Basic Trope: A woman must choose between going to work, or staying home to taking care of the house and kids.
- Straight:
- Alice becomes pregnant, and decides not to return to work after the baby is born.
- Claire, a successful businesswoman, decides she can never have kids if she wants to keep her job.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice's family can't even survive on just Bob's salary, and yet Alice stays home pumping out kids because "that's what she's supposed to do."
- While she was working, Alice easily made two or three times what Bob made, and her job was very prestigious.
- Alice left even before the Babies Ever After came along.
- Claire decides she can't even get married or visit her parents if she wants to maintain her career.
- Downplayed:
- Alice goes back to work, but she cuts her hours so she has more time to be with her child.
- Alice asks if she can telecommute instead of actually going to the office.
- Claire feels she can only have a child if she starts up an online business and works from home.
- Only certain jobs, rather than all jobs, are deemed unsuitable for mothers (and fathers for that matter).
- Justified:
- Alice wants to spend time with her children, and finds childcare and housework fulfilling to her personally. Furthermore, the household can survive on one income.
- In this society, married women usually don't work, instead relying on their husbands to provide for them.
- Alice's job involves a lot of travelling, and she doesn't want to be away from her children for months or even years on end.
- Claire simply doesn't want to have kids for personal reasons.
- Claire thinks it's ideal for a woman to have a successful career and as little as possible to do with children.
- Alice (or Claire) has a chronic illness and doesn't have the energy levels for both work and motherhood.
- Claire has to work much harder than her male peers for anything close to the same pay and recognition, which leaves no time to care for children.
- Inverted:
- Alice hasn't worked outside of the home in a long time (or perhaps ever), and decides that in order to provide a better life for her family, she is going to get some job training or go Back to School, or at least find a new job.
- Claire finds it fulfilling to be a good provider and role model for her children.
- Gender Inverted:
- Bob decides to quit his job to become a stay-at-home dad.
- Dave, a successful businessman, decides he can never be a father if he wants to keep his job.
- Subverted:
- Alice returns to work after her maternity leave is up.
- Alice is not so much a Housewife as a Trophy Wife.
- Alice plans to go back into the workforce after her youngest child is back in school.
- Claire has a child and manages to figure out a suitable work-life balance.
- Double Subverted:
- But then finds that her job isn't as fulfilling as taking care of her kid.
- Or her job has been given to someone else, and they won't give her job back.
- Alice's job is something "feminine," such as teaching or nursing.
- Just before the leave period is up, Alice changes her mind.
- Alice works from home or telecommutes.
- Part-time, that is.
- Alice has been focused on her family and no longer has the skills relevant to her career field, so she either has to find something else or decides she'll just not work outside the home anymore.
- Just when Alice thought she and Bob were finished having children, and that since her youngest is ready to go to kindergarten, she'd be able to start job-hunting again, Alice finds out she's pregnant again.
- Claire still lapses into overworking at the expense of her child.
- Parodied: Alice starts working just four hours a week, while the kids are at school. The formerly well-adjusted kids develop such extreme mommy issues, they snap and show signs of being budding serial killers.
- Zig Zagged: Alice keeps getting and quitting jobs constantly because of her children, she can't decide if she wants to be pursue a career or be a housewife and isn't sure if it's better for the children if she's around.
- Averted:
- Alice goes back to work after she has her child.
- Alice has no kids.
- Claire has a child while remaining a businesswoman.
- Enforced:
- The producer thinks that the target audience values family over work and/or traditional gender roles, so the writers are ordered to create a situation where Alice was to choose her family over her career, in order to please the audience.
- The producer thinks that if Claire's a mother as well as a businesswoman, audiences will view her as incompetent at both roles, or "trying to have it all".
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked:
- Alice has kids, and lives in a society where working moms are almost unheard of.
- Alice reads an article in ''Fretful Mother'' magazine, and worries that her child's developmental milestones or psyche or overall well-being will suffer if she isn't there 24/7.
