Erica of Juicy Web Design's Public Library

"I don't think we are. I think that's wrong," says Atkinson. "I worked for 20 years after college. And so my experience in leaving to have children is different than hers. I think I would feel differently about my choice to stay at home for a few years if I didn't have that experience behind me."



She says she's also different from many in Stahl's generation, who were determined to stick it out no matter what. These women say they don't feel they have anything to prove. They have been successful, and if they want to take some time out to be with their kids, why shouldn't they?



"I think there's a lot of focus on what I'm sacrificing by staying home. And what's hard to articulate is how much I get back," says Hall. "I do it really-- a lot of it is for me. I enjoy seeing and being with my children."



Hirshman fought her way into the workforce, stayed there despite years of male colleagues refusing to eat lunch with her – and raised a daughter, too. She's not an impartial observer. There aren't two sides in the way she sees things.



"The women that I have interviewed are completely dependent upon the goodwill of their wealthy income-producing husbands," says Hirshman. "They chose dependence."



But isn't it their right to choose? "It's different to talk about their right than what's the right decision," says Hirshman. "As Mark Twain said, 'A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read.'"



"These women are choosing lives in which they do not use their capacity for very complicated work," adds Hirshman. "They are choosing lives in which they do not use their capacity to deal with very powerful other adults in the world, which takes a lot of skill. I think there are better lives and worse lives."



"I think the women's rights movement was very much about giving women choices and respecting the many choices that women make," says Frelinghuysen.

"I've had some friends say, 'It's driving us crazy. Why are they leaving,'" says Stahl. "I've heard that from businessmen. They're frustrated. They are investing in these women for years."



"They're asking the wrong question," says Clark. "The right question is, how do we change to keep this talent active and involved with us?"

Singer of MommaSaid.net is annoyed by the assumption she feels some economists make that stay-at-home mothers want to work outside the home but can't. "I know tons and tons of mothers who choose to stay home whatever the economic difficulties," she says, counting herself among them. "We are NOT staying home with our children by default."