I have seen this point of view and understand where it's coming from, but I think it puts the cart before the horse. Maybe it should be the case that society should define success not by the status of your profession and the size of your bank account, but by your other contributions. However, at the current time, it does not. In the United States, money is everything. It decides whether your kids go to a decent school, whether you get medical care, whether you can live in a place without intolerable crime. We live in this society: http://blog.figuringshitout.com/the-parable-of-the-fisherman.

Within this context, "opting out" means depending on a man for security, and telling women that "motherhood is more fulfilling than work" is encouraging them to be dependent. My wife sees it as rationalization--women trying to convince themselves that people do respect parenting because they should respect it.

Anecdote: when my wife had trouble finding a job initially in law school, a career counselor tried to comfort her by pointing out that at least I had a good job. To a person who yearns to be self-sufficient it wasn't comforting--it was devastating.