I am on ML at the moment, which is why I MNet when breastfeeding!
I do consider myself lucky, I have DH, 3 kids, a job I love and a house. But then I worked bloody hard to get to where I am. 8 years at Uni, followed by lots of shitty jobs that barely paid the bills, slowly making my way up. That is why I can't take a career break beyond ML, because if I go, I won't get it back. When my job was advertised when I was about to go on maternity leave the first time, I was scared by how many women who were once in more senior positions to me were applying for for my 9 month maternity cover after a career break. Not one got to the interview stage because the field I work in you have to keep on top of professional development. I thought, shit, that could be me. So no part time, no career break. 3rd time round, I was so senior they could not even apply. Not a single female applicant had children. In my team, all the women (about half the team) are my age. None have kids (but all the men bar one do), they either don't think they can afford it, or they have left it too late. That, I think is sad because they are lovely & intelligent women. Assuming I retire at 67, that is another 30 years at work, I want to be doing something worthwhile and that I enjoy.
As for my neighbour, I wasn't being snide, she is just an example of a SAHM that I know and respect, rather than making a blanket statement about all SAHM. She is doing what is best for her family. They are financially better off if she doesn't work because she cannot earn more than Childcare would cost, but her husband earns enough. For them, it is a no brainer, though now that both her kids are at school, she bemoans the lack of jobs available to her, so she is stuck because she needs to earn a certain amount in order for a job to be worthwhile, but she can't get those jobs because she hasn't worked in 10 years.
Everyone choses what is best for them and their family. I seriously considered being SAHM when DC1 was diagnosed with sone SN (very mild ASD), but when DH lost his job, it scared me and I thought I never wanted to be that vulnerable and risk losing our house. I just wished my parents lived closer so I could get free Childcare occasionally, or just a helping hand!
It sometime pisses me off that when I work 50 hours a week and travel 3 hours a day to London and back and basically, in effect, earn just £200 a month when we pay nursery fees. And I don't think nurseries are rolling in it, quite the opposite. Owners earn ok perhaps, but not the staff. Once I was on the late train home, having left the office late, heavily pregnant and I was reading the Evening Standard on poverty in London. This woman with 10 kids was complaining that she could not afford to take her kids to the cinema. Yep, me neither. Yet she was the one living in Central London and I was the one commuting 3 hours because I could not afford to live in London. I always wanted a big family, but 3 what we can (just) afford, so 3 it is.