There is definitely a toxic form of egalitarian - equalitarianism. I saw it happening in the gender debates a number of years back.
Gender ideology was intruding into online discussions more and more back about 20-25 years ago when I was embroiled in online slug fest. Yes, I am an idiot. Yes. I am often wrong. I am often trying to figure out and accurately represent what people are saying. I fail often. I am terribly annoying. Anyway...
Society is starting to see the very dark side of insisting that all are equal - as in the same - and even interchangeable.
Society is starting to see the very dark side of insisting that men are always right, or then that men are always wrong. We are also seeing the insanity of insisting that women are always right, or that women are always wrong. All of our experimenting with unhinged equality on the one hand and toxic hierarchy - male led or female led - on the other has been disastrous.
Complementarianism is a good thing. We are not the same. That fact is becoming more and more evident. We complement one another.
The Catholic Church recognizes male and female complementarity. *
If men decide to be women and women decide to be men, then what is the result? Chaos.
Complementarity, balance, love, respect, honor, submission, mutuality, equality, equilibrium, and more are all good. St. John Chrysostom got it right, IMO. Read his homilies on marriage and family life.
IMO, women who have children at home need to stay home to raise them. I know one family where sometimes the mother and father take turns working outside the home. One parent is always home with the children, though.
Schooling: IMO, homeschooling is a good option. So are Christian schools. I'm not a big fan of what is happening in our public schools right now. Each family must decide.
Work: Many good families do just fine with both parents working. Others do well with at least one parent working from home, generally part time.
I know other families where grandparents or even an aunt do childcare, keeping it all in the family.
My preference: I still think that the best option is parents raising their own children. I suppose that Christian values are the key no matter what. Seeking God's will.
There are many more options in our day for both work and schooling. No, it's not easy. The Catechism gives us godly guidelines.
*Catechism of the Catholic Church
2331 "God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image . . .. God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation,and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion." 115
"God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them"; 116 He blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply"; 117 "When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created." 118
2332 Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.
2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.
2334 "In creating men 'male and female,' God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity." 119"Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God." 120
2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." 121 All human generations proceed from this union. 122
2336 Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God's plan strictly: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." 123 What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. 124
The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as encompassing the whole of human sexuality.
