My experience is just the opposite. By sheer virtue of being in (a) academia (where taking three years off of work means you probably have to move when you're ready to work again), (b) a community college (and thus a lower prestige level of academia), and (c) a composition teacher (a field that tends to attract women for reasons that are reeeeeeally bound up in lots of prestige and patriarchy issues), I am surrounded by working mothers. So I have lots of examples of mothers who not only work full time, but like me, placed their children in daycare very, very early.* There are a few who manage to postpone or avoid daycare because the fathers are also academics or similar fields with flexible schedules, but mostly, we're all kind of in the same boat. And meanwhile, very few of the dads make enough for their wives to stay home full time.
So, actually, the stay-at-home mom is something of a rarity in my social circle. Friends without kids, those I got, but most of the moms I know locally work outside the home. This works out nicely in the sense that I have friends who share my experience. OTOH, since my schedule is flexible, and my friends like lydiabell work a regular work week, I am often sad that she can't, say, join us with her little girl to go see Brave. Nor, to be blunt, do I have much in the way of emergency support. I have wa and her mother, but they have their own obligations, and it has at times gotten kind of scary.
*Hey, it lowers their chances of getting leukemia! Who knew?
Icon used ironically
My experience is just the opposite. By sheer virtue of being in (a) academia (where taking three years off of work means you probably have to move when you're ready to work again), (b) a community college (and thus a lower prestige level of academia), and (c) a composition teacher (a field that tends to attract women for reasons that are reeeeeeally bound up in lots of prestige and patriarchy issues), I am surrounded by working mothers. So I have lots of examples of mothers who not only work full time, but like me, placed their children in daycare very, very early.* There are a few who manage to postpone or avoid daycare because the fathers are also academics or similar fields with flexible schedules, but mostly, we're all kind of in the same boat. And meanwhile, very few of the dads make enough for their wives to stay home full time.
So, actually, the stay-at-home mom is something of a rarity in my social circle. Friends without kids, those I got, but most of the moms I know locally work outside the home. This works out nicely in the sense that I have friends who share my experience. OTOH, since my schedule is flexible, and my friends like
*Hey, it lowers their chances of getting leukemia! Who knew?