All these terms describe a woman who does about the same thing, but not everyone prefers to use the same one. Personally, I go for housewife, or possibly homemaker. Domestic engineer, though, sounds like you’re trying to be funny. I became curious about this after a friend complained about my not liking homemaker or domestic engineer.
I work full time; however, if I were to stay home, I wouldn’t mind any of those terms with the exception of “domestic engineer.” It sounds like something out of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories.
Homemaker sounds a little Leave It to Beaver to me, but it’s better than domestic engineer. Ick.
To me, “homemaker” and “domestic engineer” are affectations that smack of political correctness. You can call a trash hauler a “sanitation facilitator” all you want, but it doesn’t change the job any. I was a housewife for several years, and I’m not ashamed of this.
I knew a woman who described herself as the CEO of her household. I thought that one was rather amusing.
“Domestic engineer” is downright misleading, unless you’re talking about someone who designs house systems for a living.
“Housewife” is the traditional term for a women who keeps house, that is, maintains the household… and is married to another member of the household. Its problem is that it conflates the task of keeping house with the marital status of the person doing it. (I have seen the word “househusband” but I’m not sure how widespread it is.)
“Homemaker” is a better term because it also includes men who keep house.
“Housekeeper” is also a good term here: it refers to someone who keeps house, but is an employee or servant.
I’ve asked hundreds of people what they do for a living, and all the housewives answered “Housewife”, the only ones who said “domestic engineer” did so afterwards in jest.
I should have specified in my OP that tax returns led me to this. All these terms appeared in the occupation section of someone’s tax return. Several housewives, a few homemakers, and one domestic engineer.
I was born in 1959, and thus learned to use the term “housewife”. I remember the first time I saw the word “homemaker” – my mother was a Bluebird leader, and one girl’s mother used the term to refer to herself on her daughter’s permission slip for an activity. I thought the term was a bit presumptuous, analogous to Jed’s referring to himself as a “sanitation engineer” after getting a garbageman job on a Beverly Hillbillies episode.
However, there was, a few years later, a TV commercial in which a woman implored: “Don’t call me a housewife! I’m not married to my house!” Also, I realized that “homemaker” could refer to an divorced or otherwise unmarried mother who had enough money to stay home and take care of her kids, so I accepted the word as a matter of course even as “housewife” generally remained my preferred term for the role.
Recently, “stay-at-home mom”, and the acronym SAHM, have gained currency – of course, these descriptors don’t apply to a childless woman who spends her days cooking, cleaning, and otherwise maintaining her husband’s residence.
Incidentally, a “housewife” need not have a husband – the word wife originally was synonymous with “woman”, so a housewife was simply the “woman of the house”. Similarly, a midwife may be of any marital status.
I don’t care much what people call me. Nowadays the term seems to be mostly SAHM, which points up the whole ‘Mom home with kids, will probably work later on’ aspect, as opposed to the more permanent sound of ‘housewife.’ But lots of people use ‘housewife’ and practically no one stays home all their lives any more.
I will happily use all three interchangeably, but ‘domestic engineer’ sounds like something from 1900, when they were trying to make housewifery scientific.
I prefer Domicile Goddess, thanks. I am not domesticated!
No, seriously, I usually use stay at home mom in conversation and online and “Homemaker” on applications and forms.
And the homemaker is always female why? 
I think domestic engineer implies there’s something demeaning about the regular terms.
I usually go with homemaker. This probably stems from the fact that I write obituaries and that’s what we use. You can be a homemaker and be single, you can be a homemaker and married, you can be a homemaker and employed, or be a stay at home mom or dad. It generally comes out something like “She worked at Harrah’s Tahoe for twenty years, and was a homemaker.” or “He co-owned County Purr Scrapbooking with his wife, and was a homemaker.”
~Tasha