Motherhood refers to the dedication of the responsibility of the care of a child by its mother. Motherhood brings about changes on how women are perceived and viewed within the societal and the workplace setting. In this essence, new mothers are left in a dilemma on whether to continue working or be home-stay 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 unselfish, unnatural and unable to take care of their children fully. Most societies view the women who choose family over a career as wholly responsible to their children and the society as well. Due to the explicit assumptions that the role of childcare is that of the mother, and the assumptions on differences among children raised by working and home-stay moms, the general and working life of women has been greatly affected.
The employment status of moms is beneficial to the children as it positively impacts and improves on the family income, ensures that the kids adopt better working behaviors as well a building better and strong family structure routines. It has been noted that maternal higher education powerfully mitigates a large number of possible negative impact on the children raised by mothers were working from financial necessity. The difference in family interrelationships and parent-child for non-employed and employed moms have been explored. It has been found that working moms have significance 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 should be allowed to make their own decisions when it comes to deciding on whether to work and support their kids financially or be stay-at-home moms and support her kids socially (Duncan and Apryl). This is because being a mother institutionalizes the mother with her own designed 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 attained and that effective motherhood demands have been met. Moreover, it is significant to ascertain that both career and family responsibilities are extremely demanding and it would be fair if each responsibility is met without having to neglect the other.
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 be raised in a more stimulating environment than kids raised by the stay-at-home moms. This is because the children belonging to the working mums have access to better living conditions as well as 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 is affordable to them, and hence the kids have a better and favorable environment for growing up. However, long working hours are bound to have adverse effects on the relationships between mothers and their kids.
Most researchers have supported the facts 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 to their careers and hence ensuring their working and motherhood cultures negatively impact none of them. Being employed drives the major force of effectively. Working moms in most cases raise a good fortune which enables her to balance her work life and home life and in turn enjoy motherhood and the stimulations that come along with a successful career.
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 them and their parents. In reference to the cognitive perspective, working moms are believed to raise meaningful members of the society. This is because the children raised by working moms look up to their parent and adopt same traits as them. In this ideology, we can relate to the fact that most daughters especially from single working mothers lead more successful lives and eventually take after their moms’ careers.
According to a research conducted by Kathleen and McGinn, women raised by moms who worked outside the home place 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 essence, working women created a positive reinforcement and benefited their kids’ future. They preferred to perform their jobs effectively like their moms and hence assuming higher job roles, positions as well as overall performance efficacy
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.
Among other several 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 in condensing the early morning routine to avoid inconveniencing their moms work routines. Additionally, most of these kids ensure that their parents can count on them despite the wayward schedules. Flexibility among the kids enables them to get almost everything done and help in relieving their parents of some duties. Flexibility impacts the kids’ future and success in enabling the kids to meet their complex jobs roles in future and hence end up as successful and objective workers.
Moreover, kids brought up by working moms became effective and intellectual; future planners. They are able to plan on their activities and avoid inconveniences effectively. They are deemed to keep time, 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 the parents and hence have to learn on how to plan and achieve the desired goal effectively. In future, these kids, in turn, have more objective life plans which they also incorporate into their finances hence enabling them to plan well on their expenditure and investment. 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.
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 problems financial problems which adversely affect all kids living condition as well as their nutritional value. Most researchers term is working women as good mothers as they as they take the extra burden on the move to meet her kids’ problems and needs. Working women definitely become less affluent society members and hence generating 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 essence, it can be considered that working women are more -considerate of their children well-being than the stay-at-home moms.
Kids from the working moms have a strong bond with their parents and spend more quality time with their moms. In relevance to journals on family and marriage, working outside or stay 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. Kids from working moms ensure that their kids get 100 percent of their time especially when they are on leaves. This happens through giving the kids maximum attention and ensuring that the kids have all the fun that they desired during the parent’s absence. Additionally, the working parents ensure that a strong bond is established before and after work, during holidays and weekends which make the kids feel valued and special.
Based on various researches, 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 action based on their views of what is right or bad. By 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 assistance. The ability to think and reaching to sound decisions is acquired an adopted in young stages of life. On the contrary, children raised by a stay at home moms lack the ability to make independent decisions as their mothers solely influence most of their actions and decisions. Under this circumstance, it is difficult to nurture self-dependent individuals with the ability to dictate their own course of actions.
On the other hand, of childhood obesity incidences have been found to increase with the increase in maternal employment. This was due to the kids’ inability to access to healthy and nutritious food as most of the kids from working moms depend on junk and fast foods. The long working hours impedes the small kids the 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 contradicting health and nutritional complications. Due to this, staying home with the kids benefited them and ensured that they developed faster in reference to the ideology of adhering to a healthy and nutritional consumption of foods.
Every kid is born with unique talents and gifts which require parents to play an important role in nurturing and exploring the 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 in 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 as well achievements. Most stays at home mothers aim at ensuring 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.
As indicated by Smith, 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 relationship as the children experience and recognizes the connection with their mothers through emotions and feelings linked to the mother. These feelings and emotions require being regular, and a mother has to show her kids she has time for her children. This is only possible to 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 bond which is based on true feelings and emotions. This is because the employed moms are not present during the vital stages of the child growth and development form where strong relationship bonds are founded.
Parents especially mothers play a crucial role which is irreversible in her child’s character, attitudes, and development. It is a basic concept in children to adopt characters which they see from the people that surround them. Children primary source of character comes from the person who they spend the most time with, and in this essence, children brought up by stay at home moms have the advantage of imitating their mother’s behaviors and characters. Hence shaping their development based on these characters. In reference to this, mothers can nurture their children based on the behaviors, attitudes, and characters that they deem right, by showing and guiding them. On the contrary, working moms have less or no time in defining the attitudes and characters of their kids as they are busy with their work routines and in the most case dealing with the workplace stresses.
Teaching trust and providing emotional security by mothers is an important life skill. The importance of being able to trust and be trustworthy is gained from mothers. In return, this helps children in being 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 mouth and also, a child requires support and emotional security gained form unconditional love given by mothers. The difference between stay-at=home and working moms in this essence is that working moms are more concerned with the financial security of the kids unlike in stay-at-home moms who are inconsiderate of their kid’s emotional security.
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 relationship learned from their mothers. Stay-at-home moms have enough time to interact with their children and teach them and introduce them to various family values and cultures which they are required to adhere to as they grow up.
In conclusion, the woman’s domain is still considered and linked to housing chores and childcare. Although the difference between children brought up by stay at home mom and working moms have 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 behaviors. The differences between these kids are in relation to their behaviors, attitudes as well as the 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.
