Times columnist Eduardo Porter offers his thoughts on stay-at-home moms:
many women will work until they have children and leave, at least until their children are well on their way in their schooling. Studying survey data on personal well-being, Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago found that college-educated mothers with careers were no more satisfied with their lives, and might be less so, than stay-at-home college-educated mothers.
That hardly seems an ideal outcome for society, however — somewhat like letting sophisticated machinery lie idle and depreciate in plain sight. In any event, asking women to lean in is unlikely to change their minds.
Maybe looking at this (and other issues) from the point of view of "society" is the wrong approach; maybe it's better to look at it from the point of view of the individual woman or family. As for those college-educated stay-at-home mothers, the idea that what they do is at all like letting "machinery lie idle" is bound to generate an irate response from any mothers who have time to bother with Mr. Porter's column in between the carpooling, homework help, making dinner, laundry, teaching and nurturing, household management, and other myriad, important, and tiring tasks.