Working Mothers vs. Stay at Home Mothers

More women are absorbed in job market nowadays. Most of these women have a duty of bringing up their children. This indicates that we have a number of working class mothers and also, it is quite sure there are presence of stay at home mothers. Stay at home mothers spend most of their time with their children whereas the working mothers have some of their time obligated for working. It is quite evident that working moms are not bad for the children at all. Although there might be some glitches that may affect parenthood of this working lady, the benefits that their children receive from the fact their mom is working is notable. These benefits not only influence academic life of working mother’s children, but also it assists them to have solid social skills especially when compared with children of non-working parent.

In agreement with Leira (2002), working mothers are able to source funds to assist their children in their endeavors. For every child to grow he or she will need resources in his growth. This shall be directed towards ensuring that the child receives quality education, and is able to have other basic needs. Working mother has, for many times, filled the gap that is left by the father who sometimes may not be able to wholly take care of the family. This means that the contribution of the mother towards the children’s success will be crucial in such circumstances. There are a number of cases where women have been left as the only breadwinners for the family and therefore, they play a great part in assisting proper growth of children. Non-working mothers may not be in a position to intervene in their children’s financial needs.

Children whose both parents are employed tend to perform better in schools than the other children

Research done, shows that children of working mothers excel in their academics (Hoffman, 1998). This can be attributed to the fact that parents of these children are able to take their children to better schools. These children also, have a chance to benefit from their educated parents who most of the times are well off in terms of academic prowess. The research also indicated that these children have great occupational commitment and fall into a non-traditional career. This illustrates that the children of working mothers may be better than the other lot.

Most working class ladies act as role models to their children. Children learn by imitating what they see their parents do. Katherine et al. (2006) observes with regard to the personality inventory, that working mothers have higher social recognition and achievement motives. Children will need to have self-awareness and be prepared for success in the future. They will need also to know the ways of handling themselves when they wake up and find that they are prosperous. Therefore, a working mother will play a critical role in ensuring that her child has embraced life tactics that will propel him forward. Since many husbands of a working spouse help in house hold chore, children in that type of home will learn to help their parents from observing. One of the effective ways for these children to learn these virtues will be through observance and emulation. On the other hand, children of stay at home mother do not enjoy such advantages.

Employed mas tend to offer their children time of being independent

Research indicates that children from working parents will be more independent and responsible (Hoffman, 1998). These children will be initiated into doing their own work earlier, from childhood, than those from non-working mother. In cases where the children are well advanced in years, there is need for them to start thinking independently. Because working mothers will later join their children at later time of the day, if they demand to know what the child has been doing. They also learn to do things on their own while the child of a non-working mom is more dependent on his mother. For instance, when a child of non-working parent needs anything, he has his mother at his disposal and therefore, he makes request to her and he receives what he wants. He becomes dependent fully on his mother.

Children raised by working parents, tend to have access to better quality services. Sometimes, companies offer benefits to the families of their staff. The benefits may include health care, provision of quality services such as education. This generally favors the children of a working mother, especially if the child has been suffering from any ailment. It will also open up doors for the children to further their studies with ease. This indicates that a working mother has channels of giving her children a high quality life. Consequently, a working mum is beneficial to her kids. Contrary to this, children to non-working mum will rely on what the family has gathered and it may prove to be hard for the family.

In many cases, when children are raised by working parents, especially their mother, they are taken to baby care facilities. In these facilities, children, grow under a specialized staff, who takes care of them. The staff will therefore, assist the child to grow and acquire the necessary life skills. This Cleary comes out when a child is raised by someone who does not understand the needs of the child. Therefore, the child may be at risk of procuring some deficiency in his growth. Most working mothers leave their children with professionals who assist the children in their development. In the facility also, this youngster will meet with other kids and hence he will grow up in an environment of diverse people. These facilities then, benefit the child growth.

Working ladies have a wonderful chance of offering accommodating skills to their children (Bianchi, 1986). For one to be working, he or she will need to have skills and qualities that will benefit the employer. Parents can take advantage of these skills to assist children in their growth. For instance, if a mother has been trained and is working as a teacher, she will have a chance to assist her children to benefit from these skills. This will not only make the mother happy, but also the child is proud of his mother. It also gives the child sense of belonging and works for the good of the family. Most non-working ladies don’t have skills that can be passed on to their children.

Children of working mothers receive affection from parents. This happens when the parents will try to cover for the time they have spent away from the child. Such parents feel compelled to unleash more affection towards their children whom they have missed the whole day. Whenever mother express their affection to their children, their young ones experience a sense of belonging. On the contrary, a non-working mom may not have this feeling towards her children and this may cause her kids to take her for granted (Parentingnation, n.d).

