He didn’t ask her to be a stay-at-home mom because he wanted to clip her wings, but that is how she took the request.

It’s no secret that many men have complexes about stay-at-home moms. A considerable population of weirdos consider them the ultimate freeloaders, sitting around at home all day scrolling through Instagram reels, washing a dish or two over the course of eight hours, while their hardworking husbands slave away providing in the salt mines, or wherever they imagine that their husbands are working. Another subsection of freaks believes that being a stay-at-home mom is the only noble pursuit a woman could possibly pursue, and any woman choosing to contribute to the household through her full-time career is robbing her children of the full extent of a mother’s love. How could your kids possibly know that you love them if you’re not willing to sacrifice yourself fully for them? 

It’s not just men who have these backwards ideas of what it means to be a stay-at-home mom. These male archetypes have female equivalents: stay-at-home moms who judge working moms and vice versa. It’s so easy for one group to judge another, especially when they’ve never walked in the other group’s shoes. I’m sure that if every mom experienced both of these lifestyles for a considerable period of time, they would concede that neither is inherently nefarious. 

There’s a difference between disrespecting the efforts of stay-at-home moms wholesale and feeling strongly that such a lifestyle is not the right fit for you. Some might find it insensitive to proclaim, «I am not going to sit around at home all day and never have adult conversations.» They might feel it minimizes the work that stay-at-home moms do. However, frustration from a lack of adult interaction is a common downside to staying home with babies for years, and it’s not a crime to feel uncomfortable with abandoning your work life.