Interesting article because if I was a woman with a child or children I would like an equality of choice between getting money for childcare and keeping the money myself when I provide the childcare: that is being a housewife. I found this article of particular relevance to me having been a househusband for 20 years. There is a lovely quote by a woman, "A self-aware housewife is a rebel against the constraints of the market". This is just yet another of these tiny social and economic signs that keep cropping up that people living their lives in the way they want to without actively campaigning for or going against the prevailing social order, effect social change, because indeed they are social change: they embody it.

Over 25 years ago I read a book called "Gender" by Ivan Illich who examined these issues in the context of what a housewife does as being work and what it would cost to replace the full range of services a housewife offers. The distinction being that economic work is the only one that society values whereas social work i.e. that done by a housewife is not valued and is poorly understood in terms of its economic contribution. Interesting stuff. I am going to read Gender again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20222752