The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.
I decided to be a be a SAHP actually out of financial reasons. The only job I was trained for / made "good" money at meant being in a warzone or working 20 hours a day in the music industry, which I fell into after getting out of the USMC for about a year before I stuck my tongue out at them and left. Went back to military type schtuff -running meds (antibiotics, vaccines, surgical equip, etc.) into nasty places where they have to hiked in to remote villages often several hundred miles through mountians/ deserts/ jungles/ and other "balmy" places and guarded all the way in; but I wasn't really itching to get killed anytime soon, and that type of work has a high attrition rate.). I was home, trying to figure out "what I wanted to be when I grew up" when I met my husband and got pregnant with my miracle baby (too many miscarriages to count in a previous relationship, docs thought I might never have a live birth, I was on 3 forms of birth control when THIS little hooligan decided he needed time on the planet. :) :) :) Birthcontrol pills, condoms, and spermacide, religiously, btw. And no. That doesn't mean only on sundays.)
So I looked at the money I could make working an "unskilled" job (waitressing without a lot of experience, low level admin, etc.) and I looked at what childcare cost. I would actually have been PAYING to work. ((Full time infant group care in our area *average* was 1600 a month, individualized was $2500 a month)).
Well! Time to go back to school.
I fell in LOVE with being a student parent. I only had to be gone 4-10 hours a week, childcare was provided *separately* as part of my financial aid (as in I got x amount for school, and then because I had a child I got an extra $600 per month for childcare costs, which more than covered when I was in class, and later paid for preschool). It was the absolute BEST of both worlds for ME. 4 HOURS A WEEK is 2 naps. Or 4 hours with nana. Even later on at 10 hours, that's *nothing*. It's sanity time. 2 five hour days including drive time to and from.
I still plan on being a career woman. I'm just doing it on a different time frame. I DID have to work for a year. I worked nights, so I was with my son all day while he was awake (I wouldn't repeat that year for anything less than tragedy... sleep isn't optional these days).
The CHANGE THE WORLD bit, happened to me when I started homeschooling in 1st. There are just sooooooooo many problems with our school system (our district in particular, not that it's the worst in the world or anything, just that it's the one *I* had to deal with :P). Changing them would take decades and millions, private school is beyond our ability to pay for it AND has it's own downsides. I was sick and tired of all the problems, and the fighting, so I threw in the towel. Now I create, on a day to day basis, as much of a "dream" school as I can. I periodically look around and think Ghandi like thoughts. Not anything grand, mind you... just the realization that I AM the change I want to see in the world. :) :) :) I don't worry about what others are doing, I just do the best durn things that I possibly can in my own corner of the world.