Family Needs For A Child And Their Mother

Roughly four-in-ten mothers say they have taken a significant amount of time off from work (39%) or reduced their work hours (42%) to care for a child or other family member. Roughly a quarter (27%) say they have quit work altogether to take care of these familial responsibilities...(Patten, 2015 [see figure 3]).

In her interviews with woman she was sure to interview very well educated women and those that strived for mere perfection. One thing is that the men in the lives of these women were not supportive and not mentioned of much. The men and society of today have placed a lot of responsibility on a woman’s shoulders when it comes to the child. It is the woman who makes the decision or is given the task to make the heavy decisions regarding the child’s future. Because of this many women choose to stay at home to be sure that the children will receive everything that they deserve and that they are not lacking in any area. Another issue that she reviews is that employers do not work with moms at all. For example she talked about the scenario where two moms brought a solution to their problem to management yet it failed to receive approval instead one mother was offered more money (Guest, 2011). Employers are not very flexible when it comes to mothers and don’t provide the proper care that is needed for a child. Since men are the ones that don’t carry the responsibility of the child’s well-being having proper day care is not a factor for them. Then there is the cost of day care which is high and can at times not compare to what the individual is making.

A recent survey found the impact of motherhood on women's work as unstable across generations and that those with children as less likely to begin work or return to it than those who are childless or with only one child (Pacaut et al, 2012). The finding was drawn from retrospective data obtained from Statistics Canada's 2001 General Social Survey on family history. It used the responses of 24,310 individuals older than 15 years old in 10 Canadian provinces, excluding Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The data collected and analyzed were on their work and family histories, their marriages and families. These data allowed an analysis of the women's conjugal and parental situations and their entry and exit from the labor market throughout their lifespan. These were women born between 1937 and 1976 (Pacaut et al).

Suzanne Bianchi, John Robinson and Melissa Milkie’s Changing Rhythms of American Family Life were able to document that “mothers are spending as much time with the children as forty years ago, fathers were doing more at home and there is more gender equality” (Bianchi et al 2006, 169). In their data it showed the trend of workloads for both fathers and mothers to have increased “from 55 to 64 estimated weekly hours between 1965 and 2000 households with married parents” (Bianchi et al 2006, 171). This could attributed to that there was a big change that occurred that allowed more women and mothers to enter the workforce. Corresponding to the female participants in my sample that want to continue to work and further their career. Furthermore,

Making the decision to stay at home with your kids or join the workforce can be a difficult process. Many stay at home moms don’t have a reliable babysitter, so they decide to stay at home and save the extra money spent on daycare. While moms that are facing financial circumstances have no choice but to join the workforce and enroll their little ones in daycare. Lets face it, most of us moms would love to stay home and raise our children until they're old enough to be sent to school, but unfortunately that is not the case for every mom out there. The choice of being a stay at home mom versus a working mom has both it’s pros and cons. Stay at home moms are often frown upon and underestimating the hard work that goes into it. While the working mother is viewed as ambitious and driven to leave their children to bring home a paycheck. However both these women play an important role in the family and the decisions they make can affect their babies and their family, but it can either be a positive or a negative affect as well.

With the rise of the modern age economic survival has become difficult for families based on a single income. This economic need along with modern attitudes toward gender equality has resulted in women being represented in the workforce in greater numbers. However, until the 1960’s women faced severe discrimination when trying to enter and maintain a position in the workforce. Often qualified women would be passed over for men with less experience and education. Employers were fearful that women were too emotional and were not equipped to handle the stress of the work environment. Also driving the decision to not hire or promote women was the concern over the additional health care expenses and leave time pregnant

Without the chance of pregnancy, they made the change to go back to work. These effects are seen in the numbers by the recorded percentile change in women within the workforce from 1960 to 1970. In 1960, women working during childbearing years (25-34) rose an entire two percent, working through the rearing years (35-44) increased by 4.3 and the women returning work after motherhood (45-54) swelled to twelve percent (“Labor Force”).

In the past 30 years, one of the most dynamic social changes in the history of the United States has taken place in the area of employment, specifically of women with children. Although, to some degree there have always been employed mothers, today a greater proportion of mothers are employed than ever before. Statistics show that in 1976, 48% of the population of women categorized as “married women with children” were employed and it increased to 62% in 1986 just 10 years later. What are the causes for this and how does it affect the children?

Women have for many years struggled with balancing the demands of home, children and work. This is especially true for young single mothers who do not have the support of family.

The changes occurring in the workplace present several sub-trends. One of the most significant is that women are returning to it in large numbers. I use the term returning rather than entering because women comprised a major factor in the workforce during World War II, but was forced out by men returning from the war. Jamieson and O'Mara (1991) project that approximately 50% of the workforce will be comprised of women by the year 2000. Wives came to the rescue of the family in the 1970s and 1980s. Even though male earnings dropped substantially for all but the top 20% of male workers, real household incomes fell only marginally for the bottom 60%, and increased for the top 40%. One third of this increase was a result of a rise in female real annual earnings; however, two-thirds was due to women working more hours per year. Unfortunately, most income earners in the family are now working as many hours as they can. The reentrance of women into the workforce occurred during the transition from the industrial to the information age.

Women in the last thirty years or so have fought for equality among the sexes in all forms. The Women?s movement have fought hard to change this socially constructed view of our society. Due to this double burden placed on working mothers there is a far greater demand on their bodies and an increasingly likelihood of illness in many forms as well as psychological trauma such as depression and anxiety due to the constant workload. Females in the past were argued as having a less likelihood of illness because they were not as abundant in the workforce thus giving them more relaxation time.

In most modern industrialized countries, the proportion of working mothers with children under 18 greatly increased in the last few decades of the 20th century, to the point that one-half of all mothers with children under 5 are in the workforce.

Mothers are very passionate about their choice to work or stay at home with their children. This is a heated debate about what is best for children and who is the better mother. Just in the last generation more mothers are choosing to work, which is also sparking some conflict in families where grandparents felt it was important to stay at home with their children. This paper compares and contrasts both sides of working and being a stay at home mother. While there is no right or wrong answer to the work and family dilemma, it’s important to understand both sides.

In the past, women were encouraged to work however now it is considered more of a status to sit at home with kids. (WebMD, [no date])

In the early 1990s participation rates of women abruptly flattened out. Initially much thought was given to the fact that more mothers were exiting the labor force temporarily in order to look after their children or become homemakers. Thus analysts turned to specific age groups. They