Working Options for Mothers - What's Best For The Children?
Working Mothers v Stay-at-Home Mothers
©Jan Andersen 2002
In order to keep pace with current trends, this topic ought really to be re-titled, "Parents who work outside the home vs Stay-at-home parents vs Telecommuting parents". And why shouldn't we bring fathers into the equation? After all, it is becoming increasingly popular for fathers to stay at home and raise the children whilst the mother becomes the breadwinner, or for fathers to gain custody of the children and therefore find themselves in the situation that many single mothers have been in for decades.
This is an enormous topic and I could write a book on the various points and scenarios that that this subject throws out. It is not clear-cut, since every mother is different, every child is different and everyone's circumstances are diverse and finding a balance that keeps all the family happy is never easy. There are mothers who are forced to work outside the home when they would far rather be at home raising their children and there are mothers who prefer working outside the home. There are stay-at-home mothers who would love to be able to work outside the home, but for one reason or another aren't able to do so and there are mothers who enjoy being at home and are lucky enough to have that option. Then there are the mothers who literally juggle a career and family by working from home.
I have an aversion to the term, "working mother". All mothers work and yet there is still the narrow-minded assumption that being a full-time mother is not a valid occupation because it falls within the voluntary sector. A mother's role fits into many categories; Nurse, Doctor, Child Psychologist, Entertainer, Cook, Cleaner and Teacher are just some.
I have been a mother who has worked outside the home, a mother who has stayed at home to raise my children, a mother who has worked unsociable hours in order to spend the sociable hours with my children and now, since the birth of my fourth child, I have become a mother who works from home on a freelance basis. All these options come hand-in-hand with their own advantages and disadvantages, but what I have learned through my experiences is that if the parents are happy, then in general the children are happy.
A mother who feels unfulfilled in the home environment is likely to convey her frustration to her children and although she may spend more time in the company of her children than a mother who works outside the home, the children may not necessarily benefit. A mother who has willingly chosen to work outside the home and who derives pleasure from her vocation, may relish the time that she spends with her children when she returns home. However, another mother may have such a demanding career that she is just too tired emotionally and physically to spend quality time with her children when she is with them. It has been said many times before, but quality of time is definitely more important than quantity. Of course, the ideal situation would be for children to have the benefit of spending lots of quality time with their parents, but in the pressurised environments in which so many of us live and work, this is not always possible.
The above scenarios are very much generalisations and there will be good and bad mothers who work outside the home and good and bad mothers who raise their children at home. There are also many other circumstances that can affect the well-being of a child and a mother's choice to undertake employment outside of the home is only one factor to be considered in the complex issue of raising happy and emotionally healthy children.
There are many reasons why mothers work outside the home:
· Economic reasons income is needed to support basic needs of the family, or income is needed to provide a more comfortable lifestyle
· Personal fulfilment
· To maintain a sense of identity and self-esteem and to prove to others that she is not "brain dead" just because she has given birth
· Career advancement, where too long a break may result in demotion
· Social contact
· Circumstances such as divorce may mean that a mother has to return to work, particularly in situations where the father doesn't pay child support
· The desire to keep pace with the latest technologies and to avoid long periods away from the traditional workplace, in order to remain easily employable when the children are older
· Because child-rearing has not yet been officially recognised as a genuine profession and is not salaried
There are just as many reasons why mothers stay at home and raise their children:
· They want to have the pleasure of raising their children and
a) They can afford to do so, or
b) They are prepared to make economic cutbacks in order to do so
· They would like to work but can't find suitable employment
· They can't afford the costs involved in returning to work e.g. childcare, travel
· There aren't any suitable childcare facilities in their area and they don't have close family members who may be available to undertake the childcare responsibilities
· Circumstances such as divorce may cause a mother to give up her job
· If a child has a health problem or disability, he or she may need continual care
Advantages of external childcare:
· Social interaction with other children and adults
· Children learn to become more independent and confident
· An only child can learn to share
· Children learn about rules and discipline and having to conform in social situations, such as the classroom
· Many nurseries are educational and encourage the children to build a range of skills
Disadvantages of external childcare:
· Cost
· Other people have the pleasure of witnessing your child's milestones instead of you
· Ongoing worries that maybe your child isn't settled, isn't being supervised properly, will have an accident or is being mistreated in some way (and it does happen!)
