This study explores how upper and middle-upper-class married mothers living in the United States frame and understand the personal and professional implications of opting-out. Opting-out entails women leaving high-profile jobs for more flexible work arrangements or to stay at home. These women have heavily invested in their educations and have promotion opportunities, which makes their decision to opt out of high-powered positions perplexing. Structural functionalism and symbolic interactionism frame this research question. Bourdieu's concept of habitus links both theories to show how women "do gender." In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 working mothers who opted out to raise their children. The study found that for interviewees the ideal American mother is a working woman who is obsessed with her children's success. It also confirmed the friction between stay-at-home mothers and working mothers, known as the "mommy wars." For stay-at-home mothers the cost associated with their choice is a career penalty; for working mothers it is the feeling of guilt of being partially present in their children's upbringing. This study argues for policies that aim for a better work-family balance and shared parenthood and which diminish the penalties, both financial and tacit, for working mothers and mothers returning to the workforce.