What Science Can and Can't Tell Us About Whether Mom Should Work.
Mom-guilt is a nasty business, and one of the topics most notorious for bringing it on is whether mom works outside the home or not. One generation thought she better stay home and keep an eye on things, the next thought she better get out there and represent her sister-women in the workforce. After all that pendulum swinging we can Now feel free to experience remorse over either decision.
Science and Mom’s Work
Science is starting to catch up with our questions over what Moms should do, but as much as we would love a straightforward yes or no answer, studies don’t often deliver the tidy headlines that the journalists reporting on them do. What is our end goal, for example? Would we like to know whether our kids will end up in jail as adults, or whether they will be happy? Is it good enough for us to know that our daughter will likely be employed or would we rather know she feels contentment in her life, and how do we measure that exactly? What about us? Should we dote on our kids even though the shining light of the passion we got a degree in is calling us? What if we have no choice. Some women have to put food on the table. Guilt or not, eating comes first. We are starting to accumulate tiny answers to some of those very specific questions. Here is some of the most recent insight into how working mothers affect their kids
Working moms can lead to working daughters. (1) This study looked at the combined insight of two international studies that surveyed a total of over 100,000 men and women. The results are very specific. Women who were raised by a mother who worked were 1.21 times more likely to work. According to this study these women worked, harder, longer, and did less housework. The longer hours, of course, led to more money. The men raised in similar households, didn't work more or harder, but did pick up that housework slack. The final study also found that the children of working mothers were equally as happy as those of stay at home moms. (2) What does this mean? Like good science, it gives us very specific information about very specific outcomes. If having a working daughter who makes good money is a value of yours, than this is encouraging. Does it matter if these women like their jobs, or miss their kids? Does this mean that all women should be working whether they like it or not to benefit their kids? As gender roles continue to change this study adds to what we know, but leaves room for what we can learn. (3)
It can matter if your children are under five. What should you think when your kids are little? It seems that it depends on your situation. Are you a single mom struggling
to get by? Then daycare for them is a far better option that being stressed wondering how your kids are doing all day. (4) The household will also be more stable with the solid income. But that same study found that middle class families who did the same thing had worse outcomes than if children were not in daycare as much.(5) The quality of the daycare a child has can also affect their behavior and school skills. If you are financially able to choose the quality of care your child gets that can make a difference down the road. (6) If Mom works full time and has under five year olds, That time away can even possibly affect their educational attainment. Part time work doesn’t seem to have the same affect. It may matter how many hours you put in. (7)
Children can learn from and respect their working moms. (8) While this information comes from a thousand interviews done by an author and working mom, and not a scientist, she does find some encouragement for working moms. Of the people she interviewed a lot of the children of working moms respected how hard their moms worked, and what they accomplished. Her interviews showed that children of working and non-working moms had about equal success and happiness in their adult lives.
Make your family first: This recent study shows that no matter what you choose to do, whether you work full time or part time, spend oodles of time in the presence of
your mini-mes or just a few, if your family is your priority, your outcome should be solid. (9)By measuring the emotional health of kids researchers found that whether you worked or did not work, if you made your family your priority the children were better off. The parents that made the difference were ones who shut off their phones and focused on their children, and how and what they were doing. The study found that work distractions at home could be a real problem.
The Path You Should Take
One of the hard realities of adulthood is realizing the paths we will not take. (10) I may think, when I am a newly minted adult, that being with my kids is the best choice, only to find that I miss the career experience I would have had. I may rush headlong into the modern working world, only to wake up and realize that my family isn’t what I meant for it to be. I may get pregnant before I expect to, and need to work to get by. I may realize that I am grateful for what I have, regardless of what paths are no longer an option for me. No matter what our lives look like, statistics can only tell us so much. Researchers don’t see your autistic son that requires constant advocating from you in the school system, or the amazing
discoveries you are making in your job that will benefit everyone. You have to judge what is going to work for your family and which outcomes you value. One thing that is true about studies is that only a decade ago the results we were seeing seemed to support societies views, which tended to discourage working women. Studies can be fallible and skewed by the humans involved in them. Even now our research methods of self reporting and imperfect subject selection will seem archaic to future scientists. Our expectations of what we value in our future world citizens may also change. When it comes to work choices we will all have to make the best of the paths we have access to.
McGinn, Kathleen L., et al. "Learning from Mum: Cross-National Evidence Linking Maternal Employment and Adult Children’s Outcomes." Work, Employment and Society. Vol. 3, British Sociological Association, 2018, pp. 374-400, 33 vols, journals.sagepub.com/eprint/DQzHJAJMUYWQevh577wr/full. Accessed 28 July 2019.
-
Howard, Jaquelinne. "Having a working mom has benefits for kids later in life, study says." CNN.com, 18 July 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/07/18/health/working-moms-kids-study/index.html .
-
Ordway, Denise-Marie. "What research says about the kids of working moms." Journalist's Resource, 6 Aug. 2018, journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/jobs/working-mother-employment-research/.
"Working Mom vs Stay-At-Home Mom: What’s Best for Kids?" Secure Teen, 12 Nov. 2013, www.secureteen.com/working-mom/working-mom-vs-stay-at-home-mom-what%E2%80%99s-best-for-kids/ .
-
Lenehan, Pamela. "I Surveyed More Than 1,000 People to Find Out How Having a Working Mom Really Affects Kids." Time, 1 Mar. 2016, time.com/4241071/working-mom-impact-kids/.
Friedman, Stuart D. "How Our Careers Affect Our Children." Harvard Business Review, 14 Nov. 2018, hbr.org/2018/11/how-our-careers-affect-our-children.
-
Comments
Post a Comment