Sharing your desire to become a stay at home mom isn't really something you mention in the company of a group of women. Especially if you have a degree(s) and a "great job" in Corporate America.
For years, I hid my secret of wanting to be a stay at home wife and mom from others. Why? Out of fear I suppose. I didn't want the weird looks or people shaming me for my choice in life. Women can be very cruel and un-supportive when your choice doesn't fit the narrative of everyone else.
When I was dating my husband, I was scared to tell him what I really wanted if we were to continue our relationship and it lead to marriage. I remember when I first told him that I wanted to be a housewife. We were coming back from a quick weekend trip and I just blurted out that I wanted to be a stay at home wife and mom. I expected him to break up with me when we got back home, but he was actually very supportive of what I consider to be my greatest purpose in life.
Don't believe women like me face this type of ridicule? Then, check out this excerpt from The Federalist.
“It’s not my fault you’re bitter about being a failure. That’s on you for making bad decisions.”
I was still half-asleep that morning when I read the text, which had arrived late the night before. It was as unexpected as a punch in the gut. I was being called a failure. The word had an ugly, anti-social ring to it.
The day before I had foolishly engaged in a social media debate with a woman of my generation, someone I considered a casual friend. I will call her “Jane.”
We had met a few years earlier through mutual friends. I was in my early-30s, a freshly minted PhD in English, a full-time instructor at a college on the prairies. Jane was a wunderkind lawyer in town, in her mid-20s. We were both married, both homeowners, both striving young women in our chosen professions. Over the next few years, we both gave birth to our first child.
We were both diligently following the script set for upper-middle class and upper-middle class-aspiring women: get an undergraduate education; get more education to qualify for a white-collar profession; get married; wait the prerequisite few years to “establish” yourself in your career; then and only then have a baby or two; go back to work and carry on exactly as if you didn’t have a baby or two; outsource the raising of those babies to other (typically poorer) women; encourage your children to perpetuate this cycle.
But then I diverged from the path. My husband and I left the prairie town, I gradually left academia, and I began raising our son more or less full-time, albeit more through circumstance than intention. My stock fell in my old friend’s eyes. I had left the ranks of “young professional women” and had descended into the sub-caste of “stay-at-home moms.” And to Jane, a strong self-identified feminist, being a stay-at-home mom meant being a failure.
Read more here.