I would be all for it, to be honest. If it was possible to live on one income and I could be a homemaker, it would be awesome :)

The fact that more people are now aware that women can do anything men can do, many women still *Can* choose to be full-time mothers and housekeepers, and I'm sure some women do prefer that lifestyle, but the important thing is that now there are more alternative options. And if a particular woman doesn't have the choice between housekeeping and working outside of the home, it's probably due more to lack of money than it is to anything womens' rights-related.

I'm assuming that some women do of course, Hell I'd be willing to stay at home and raise the kids if there are any single mom ABers out there :P. No really, of course there are some women like that, just like there are some women that want to get out in the work place, make 500 million then waste it on shit they don't need. Everyone is different, you can't put everyone under one explanation and say they all want one thing.

I am ALL about "wife and mommy"-hood. In fact, I hope to be just that. I hope I never put off a "anything you can do, I can do" front... I know I can't lift a 300lb dresser like my husband can, and I CERTAINLY know I can't run a floor sanding machine for 12 hours a day, five days a week like he can. I CAN, however, fold laundry and change bedclothes MUCH better than he can, and I know better than him how to clean spaghetti sauce stains out of the couch upholstery.

If I ever had kids by some off chance, that'd be what I'd do, I think. My mother would hate me for it, but I'd have everything I'd ever really want....I never really wanted a career or anything, anyway. It's not my thing....

I honestly doubt that most women "long for the days" when they could stay at home. The fact is, the social changes which put women in the workforce also empowered them to make that and other decisions about how to live their lives. It may be a trade off but I don't know a single woman who would choose to return to the dark days when women had few rights and were treated as property.

I think women should be free to do what ever they want. Men and women both should be able to earn a living wage, so that individuals have the ability to make choices. I have been a stay-at-home worker for the last 30 years, by choice.

I won't attack you, I'll agree with you 110%. I'm 42 & VERY old fashioned. While others want my daughter to have a career, I want her to be a wife & mom (I also want her to have skills but not use them until her kids are older)

Women are as diverse as men and want diverse things. The lack of really good, affordable child care may be part of the reason some women might long to stay home. Women need space and money of their own just like men do, and in the days when staying home and taking care of a house, husband and kids, it was rare that a woman had anything to call her own except her personal possessions. And I never hear women say we can do anything men can. Most men have more physical strength than most women, but most women have more inner strength than most men. Men can't do anything women can, and vice versa.

Not being a woman, I can't say for sure but as I have a woman in my life, I have the benefit of being able to contribute to this question in the following way. Throughout history, women have always worked whether this was inside or outside the home and long before records began too. Women's contributions have not been properly recognized throughout history and to this day, they are still not fully. But what I think most, if not all women want (like men), is real choice and since real choice has often been denied to women, women have often made the best of what they had and over time and many generations, I am sure that many women persuaded themselves that being a wife, mother and homemaker were acceptable and laudable roles and that they should be happy with just that. I feel that the basis of your question is rooted in the fallacy that all that ALL women really want deep down is to be at home, raising kids etc. This may be true for some women, but clearly not all and until women have a free and unencumbered choice, on par with men and with equal social status as men, they cannot freely make the choices for their lives in the way they would want. Each person is wired completely uniquely and who except themselves can say what they truly desire to do and to be? Being a wife, mother, homemaker, cook, counselor, money manager, interior designer, tailor, housekeeper, cleaner, gardener, a social-cohesive agent, entertainment organizer and several other roles, counts for a whole lot and should be properly recognized by the state, by husbands and by children. However, until there is a real and workable choice for women, we shall never know what women choose. Imagine such a world!

i know i sure don't ..

I think is more of an issue of having the choice. In todays society it is tough to have a 1 income family so the only choice is for both to work. There by eliminating the choice. Women will never be happy.

No, I don't think so. I am obviously not a woman but I think that most women would rather be out in the work force. It is an easier job to me than 'staying at home and raising the kids'---that is way to much hard manual labour and psychological work for me...women who elect to stay home are looking at at 24/7 full time job...:)

i hope not cause that would mean that she would get to stay home with the children and i would have to go work.

Sure, I don't mind housework and all, but the social mentality which restricted women to the household chores years ago presented through them being property and inferior beings I don't think I would enjoy so much. When beatings, humility and getting sent to the leech welding physician whenever the sex was actually any good and breached the near rape like qualities which often defined it, were the solution to a women's problems, I would rather be forced to pay taxes like everyone else. Also, had I children, I wouldn't be very comfortable raising them with the image of their father as a tyrant through whatever morality I would be pressed to condition them with. The hell with that.

No. In fact, I think it was a myth that there ever was a time when most women could just stay at home and "manage the home" full time. Throughout history there have been precious few times, if ever, when the woman wasn't as integral to the care and maintenance of the family as the man. Her duties might have been somewhat different in the division of labor, but she was every bit as materially invested.

I always have said I wish it was like that, maybe I'm being naive,but I think the world would be a better place if mothers could stay home more to raise their children. Women who want to work should, but women who don't should also. It is not possible for most of us to live on one income and survive.

its as if the system wants us to fail huh?;) i have always maintained that homes shouldn't be composed the way they are now. this nuclear family crap. we all love our privacy and what not but a family whereby the aunts, uncles and grandparents are there to help in the home and with the kids makes sense. the very lucrative prospect of having one family driving 10 different cars and living in 5 different homes perpetuates the need for more and more parents to both be working, leaving little or no time with the kids.

I don't really feel like I want either one. I am kind of artistic and I like the idea of having an intellectual life with an intellectual partner. I don't have the desire to be like a man or like a traditional house wife at all.

You don't have to be frustrated. There are a lot of women from other countries who still fit the traditional wife role. Don't worry.

To tell you the truth - I personally would love it if my man could happily earn enough money for me to be able to stay at home, I would have more time to cook proper meals (which I love doing) I would have time to start a veg patch in the garden and I could get all of the house work done in a much more leisurely way but do it more thoroughly. at the moment we both get home from work quite late so we don't always eat the best of meals and we both rush the cleaning, it would leave our weekends housework free so that we counld enjoy each others company doing the thiogs we both love