New survey results from the Pew Research Center look at trends over the last decade and they’ve concluded that most mothers who work full-time outside their home really don’t want to:

Among working mothers with minor children (ages 17 and under), just one-in-five (21%) say full-time work is the ideal situation for them, down from the 32% who said this back in 1997, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Fully six-in-ten (up from 48% in 1997) of today’s working mothers say part-time work would be their ideal, and another one-in-five (19%) say she would prefer not working at all outside the home.

I’ve already heard the host on a conservative talk show this morning trying to spin these results as a “return to family values,” and asking what happened to all the feminists that talked of “empowerment for the working woman”. That the survey shows that most women want to be in the “traditional” role of homemaker and ditch the male-dominated rat race.

What bullshit. Let’s base this in a little more solid Occam’s Razor reality, shall we? How many of you out there that work full-time — no matter what your gender — do it by choice? Being able to do something you love and get paid for it is a rare thing, and there are only so many openings for exciting jobs like rock star, firefighter, or insurance agent. I think it’s safe to say that most moms and dads would leave behind the world of stolen staplers and TPS reports if given the opportunity.

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