apparently

Sure, my stay at home friends and I occasionally marvel at the families with two working parents, but really we all know that the best thing varies for different folks. I think everyone that stays at home with kids knows that it is a very hard task, and that respect should be paid when people state that they couldn't do it.

The real system of comparison between various parents depends on a number of factors:

1. The age of the youngest child.

This is the biggest factor, especially the first 5 years or so. I always let people with babies in front of me, and try to even make lasagna for them. I always accept graciously kindness from people when their youngest is more than two years old. If people have a two year old, I'll be happiest if we can take turns or alternate.

2. The number of kids.

With two children, I fantasize about how easy it must be to move through the day with only one child's priorities and schedules to manage, and I go to people with 3 or 4 kids for advice. Really, anyone with four kids I regard as a superior being before whom I can only bow in respect.

3. Parenting Styles

Also a factor is something that might be called "parenting styles" although really the important factor is "parenting worries." If someone is very scheduled, and I'm easy going, I can adapt to their schedule just fine. "Eat now, ok, that's cool." If I have my kid in a sling but they have theirs all strapped down, that doesn't really impede the adult conversation. But if I've told my kid 500 times that we can't climb on a certain wall, but we can hold sticks if they are kept low, and the other parent plays climbing games on that wall and yells every time a stick is touched, it's not going to work out.

4. Rules

There's also infinite gradations among parents regarding what rules make sense. For example, playing together means you have to have consistent policies about what determines when a turn with a toy is over. In my house, if you set it down, your turn is over, but some people have a principle of asking if a turn is over if the toy is still sitting near the kid that last played with it. Similar dichotomies exist for what can be thrown (just balls? all balls? just soft balls? just not at people? we've taught them catch already?) and what can be climbed on (nothing? things meant for climbing? things not meant for climbing but not too dangerous?). Even whether or not a turn with a toy must end when another kid uses words to ask for the toy. If you ask my kids, "How many minutes before my turn?" I will intervene to make sure you get a turn before too long. Not everyone does that (so if my kids play with their kids, eventually their kids have all the best toys, because they can get the toys from mine but not vice versa.)

4. Support of Partners

The helpfulness of the "other parent." For at home parents, this scale starts out with the great thanks that we are able to spend this time and attention on something so important, but it ranges from "they do the paid work and I do all the other work" to comments from others at a playgroup like: "Wow, your [husband/wife/spouse/partner] is awesome! They [get up at night/juggle/do the laundry/put on the Wizard of Oz in a puppet theater/let you out once a week]! What a hero!" This factor isn't one that's known so easily as the others, but over time people figure it out. Oddly, there are people that I've talked to for hundreds of hours, and never heard one word about the mysterious figure that they are partnered to. I assume that puts them on the "I do all the unpaid work" end of the category, but that's just a guess. And of course there's the single parents.

5. Happiness

The healthiness of the family. This ranges from those quasi-mythical people that had happy childhoods and are able with their partners to raise happy children in a consistent, calm and warm manner to people with normal degrees of tiredness and crabbiness (you know, a bit of yelling in the late afternoon, the disagreements between partners about what's important), all the way down to more troubled families, often nice and smart but with some ongoing emotional stressors that really count as a part time job or something in terms of energy, and then down to actually abusive families. The tricky thing with this factor is that small children are themselves fairly stressful. I've known a few cases where I'd see someone angry hundreds of times in a row (never happy), and then a few years later, with bigger kids (the youngest being grown a bit, as in factor #1), the parents were happy and laughing and the kids seemed connected to the parents and all was well.

6. Somewhere in the list goes "money" of course. You can't trade travel tips if people are flying to the islands and you are driving to Myrtle Beach. Do you need a tip on how to buy a cheap used stroller or on which $700 stroller is really worth it? Is someone likely to swap baby-sitting during the mornings or have a good lead on an au pair? Everyone recognizes the convenience of being richer than we are, and really most stay at home parents around here are among the richest people ever in the history of humanity, but still there's just no point in getting a shopping tip from someone with a vastly different budget.

So for any task except the op-ed pages, the work vs. non-work status just doesn't matter. If you want to understand who you are seeing at the music class or park, you have to delve much deeper.