Motherhood refers to the dedication and responsibility of the mother to care for a child. Motherhood brings about changes in how women are perceived and viewed within societal and workplace settings. In this sense, new mothers are left in a dilemma over whether to continue working or be stay-at-home moms and take care of their kids. In other words, mothers are faced with difficulties in choosing between family and career (Bettinger et al. 252). This is because, in some societies, working women are perceived as selfish, unnatural and unable to take care of their children fully. Most societies view women who choose family over a career as wholly responsible for their children and society as well. Due to the explicit assumptions that the role of childcare is that of the mother and the assumptions about differences among children raised by working and stay-at-home moms, the general and working lives of women have been greatly affected.
Benefits of Maternal Employment
The employment status of moms is beneficial to children as it positively impacts and improves family income, ensures that the kids adopt better working behaviours, and builds better and stronger family-structure routines. It has been noted that higher maternal education powerfully mitigates a large number of possible negative impacts on children raised by mothers who were working from financial necessity. The differences in family interrelationships and parent-child relationships for non-employed and employed moms have been explored. It has been found that working moms have significantly positive perceptions and are bound to establish enriching home environments for their children; additionally, consistency and employment have beneficial implications for the relationship between mothers and their children.
Mothers’ Right to Balance Career and Family
Mothers should be allowed to make their own decisions when it comes to deciding whether to work and support their kids financially or be stay-at-home moms and support their kids socially (Duncan and Apryl). This is because being a mother gives the mother her own rights. However, being able to work is deemed to bring more joy to the mother as it ensures that the kids are catered for. Financial independence is attained, and demands for effective motherhood are met. Moreover, it is important to ascertain that both career and family responsibilities are extremely demanding, and it would be fair if each responsibility were met without neglecting the other.
Living Conditions and Development Under Working Mothers
Differences are evident in children brought up by working moms and stay-at-home moms. A child raised by a working mom is deemed to be safer and to be raised in a more stimulating environment than kids raised by stay-at-home moms. This is because the children belonging to working mums have access to better living conditions and reduced family stress, which in turn affects their overall growth and development. Working moms have the ability to provide their kids with luxuries and necessities that are affordable to them, and hence, the kids have a better and more favourable environment for growing up. However, long working hours are bound to have adverse effects on the relationships between mothers and their kids.
Combining Career and Motherhood
Most researchers have supported the fact that working women positively impact the overall development of their kids. In relevance to these facts, it is clear that working moms are in a position to effectively combine their careful consideration of their children with their careers and hence ensure that neither their work nor motherhood negatively impacts the other. Being employed drives a major force of effectiveness. Working moms, in most cases, earn a good income, which enables them to balance their work life and home life and, in turn, enjoy motherhood and the stimulation that comes along with a successful career.
Working Mothers as Role Models
Children raised by working moms are bound to adopt meaningful lives and careers, and their parents act as role models. The kids absorb several life lessons and learn from their parents. In reference to the cognitive perspective, working moms are believed to raise meaningful members of society. This is because the children raised by working moms look up to their parents and adopt the same traits as them. In this context, we can relate to the fact that most daughters, especially those of single working mothers, lead more successful lives and eventually follow their moms’ careers.
Career Outcomes for Daughters and Sons
According to research conducted by Kathleen and McGinn, women raised by moms who worked outside the home had jobs, held supervisory roles and responsibilities at their workplaces and earned higher wage rates compared to women raised by stay-at-home moms. On the other hand, men raised by working moms were responsible for household chores and efficiently took care of their family members. In this sense, working women created positive reinforcement and benefited their kids’ futures. They preferred to perform their jobs effectively like their moms and hence assumed higher job roles, positions, and overall performance efficacy.
Independence and Responsibility
Kids raised by independent moms are more independent. This is because the family’s busy schedules foster a climate through which children are expected to be more responsible. These kids raised by working mothers have to do everything for themselves and assume their undoubted duties during their parents’ absence. Children in such an environment are bound to rely on themselves and do not have to wait for anyone to perform their duties. Additionally, these kids are responsible and strive to be the best for their moms.
