My mother was a "stay at home mom". She chose to stay at home while my father worked for the US justice department. SHE CHOSE TO STAY AT HOME BECAUSE THE FAMILY COULD AFFORD IT. My father made enough money to where one income could support the whole family. In fact in the early 70s, it wasn't rare to see several stay at home mothers, but it was the end of an era. Thanks to the squeezing of middle class families and greed this notion of a parent staying at home would soon end.
Anne Romney was no exception. In fact she raised her children during an era when most women were "expected" to stay at home and could afford to stay at home. An era where the wife would get a new appliance, vacuum or blender for Christmas and was expected to wait on her man and have dinner ready for him.
I commend any single parent who can afford to do this today and chooses this as a career. But the Romneys fail understand it's now more of an economic issue rather than a "choice". The Romney's fail to understand that when two parents were forced to go into the workplace, women had to accept sub par paying jobs because the culture of men doing all the work was vastly more accepted. Women had (and still have) to fight to get equal pay for the same job.
Thanks to decades post WWII "progressive" economic policies made the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes and did not allow for the country to exploit third world slave labor, good union jobs were plentiful, good government jobs were available and the country was more fiscally sound.
Then came the attack on the middle class and eventually the nucleus of "Trickle Down Economics" that destroyed this choice. We'll call this the beginning of the "Trickle Down Snake Oil Salesmen era." The re-emergence of the "conspicuous consumption" the country hadn't seen since the 20s where the rich flaunted their wealth and the destruction of the middle class became prevalent again.
Anne didn't chose anything, her class, culture and peer pressure snubbed the idea of a working women. In fact her culture (the good little "conservative woman") still practices this notion today. Anne had a luxury while most families do not.