- Claire reads an article in ''Modern Career Woman'' magazine, and worries that she'll be unable to balance career and family, and/or that she'll be taken less seriously at work and risk losing her job.
- Exploited: Bob, a manipulative abuser, uses Alice's internal conflict and concern for the child to pressure her into giving up work. This keeps her dependent on him, allowing him to show his true colours and treat both her and the kid like crap.
- Defied:
- Alice feels that the household won't survive on just Bob's income, and that she should go back to work.
- Alice knows that she still loves her child, and will make the most of the time she does spend with her family, and that her child will have a wonderful and trustworthy caretaker during the day, be it a nanny or a daycare center or a relative or a neighbor.
- Claire decides that if her male colleagues can still be good fathers, there's nothing stopping her from being a good mother.
- Discussed: "It's tough for women to find good jobs. Employers seem to think that if we have kids, we'll inevitably quit for some reason."
- Conversed: "As a working mom, I end up feeling guilty whenever I see characters like Alice and Claire."
- Implied: Alice is a stay-at-home mom, and there's a picture on the wall of her when she was younger, with a suit and briefcase.
- Deconstructed:
- This works best if the household can survive on just Bob's income. If the story is set in more modern times, with a very high cost of living and raising children, that may be more difficult. And what if Bob gets laid off or fired, or something happens to him? There may also be a Brain Drain in the workforce, if nearly half its potential employees leave. Also, not every woman finds being a Housewife appealing, or is suited for the role. And what happens when "the nest" is empty; if Alice has based her entire identity around being a wife and mother, what happens when the kids leave...or Bob leaves?
- Alice decides to stay at home because she thinks it's better for the children, but this means Bob has to work twice as hard to make ends meet. The children rarely if ever get to see their father, and develop the abandonment issues Alice tried to prevent. Then there's the issue of what happens if Bob's health goes to shit from his long hours and loneliness, leaving him unable to work, and Alice struggles to get a job because she hasn't had one in years.
- Alice quitting work leaves her financially dependent on Bob. This proves to be a problem if their relationship becomes unhealthy - if he cheats, or abuses her, she's stuck with him. As well as Alice being miserable, the kids grow up in an utterly toxic environment, and internalise harmful ideas about relationships which they go on to repeat later in life.
- Claire wants children, and becomes resentful towards her male colleagues who get to have both families and careers, while she has to choose between the two. This negatively affects her work performance and her interactions with co-workers.
- Reconstructed:
- Whether Alice chooses to stay home with the kids or to go back into the workforce is her decision and hers alone. She does what she feels is best for her family. Alice takes classes (online, by correspondence, or by actually going to a local community college) to keep her skills sharp. She develops hobbies and friendships to keep occupied when she isn't doing housework, and gets involved in her community.
- Bob already has a well-paying job, which allows him to have a reasonable work-life balance and remain involved in the children's lives.
- Alice has a support network she can turn to if her marriage goes sour. She trains her skills on a regular basis and has a strong CV in case she needs to return to work for any reason. She and Bob also make time whenever they can to keep their relationship alive and healthy.
- Claire decides against having children simply because she personally doesn't want to, whether she doesn't think she's cut out for it or she's just not naturally a maternal person. Others may call her selfish, but she's still kind, empathetic and selfless in other ways, such as being considerate towards co-workers who deal with this dilemma, and helping them balance the two (eg. covering for them if their kids get sick).
- Played For Laughs: Alice has no career and no hobbies, but at least she finds time to do things like scrub the driveway!
- Played For Drama:
- Alice's kids go to college and leave the house, and now Alice has all this free time...and doesn't know what to do with it, or she feels like she's lost meaning in her life.
- Bob loses his job, or dies, or he and Alice get a Toilet Seat Divorce; can Alice manage to keep the household afloat?
- Whenever Claire visits her brother Dave, who's a businessman and a father, she bitterly envies his lifestyle and opportunities.
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