and thoughts are based upon years of hearing about this or that study, this government census result, etc., as well as some of my own research in 1998 of government statistics on working parents, divorce statistics, department of transportation statistics and more.

To help society get out of the various problems mentioned above, I call for more mothers to consider staying home. It can be done -- and it can be done easily with planning and effort. It's the most important action a parent can do: to better not only the immediate world around their children, but to help start making drastic changes in our society!

* Excerpted and modified from my manuscript (work-in-progress) for at-home parents. May not be reproduced without express written consent of the author.