Flexibility in Family Life
Among several other things, working moms shape their kids into flexible future men and women. These kids are flexible in helping their moms solve their puzzles. For instance, they may strive to condense the early morning routine to avoid inconveniencing their mom’s work routines. Additionally, most of these kids ensure that their parents can count on them despite their wayward schedules. Flexibility among the kids enables them to get almost everything done and helps relieve their parents of some duties. Flexibility impacts the kids’ future and success by enabling them to meet their complex job roles in the future and, hence, end up as successful and objective workers.
Planning, Time Management, and Financial Awareness
Moreover, kids brought up by working moms become effective and intellectual future planners. They are able to plan their activities and avoid inconveniences effectively. They are deemed to keep time and meet schedules and job demands due to their ability to plan and manage their desired daily routines. These children learn these skills in the absence of their parents and hence have to learn how to plan and achieve the desired goal effectively. In the future, these kids, in turn, will have more objective life plans, which they will incorporate into their finances, hence enabling them to plan their expenditures and investments well. Therefore, working women play a significant role in teaching their kids about the importance of saving and budgeting. Additionally, these kids are more conservative and understand that things do not come easily as they see their parents working in order to get everything.
Financial Security and Fewer Family Problems
Kids being brought up by working moms are faced with fewer problems than the children raised by stay-at-home moms. This is due to the fact that working women work towards both the sustenance and betterment of the kids. Most of these women put themselves out of the house for the betterment of the kids and family in order to avoid financial problems which adversely affect all kids’ living conditions as well as their nutritional value. Most researchers term working women as good mothers as they take the extra burden on the move to meet their kids’ problems and needs. Working women definitely become more affluent members of society and hence generate more income from their busy work schedules. This, in turn, enables them to meet their family responsibilities and ensure that their kids refrain from economic, social and societal problems. In this sense, it can be considered that working women are more considerate of their children’s well-being than stay-at-home moms.
Quality Time and Strong Parent-Child Bonds
Kids of working moms have a strong bond with their parents and spend more quality time with their moms. According to journals on family and marriage, whether working outside or staying at home, moms spend the same amount of time with their kids. However, the variations are in the differences in the quality of time spent. Working moms ensure that their kids get 100 per cent of their attention, especially when they are on leave. This happens by giving the kids maximum attention and ensuring that they have all the fun that they desire despite the parent’s absence during working hours. Additionally, working parents ensure that a strong bond is established before and after work, during holidays, and on weekends, which makes the kids feel valued and special.
Egalitarian Views and Independent Decision-Making
Based on various studies, children exposed to working mothers grew up holding more egalitarian views as adults than their peers (Poduval). This is because these kids were exposed to real-life situations and circumstances in their parents’ absence. This situation enables children to be responsible for their actions based on their views of what is right or bad. Giving children space to determine their actions provides them with the ability to express and discover new ideas and solutions by themselves without relying on their mother’s assistance. The ability to think and reach sound decisions is acquired and adopted in the early stages of life. On the contrary, children raised by stay-at-home moms lack the ability to make independent decisions as their mothers solely influence most of their actions and decisions. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to nurture self-dependent individuals who have the ability to dictate their own course of action.
Nutrition and Childhood Obesity
On the other hand, childhood obesity incidences have been found to increase with the increase in maternal employment. This was due to the kids’ inability to access healthy and nutritious food as most of the kids of working moms depend on junk and fast foods. The long working hours impede small kids’ access to healthy foods as well as physical activities. However, stay-at-home moms ensure that their kids have access to foods with the required nutritional value; hence, their kids are far away from related health and nutritional complications. Due to this, staying home with the kids benefits them and ensures that they develop faster in reference to the ideology of adhering to healthy and nutritional consumption of foods.
Talent Development Under Stay-at-Home Mothers
Every kid is born with unique talents and gifts, which require parents to play an important role in nurturing and exploring those talents. In this regard, kids brought up by stay-at-home moms discover their talents at a younger stage since their parents give closer attention to nurturing their skills, abilities, and talents (Spencer). Children brought up by stay-at-home moms are well-rounded as a strong support system is established between the kids and their parents. This enables them to grow up with a feeling of great satisfaction, ambition, and achievement. Most stay-at-home mothers aim to ensure that their kids are confident and competent and, hence, develop a deep sense of purpose and passion. Giving a kid these opportunities is vital in bringing up skilled and competent kids.
