My mother was a stay-at-home mom except for the relatively short period of time between her first and second marriages. None of my friends' mothers worked outside the home. None. This was in a neighborhood built post-war, middle class mix of blue/white collar. I was raised there in the 50s/60s.

Neither did my aunts work outside the home. One was married to a lawyer, one a real estate developer, one a CT Supreme Court judge. My grandmother was a purchasing agent--a job that no women held back in the early century. The story goes that she would sign POs "H. S______" and when the men came up to see the purchasing agent, they were shocked. They assumed that "H" was a man. So she was the sole standard bearer for working women in the family.

My MIL was stay-at-home until her husband died in 1965, and then she got a job in retail.