Does Playing Stay-At-Home Mom Affect Your Kids' Smarts?

As many of my friends and family are having children, I have noticed that more of them are deciding to stay home for the first crucial years of their child's life, shunning day care and signing up for mom-baby classes. My Q is- does it really matter? Does staying home to soley raise your child matter? Does it matter in the type of person they will become, their intelligence, their work ethic. I think of myself, three, four years down the line when I decide to have kids. Will I be able to stay at home for six years raising my own beloved offspring? Going on nature walks, taking them to singing lessons, reading to them at bedtime, playing Beethoven and Mozart for babies while they play with Baby Einstein blocks? Abandoning the shackles of an eight hour work day, uncomfortable shoes, stressful paperwork and putting on the shackles of Elmo and Telletubbies, matching velour sweatsuits and mindless humming of Old MacDonald.
Not to stray from the topic at hand, but I consider my upbringing. The first few years of my life both of my parents worked long hours, spending little time with me during the week. After all what was more important - making sure I had enough formula or playing patty-cake for six consecutive hours. And so my mom read to me occassionally when she had the energy. My dad saw me on the weekends when he wasn't working twelve hour shifts...and I consider myself somewhat intelligent, successful and very motivated. I graduated college, not only with a bachelors, but with a masters as well. I am teaching the youth of America, pumping information about Greek mythology, comma splices, and the correct uses of there, their and they're into their minds already jam packed with text messaging and Halo. How did my parents working during the first few years of my life affect who I am today? Ok, they weren't there to cuddle me for naps. watch my every move and change my every diaper, but what I do know is that everything they did was for me. They wanted to obtain the best possible life for their baby. They wanted to move to the suburbs, have a house with grass and backyard with a swingset.
So their work ethic somehow trasported, most likely by example to me.
What is surprising, after a bit of reserach, is that a mother not working between birth and kindergarten has little affect on her child's intelligence.There is no visible advantage to a child's mother staying home. No correlation between a smart kid and his mom staying home until he's five/six. (Freakonomics, pg.169)
In fact 50 % of who you will be is already predetermined by your genes. So why stay home when most of how your kid turns out is out of your hands? Good freakin' question. Maybe I'll change my mind when I have kids and all I want to do is play ball with them in the sun while drinking lemonade and eating grilled cheese. Doesn't sound that bad.