JEFFERSON CITY –I’ve gotten two e-mails regarding a story about a bill that would give a scholarship for stay-at-home moms but not dads.

The bill is HB498 sponsored by Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-O’Fallon.

Here are excerpts from each of the e-mails.

I recently became aware of Cynthia Davis’s house bill 498 which Establishes the Full-time Mother Scholarship Bonus Program to provide an education scholarship for tuition and books for any mother who has chosen to stay home to raise a child 15 years of age or younger”.

Since mentioning this in the at-home dad newsletter, the response has been strong from at-home dads who are not included in the bill. I have urged the dads in my network across the country to write to write her regarding their opinion.

From an open letter from Peter Baylies of The At-Home Dad Network to Davis

It seems that Ms. Davis has sponsored a bill that will provide a yearly tax credit for stay at home mothers.  While I applaud her recognition that parents who stay at home deserve compensation, she has left out what I feel is a key component of this bill.   It has come to my attention that she specifically wants to exclude stay at home fathers because we are “not good nurturers” and we are unequipped to give birth or breastfeed.  Those are her sole arguments for the exclusion.  I feel this deserves to be brought to the attention of the St. Louis area, as I have received lots of encouragement from friends and family to not only e-mail members of State Government but to make the local press aware of this as well.  While I don’t know many personally, I believe there are many stay at home fathers in this area, and I think they need to be made aware of this legislation.   Such discriminatory legislation needs to be brought to the attention of the community as well.

From Joe Akers of Oakville