subhanallah, my brother, there is nothing just about raising kids. Do you know how much work goes into the tarbiyyah of one child? How hard it is to teach him Islam? To read and write? Arithmetic? Do you think if a mother does that for her children, she is not doing a great service to the ummah? You say family is a priority. How can a woman with young children go out to work while leaving them in the care of a stranger? Do you call that prioritizing the family? Isn't it better for her to raise her own children? Does it make sense for a woman to work all day, only to give the money she earns to the nanny? Do you have any idea how much child (sexual/physical) abuse goes on because children are left in the care of strangers these days? Fear Allah, you are making up things about shariah and talking about Allah without knowledge, in the name of the "21st century global village". Allah's ahkam do not change with time. Interacting needlessly with ghair maharim is indeed a "big deal". If a woman can manage to raise her kids, or her kids are grown up, and she can work in a place that doesn't require her to interact with men beyond a minimum, mashallah, I'm all for it. In fact, we need women working in education, healthcare, etc. I don't see a need for women to be working in restaurants or customer service, though. When Islam was "the dominant force in the planet", Allah's laws were not being violated by the ummah en masse. Today, nobody cares about hijab, salah, nothing. People don't pray because they "don't have time at work". Girls not observing hijab because they "have to" work. This is unacceptable. The Prophet's generation was the best generation. Women did not go out and about by themselves, shamelessly interacting with strange men. They did not feel oppressed in caring for the family or obeying their husbands. And men did not oppress their wives because they feared Allah, or at least they feared the state which implemented the laws of Allah. It sickens me that the pious Muslimah who chooses to stay at home and raise her kids properly, following the sunnah of the Prophet's wives and obeying Allah's commands, is looked down upon by the oh-so-intelligent "modern" Muslims, as if she is doing nothing meaningful in her life. The only justification you have given for a woman abandoning the shariah, is that if she doesn't work, she will be oppressed. This is not a valid argument.