Are the parents who are “dealing better” the ones who don’t work 9–5? You mom may have done better because she wasn’t working while raising kids. There are truly wonderful things about being home with the kids, but the issue is more one of math, as someone said — there are only so many hours in the day. People have to understand that if parents are doing 2–3–4 jobs at once now, their expectations for those parents should be reasonable.