Joseph, I guess I’m getting stuck on the Rambam saying that ideally a woman should leave her home no more than twice a month. Since I need to leave my house almost every day to take care of the aformentioned tasks, and most of my friends with similarly-sized families have schedules like mine, I don’t see how most women can meet this ideal. I was asking about ideas on how to accomplish this.
And in my experience a task performed with a child in tow tends to be more “public” than the same task performed alone. For example, grocery shopping with my children takes longer & involves more interaction with others (e.g., due to bathroom breaks) than grocery shoppping alone. I am comfortable with this because this allows me to spend more time with my children & model correct public behavior, which I consider to be a higher priority at this time than minimizing my time spent outside the home. But the quotes above seem to imply that this is not correct.
This is not to say that I disagree with the Rambam C”V. I’m just confused about how these statements apply to the everyday lives of myself & most of the frum women I know, given the daily tasks we perform. And the questions I’ve been asking have been an attempt to find an answer to this.