Mother-Child Bonds and Emotional Availability
As Smith indicates, a mother plays a vital role in child development, and it is expected that every mother should establish a mother-child bond. The mother-child bond is created through intimate and close relationships as the children experience and recognize the connection with their mothers through emotions and feelings linked to the mother. These feelings and emotions need to be regular, and a mother has to show her kids that she has time for them. This is only possible for stay-at-home moms who have enough time to spend profitably with their kids and express their feelings. On the contrary, working moms are faced with difficulties in establishing a strong mother-child bond based on true feelings and emotions. This is because employed moms are not present during the vital stages of the child’s growth and development, when strong relationship bonds are formed.
Character Formation Through Daily Example
Parents, especially mothers, play a crucial and irreversible role in their child’s character, attitudes, and development. It is a basic concept that children adopt characteristics they see in the people surrounding them. Children’s primary source of character comes from the person with whom they spend the most time, and in this sense, children brought up by stay-at-home moms have the advantage of imitating their mother’s behaviours and characteristics. Hence, their development is shaped based on these characteristics. In reference to this, mothers can nurture their children based on the behaviours, attitudes, and characteristics that they deem right by showing and guiding them. On the contrary, working moms have less or no time to define the attitudes and characteristics of their kids as they are busy with their work routines and, in most cases, dealing with workplace stresses.
Trust and Emotional Security
Teaching trust and providing emotional security to children is an important responsibility of mothers. The importance of being trustworthy is learned from mothers. In return, this helps children to be confident and emotionally secure. Stay-at-home moms provide children with support by encouraging them to do better. A child learns the norm of telling the truth from his/her mother, and also, a child requires support and emotional security gained from unconditional love given by mothers. The difference between stay-at-home and working moms in this sense is that working moms are more concerned with the financial security of the kids, unlike stay-at-home moms who are more concerned with their kids’ emotional security.
Family Values and Cultural Continuity
According to Raja, a strong family is all about being together. Mothers are required to teach their children about the importance and meaning of a family. A child develops a positive attitude and response towards his/her own family by learning and appreciating the values of the family and the importance of family relationships learned from their mothers. Stay-at-home moms have enough time to interact with their children, teach them, and introduce them to various family values and cultures, which they must adhere to as they grow up.
Comparing Financial and Developmental Priorities
In conclusion, women’s domain is still considered and linked to household chores and childcare. Although the difference between children brought up by stay-at-home moms and working moms has been widely refuted, researchers have proven the existence of these differences. While working mothers ensure financial security, their responsibility towards their kids has been doubted. Stay-at-home mothers provide a better establishment based on a realistic approach to better child development of character, personality, and behaviours. The differences between these kids are in relation to their behaviours and attitudes as well as their current and future growth and development.
Work Cited
Bettinger, Eric, et al. “Home with Mom: The Effects of Stay-at-Home Parents on Children’s Long-Run Educational Outcomes.” Journal of Labor Economics, vol. 32, no. 3, 2014, pp. 443-467.
Duncan, Apryl. “What Research Says About Being a Stay-at-Home Mom.” The Spruce, 22 May 2016, www.thespruce.com/research-stay-at-home-moms-4047911.
Kathleen E., and K. McGinn. “Working Moms Feel Better Than Stay-at-Home Moms, Study Finds Mothers with Jobs Report Fewer Symptoms of Depression, Better Overall Health.” PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2015.
Poduval M. “Working Mothers: How Much Working, How Much Mothers, And Where Is The Womanhood?” PubMed Central (PMC), Jan. 2009, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3151456/.
RAJA D. “What Is The Importance Of Mothers In Child Development.” MomJunction, 21 Feb. 2017, www.momjunction.com/articles/different-ways-in-which-a-mother-can-influence-child-development_00353010/#gref.
Smith. “The Ultimate Perfect Happiness as a Stay-at-Home Mom.” The Ugly Wife Is a Treasure at Home, pp. 143-153.
Spencer K. “Moms: Working Vs. Staying Home.” Parenting, 15 Dec. 2015, www.parenting.com/article/working-vs-staying-home.
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