· Guilt
· Having to allocate extra time at the beginning and end of each day in order to transport your child to and from childcare facilities
· If you have to work late, you have to rally around to find someone who is able to collect your child from nursery, or you have to ask your childminder if they can have your child for additional time
· You cannot send your child to nursery or a childminder if they are ill, although most parents would wish to be at home with their children at times like this
I don't see how one set of conclusive statistics can be drawn up about a child's psychological welfare, based purely on whether the mother goes out to work or stays at home. There are so many factors and combinations to consider that I would assume that many studies would have to be conducted to include the wide range of circumstances and the individual personalities of the children. Here are just a few possible examples:
Scenario One
A mother working outside the home who is unhappy in her job vs a mother who stays at home and raises her children and is happy doing so.
Conclusion:
The child with the stay-at-home mother is the happier child
Scenario Two
A mother working outside the home who is happy and fulfilled in her role vs a mother who reluctantly stays at home to raise her children.
Conclusion:
The child with the mother who works outside the home is the happier child.
Scenario Three
A mother working outside the home enjoys her job, but is in an unhappy marriage vs a mother who is happy to stay at home and raise her children, but is also in an unhappy marriage.
Conclusion
None of the children are happy because of conflict within the home
Scenario Four
A mother who has a fulfilling job outside the home vs a stay-at-home mother who finds fulltime childrearing fulfilling.
Conclusion
All the children are happy
So you see, there are infinite combinations and possibilities and I would be interested to know upon what type of families the so-called professional studies are based. Is it your average 2.4 (or whatever the national average is these days) children being brought up in a happy home environment by two parents who have never been married to anyone else?
Following are some various situations that I have experienced personally:
· I was a single parent with one child and stayed at home to raise my son whilst he was a young baby
· I was a single parent with one child and went out to work full-time when my son was a toddler
· I have been a married mother with one child and worked outside the home full-time in an enjoyable job, but at the expense and guilt of leaving my 3-year-old son bawling his eyes out at the nursery door
· I have been an unhappily married mother with three young children and worked outside the home in a part-time evening job that I hated
· I have been a divorced mother with three children and worked outside the home in a part-time day job that I hated
· I have been a divorced mother with three children and worked outside the home in a full-time job that I loved and where I met my current partner
· I am now the mother of four children, living with a supportive partner, working from home and loving what I do!
After years of trial and error and sometimes circumstances that I felt were beyond my control, I have finally found a solution that works for me. I am literally juggling the four occupations of raising my young daughter, taking care of a partner (which is no different to having a child), looking after the house and having a career, which has always been my aim and yet would not have been achievable without the aforementioned supportive partner. My 2-year-old daughter has attended nursery two mornings a week since she was ten months old and this time is sacred as far as my productivity is concerned. It also gives her a chance to interact with other children her own age, to engage in a range of educational activities and to learn how to behave in group situations.
Working from home is an option that is not without its problems, so for any mother considering a telecommuting profession, please note the following:
· Get used to operating a keyboard with tacky keys, caused by a build-up of baby juice, second-hand food and all manner of other unsavoury and unmentionable substances
· Allocate an extra hour each day to track down or re-print hard copies of vital documents that have either mysteriously been destroyed by a small, human shredding machine, or else appear with an abstract wax-crayon drawing of a Teletubby superimposed onto the text
· Important business phone calls will inevitably come in at the most inconvenient moments e.g. when you have a baby sucking noisily at your breast, when your child is wailing like a banshee with a hot poker up its bum or when you are in the middle of acting as an umpire in a battle between siblings
· Get used to working along to Tweenies' melodies, which you will inevitably find yourself subconsciously humming in the queue at the supermarket checkout
· Get used to gratuitous help from a pint-sized office assistant
Working from home can make you feel isolated, however. At times I miss the social contact with other adults and not having to speak in a children's TV presenter type voice all day, but when my partner drags himself through the door each night after a "hard day at the office", complaining about incompetent colleagues and pathetic office politics, it reinforces my belief that I have chosen the best option. I can pick and choose for whom I want to work, when I want to work, how I want to work and am not answerable to anyone else. Well, except perhaps my boss, who is just three years old...