On the contrary, it is hard for working mothers to give adequate care and love to their children. Working mothers spend most of their time in the job and developing career instead of being home with children. This will deny a child from receiving motherly care and love. Motherly love, which is important in the healthy growth of every child, will be sourced from another place. This puts the child in danger of falling in the hands of opportunistic persons who may take advantage of the child and even ruin the child’s future. The notion, that working parents pay someone to offer love to their children is not comforting. Working mothers have been challenged so much by this issue of not offering love to their children. A child of a non-working mother has full access of the parents love throughout his life. Pare & Dillaway (2005) argues that, today’s full time mother is at home with her children and spends physical and psychological “quality time” with them. This is owed to the fact that the mother stays at home most of her time. Motherly love is very important for growth of every child and hence this child will enjoy this love in his growth.

Children of a non-working mother receive the most of the undivided attention from their ever-present mother. Lussier, Schwab and Koninck (1985) brings out the point that the nonmaterial acts from the non-working mother have more value than earning material objects; and she continue arguing that this is seen as her natural duty. A child of working mother lacks the much needed attention in his growth. Lack of proper attention to children can be accounted for rampant teenage pregnancy, children indulging in drugs and alcohol (Essornet, n.d). Quite often, the working class negates attention to their children. Essornet (n.d) attests that children, who have strong bond since childhood are able to open up to their parents and cope well as teenagers. In addition, the attention that a child receives from his parent when young is irreplaceable. Children of working mothers lack this attention because of lack of time. On the other hand, children of a non-working mother enjoy attention from their birth till they enter adulthood. This has played an important role in shaping the life of the child.

According to the notion the working mothers experience more unpleasant emotions and less residential ambitions, children of working parent have little psychological chances to share and relax with their mother

It is also apparent that work is associated with a lot of stress. Lack time, due to work, can be accounted for stress in more than three quarters of the working mothers. Stress survey carried out depicts that, many working women revealed that they did not worry about money but rather they worried about time (Barrater, 1996). The working women claimed that they never had enough time for their families because projects consumed most of their time. The stay at home mothers do not suffer from the stress caused by working. Due to the fact that the non-working mothers have only the family work to do, they end up having enough time to relax and attend to other social activities which are eventually imposed to the children.

A non-working mother has a chance to instill a strong character to her children. She actually spends most of her time watching over her children (Cassidy, 1996). When the non-working mother is close to the child especially at the tender age, it helps to develop a close bond between the mother and the child. The mother is able to understand the weaknesses and strengths of the child. This mother will work towards strengthening her child’s character and the fact is, she has enough time to do so. It is also noted that, during their young age children are developing socially and they start to identify familiar people and objects. Because of being close to their children at this very important level of their development, the stay at home mothers are able to impact positively into their children’s character. The parent enables the child to attain personality that is characterized with love and courage.

Children with non-working mothers tend to feel more secure than the children of a working mother. This is because the non-working mother stays at home most of the time. In case of an issue, the children to this mother have someone to consult and who can comfort them. This instills a sense of security in children’s life. Lack of sense of security affects children, and can affect the child throughout his life. On the contrary, the child of a working mother is trained to face circumstances as they come. The child tends to grow without a proper security and therefore this does not work well for these children.

There is more intimacy between the parents of non-working mother’s children than exhibited by parents of working mother’s children. The sex lives of the working women are most of the time compromised because of the problems associated with the fact of them being in work. Problems associated with the sexual lives of the working mothers include: bedroom problems resulting from quarrel regarding the sharing of family duties, fatigue and stress in the part of the women driving their sexual desires away, guiltiness and anger which result from failed sex life and also lack of appropriate time for sex (Cox, 2009). The sex life of the non-working women is good because they do not face the challenges faced by the working women. The intimacy that is brought about by the satisfying sexual life tightens the bond between the parents and this is passed on to the children thus giving them a better environment to grow in.

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On a study that was done to determine the relationship between maternal competence and employment status to the quality of maternal care Shpancer et al. (2006) reported as follows: mothers were videotaped with half being “stay-at-home-mothers” and the other half as “working mothers”. The sample items in this study were questionnaires on Attitudes toward Child Care and attitude toward maternal employment. Upon carrying out the analysis and results for the study Shpancer et al. (2006) reported the following results:

Table1. Videotaped segment rating sheet. Reprinted from Quality of care attributions to employed versus stay-at-home mothers by Shpancer et al., 2006 page 187

Shpancer et al. (2006) reported the results of the study to have revealed a significant quality-of-care effect on all five outcome variables. The following table is a tabulation of outcome as reported by Shpancer et al. (2006). The table reveals that at-home-mothers rate significantly higher than the working mothers.

Shpancer et al. (2006) reported the results of the study carried out by Manova for the independent variable-type of care in the table below

Table 2. MANOVA results: independent variable-type of care Reprinted from Quality of care attributions to employed versus stay-at-home mothers by, Shpancer et al. (2006) page189

Conclusion

It is quite evident that working moms are not bad for the children at all. The benefits that the children from working moms get include: role modeling, access to proper facilities, freedom from parental obligations and enough finances. On the other hand the children from the non-working mothers have evidently been shown to benefit from maximum care and attention from their parents as well as enough intimacy. The benefits the children from the working-mothers obtain from the fact that their mothers are working cannot be over emphasized. Therefore the working mothers are not bad at all.