In my stuff to read entry from last night I cited the following --
Why is there an Epidemic of Depression?

I want to first make it clear that this is an excellent post and I agree with it but I did want to add my two cents on a particular passage:

Our grandparents had comfortable spiritual furniture to sit in when they failed… big families, community, God, church, etc. Younger people’s spiritual furniture is threadbare. We believe we can make it in the world without spiritual sustenance and the support of a close-nit family and community.

To a degree I agree that our cultures worship of "independence" causes a great deal of stress in our lives and a lack of dependence on anything outside of ourselves. This is particularly troubling for a Christian who is most certainly supposed to be greatly dependant on God. Part of that dependence is one of making contacts with other Christians and taking part in community. My wife has often said that "I don't see how people make it through life if they are not a Christian." I think however, some of this lack of dependence on family and especially community is thrust upon us unwillingly.

Take for example the situation of my wife and countless other stay at home moms (SAHM's) in the world. Baton Rouge is a working town. Everyone over the age of 18 works. Period. This leads to situations like with our previous neighborhood where you have both parents working in every home and few if any SAHM's. My wife has been involved with various playgroups, some city wide, and encountered only a handful of moms and most of them had short term plans to return to work. The net result is that their careers have impacted the possibility of developing long term relationships with other mothers who do raise their children at home. As a result, the "support network" for the SAHM, especially one who happens to have a lot of kids, is virtually non-existent. Only recently have we discovered some of these other hidden mothers, toiling away in their homes to exactly zero fanfare.

The ethic of our society is one of "leaving a societal legacy" ... The idea is that we are defined by our careers and not by our families. Most people want to invent the next television, or be the next famous athlete, or write the next great expose on a president. They want people to know what they "did" with their lives. The idea of taking on raising seven kids seems mind-bogglingly insignificant to most people, but it IS vitally important to the future of this nation. I can tell you that there are teachers who were important to my life. I learned a lot from them and they shaped who I am. None of them compare to the impact my mother has had on my life. She was there. When I skinned my knee in 2nd grade, she was there before I even made it to the nurses station. She was there when I walked in the door from school and she was always ready to know how good or bad my day was. A LOT of my emotional development came from knowing I had SOMEONE who was there.

I don't want to go down the path of blaming working moms for the increase in depression in families. We are blessed we even have the choice to have mom stay at home. It isn't the fault of working moms so much as it is the reality of our current culture which is based on generations of bad choices. You cannot afford a comfortable home for raising a large family in this nation unless you are in the upper half of household incomes. It is hard to even find a 4+ bedroom home in our area. I can tell you now that insurance for lots of kids, especially with maternity is next to impossible to fit into any budget. Most people can get there if they add two incomes together and cut back on having children -- especially getting that maternity off the insurance. Our society is perfect for the economy. It works out for the corporations who have their worker bees. It works out for the families who can provide for the increasingly expensive lives ... it even generates work by making necessary large numbers of day-care centers. In reality, however, our generation is not as well off as our parents. In order to have our higher standard of living that the previous generation told us we "deserved" we have to sacrifice time at home and relationships with other parents for careers.

Its depressing for those who make that choice when they have it and it is even more depressing for those who have no choice and suffer the consequences of the choices already made. Trust me ... We all try to handle our depression the "old school" way but there isn't anyone there. Their cell-phone goes off and they just have to get back to work. We all try to meet new parents with similar goals -- or heck, just any parents with kids will do. The depression is greatly fueled by the reality of being shot down at every attempt to garner some support in a world that is just simply very hostile to family life.