Many people just don't realize how much a housewife does these days. She manages the home, which is a full time job! Cooking, cleaning, caring for the children, shopping, etc.
Yes I can imagine! There is so much work involved with a house and having kids.
Now these days, many call a housewife a stay-at-home-mother SAHM, and the stay at home dads are called SAHD. Which wasn't very popular until the last 10 years or so, for dads to stay home.
Yes, it is a new thing with more woman working. It's a lot of work to stay home thought. I think I would get tired of it.
worked for pay, either by contributing to farming and other family-owned businesses, or by working for outside employers. 
Sociology and economics.
Some feminists and non-feminist economists (particularly proponents of historical materialism, the methodological approach of Marxist historiography) note that the value of housewives' work is ignored in standard formulations of economic output, such as GDP or employment figures. A housewife typically works many unpaid hours a week and often depends on income from her husband's work for financial support.
Sociology and
Rolling Stone" magazine, Dylan queried the validity of the term Never Ending Tour, saying: Critics should know there is no such thing as forever. Does anybody call Henry Ford a Never Ending Car Builder? Anybody ever say that Duke Ellington was on a Never Ending Bandstand Tour? These days, people are lucky to have a job. Any job. So critics might be uncomfortable with my working so much. Anybody with a trade can work as long as they want. A carpenter, an electrician. They don't