I’m going to focus on USA 🇺🇸 because that’s my experience.

I personally see nothing wrong with being a SAHM. In fact if I end up having kids and happen to not live by my parents/family or in-laws and we are not moneyed enough to afford trusted nanny services, then it’s possible either myself or my spouse may have to SAH the first few years before primary education starts.

Also a plus of being a SAHM is doing both (work and mothering) is exhausting and leads to women being, well, perpetually fatigued, as working women do most of the childrearing and homemaking. Though it seems many women choose exhaustion over “listless wasted potential.”

For several reasons I think many women opted out of the SAHM role:

  • The job got less tedious than it was in the past. Doing it 24/7 can surely lead someone to a Valium induced listless boredom.

  • Men (and women) stopped respecting the roles and lauding it. It didn’t offer dignity and pride any longer. Especially when other women were able to satisfy all aspects of their human experience — motherhood and external achievement.

  • Not as many rewarding outlets to explore natural proclivities, interests, and skill sets outside of “family stuff.” Women aren’t vagina/womb/boobs — we have brains and egos too haha.

Tl;dr

We live in an individualistic, capitalistic, achievement driven world replete with opportunities left and right to explore your interests and respective aptitudes.

As long as these remain our current day values, I don’t see SAHMs earning the respect of greater society (persons outside their home). inb4 someone says “that shouldn’t matter, validation is feelssss” stop. You’re not a human or haven’t been around them that much.

edit: a lot of women have always worked because they had to. don’t want to act like SAHM-status isn’t a luxury in many ways. or that women are only choosing to work for actualizing purposes and high-esteem achievements. most ppl have to work to eat.