Wendell Berry and Allan Carlson have written about the impact of economic changers on the domestic economy, especially the degraded role of the wife (or today, the live-in girlfriend or shack-up honey), who is reduced to a consumer, even if she is taught to acquire "style and taste."
Women by their nature are oriented towards developing and fostering bonds with others
hence the heart of the home -- this is what matters; if the father is out of the home and working because of the constraints of the economy, the home can survive nonetheless, but if the mother is gone as well? One could question if there is any "home" left, even if the mother has decorated her nest according to her tastes and "feels" comfortable and "at home" in it.
The ability to choose from a wide variety of (poorly-made) goods with which to furnish the home and so on is a historical aberration that is the result of one or a group of notions attaining economic and political ascendancy over others, coupled with industrialization. Before, those of the more humble classes made their own furniture and so on, buying other products from local craftsmen. And the construction of furniture and such was probably more the work of the husband than of the wife, who produced other items such as clothing. A home was made by the family which had bound themselves together and to a particular place, within a larger community.
If we are to regain some semblance of an economically free way of life, it seems to me that 4 hours in the late afternoon/evening really isn't enough time to educate children and to pass on the skills they need to become citizens and producers, and this criticism can be applied to fathers as well as mothers. (After all, how many working parents interact with their children for 4 or 5 hours straight in the evening? How many instead just watch TV instead, or do their own thing, leaving the children to do their homework? The actual amount of time spent with children is probably much less than 4 hours--and in how many households has the activity of dinner conversation been lost?)
Given the nature of our economy, for people living in metropolitan areas (with their suburbs), opportunities for work are outside the home. If someone should be at home with their children, especially when they are young, it should be the mother rather than the father. I hope it doesn't take some sort of survey to show that mothers are more vital for the emotional and intellectual development of children when they are young, but perhaps this is the sort of evidence we who cannot reason for ourselves require. Fathers have an important role to play when the children attain the use of reason, particularly with respect to religious and moral formation, and guiding them towards independence.
As for the role of the husband and father as head of the household -- Aristotle compares it to political rule. Others have said that the husband/father is the head of the household, while the wife/mother is the heart, but one should not take this to mean that the wife's rule is purely executive, while the father's is purely legislative. It is part of traditional wisdom that women are gifted with the ability to establish emotional bonds with their children and men, and they seek to nurture the relationships in a household and to foster harmony. Men show their love less through communication and the expression of affection and more through their activity, their daily toil for the sake of the wife and family, and the guidance and gentle yet strong encouragement they provide to their children as a part of their formation.
If parents remain open to life, even if they space out having their children for economic and developmental reasons, I do not see how it is possible for the mother to play on returning to a "full-time career" within the first 5 or 10 years of having her first child. As families grow in size, the necessity of the father to stay home (and of connections with extended family) become even more pronounced. Dr. Laura often suggests that women can return to work once their children are in school, so long as her working hours correspond to school hours, but this presumes that families are limiting the size of family, does it not? (I believe that she does support the use of artificial contraception by married couples.)
(I won't go into a deep discussion of the question of whether a "primary school education" is necessary--I do think that if one is living in a real community with a real domestic economy the time would be better spent having the children grow at home and in community, learning the domestic skills they will need later in life, plus the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Having young children learn subjects beyond this is usually ill-conceived and executed, amounting to nothing more than indoctrination and giving them bad intellectual habits which can prevent them from acquiring true knowledge later in life. Saying that they shouldn't learn other subjects from textbooks and "classroom activities" does not mean that they should not learn about their world, culture, and heritage though--this can and should be done outside a classroom or textbook presentation. It is especially important for children to experience the world, with all the wonders of nature, through direct contact.)
On the other hand, a mother's excessive attachment to her children can have a negative impact on the relationship with her husband. By nature women seek the welfare of their children over their own--however their vocation is not to their children alone, but also to be a friend, partner, and helpmate to their husbands. Just as husbands must be attentive to their wives, so wives should not neglect their husbands in favor of the children.
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