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Come live in Ireland. The average house price is somewhere in the region of £120,000. That's for a semi-detached modest three bedroomed home.

It takes TWO incomes to finance a mortgage of that size, because the average wage is in or around £20,000. I happen to earn more than that. But if I fall in love with a guy earning less money than me, I'd marry him, if he is the `right' guy. But I would like to have a roof over the heads of my 'potential' children. So why shouldn't I work to do that.

Your argument is void. You are thinking black and white. There are so many grey areas here.

My father lost his job during the recession years in Ireland. My mother (god rest her soul) scrubbed floors the length and breadth of this town to make sure my brother and I got on. Both of us, are now, through her efforts, both fully qualified professional people.

Yeah, my Mam could have stayed at home and brushed my hair and stuff. But she went out and did what had to be done to make sure that her kids, had what she didn't have...a damn good education.

You trying to intimate that MY MOTHER wasn't a lady for doin' that? Damn sure she was. The classiest woman you would ever meet!

So, no! I make no apologies for saying that the sweeping generalisations in the posted article are nothing but...as they say in Ireland...horseshite! (oops, not a very ladylike word...but then, you wouldn't expect anything better from me, would ye?!)

In the U.S., we kill a million unborn children a year, have two million divorces annually, a quarter of all children are born out of wedlock, half don't have two parents, only a quarter have a parent at home when growing up. And we are the richest society in the history of the world. Sugarcoat it anyway you like, it is a running scandal. Working out of necessity, to avoid the streets, is not the same thing as half the society putting wealth ahead of family, which is exactly what is going on. Try denouncing patriarchy to a privileged, college age young woman who has never seen her father. It doesn't go very far.

You trying to intimate that MY MOTHER wasn't a lady for doin' that? Damn sure she was. The classiest woman you would ever meet!

The true measure of femininity is what a woman will do for those in her care (most typically her children and, to a lesser extent, her husband). By the sound of it, your mother was willing to go through an awful lot of work for your benefit; that sure makes her sound like a lady to me.