I don't think that because people have a choice in staying home, it should disqualify them from whatever they want to study.  Everyone should get the best education in whatever field they want, regardless of sex or future professional plans.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to explain myself.

That's the workplace Catch-22 for us all - if you have babies or make family a priority then you're not serious about your career.  And women (sorry, but biology is destiny until men become able to gestate and lactate) are automatically in the line of fire.

In highly technical fields (and probably academia as well - I'm in tech and can't speak to it), just a 2 year break can be crippling to your career. If you're not there to keep on top of rapidly changing technologies or if you're not publishing, you will be at a significant disadvantage.  This plays out in myriad negative ways downstream in your life. Count on fewer opportunities for advancement or tenure because you're now 'behind' in your field compared to those who didn't leave(or perceived that way - especially by the MBA management-types who never really understood what it was you do). And, further into the future, you will have fewer dollars and years of credit going towards your pension and retirement funds(eg, 401k).  Don't get me started on the compromises more and more of us face to keep affordable health care coverage for our families, either...

I lived all of this when I had my son in 1981.   While maternity leave,etc, is certainly better accepted and available now, as long as family/child issues are primarily perceived as women's issues, we're sunk.  Until men take breaks in their careers to take care of their children to the extent that women do, and until the workplace becomes less hostile to families(yet another diary topic!), we will keep fighting this battle over and over and over again.