Working Mothers At Home And Acquire The Traditional Homemaker Job

In today’s society more and more women are working outside of the homes and are not able to take care of the children on a full time bases. When the parents are unable to tend to their children, they have to seek help from an outside source. Years ago, it was natural for the mother of the children to stay at home and care for them while the father goes to work. But time has changed and there is a major increase in single parenting than before. Even in two parent homes, the mother has to work in order to maintain the house

In the reading, “From the Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home”, Hochschild explains her experience conducting a case study with a series of different women to get their perceptions of their lives as mothers, but also working women. Moreover, she provides good information to start her study. She reports that in 1950, 30 percent of American women were in the labor force, 28 percent of married women with children worked out of home. Today, those numbers have dramatically increased. During her findings, she saw that women felt a responsibility to be able to balance work and life at home, focused more on children, and expressing how overworked or tired they felt. Whereas men in this study expressed that women did most of the work around the house and childcare. In addition, what stood out to me in this reading was that some men felt pleased that their wives received more income than them. For instance, in an interview a man expressed, “was more pleased than threatened by her

Well, my parents went to work every day to provide for my brother and I and we had everything we ever needed. We lived in a nice house, had a dog, and I never went without. I was able to dream about the future and the possibilities that were out there for me to seize. With that being said the first topic I would like to discuss with you is the issue of childrearing. If you look at the US over the last 50-100 years within the scope of childrearing you will find a common theme. The “normal” house consists of a father who leaves every day to go to work and provide for the family and a mother who stays home to take care of the children and the house. This has been a standard of living in the US for a very long time. A recent article published by the Pew Research Center states: “While most stay-at-home parents are mothers, fathers represent a growing share of all at-home parents – 16% in 2012, up from 10% in 1989. Roughly a quarter of these stay-at-home fathers (23%) report that they are home mainly because they cannot find a job. Nearly as many (21%) say the main reason they are home is to care for their home or family. This represents a fourfold increase from 1989, when only 5% of stay-at-home fathers said they were home primarily to care for family” (Livingston 2014). This is interesting in many ways. Less than thirty years ago the number of stay at home dads was drastically lower. One might say that the only reason that these dads are staying home is because they cannot find work outside the home. The statistics disprove this theory. While it is true that some have suffered from a shaky economy, many are home because they choose to be. 23 percent say that they are home due to the fact that they cannot find work. 21 percent are home by their own choosing. This is hard to understand for most people. Globally it is accepted that the place of the man should be

The days of mom staying at home full-time are long gone for most families. More women are their family’s breadwinners than ever before. Heather Boushey in The New Breadwinners, states “Women are more likely to work outside the home and their earning are more important to their families well-being than ever before in our nation’s history” (31). In families today there’s no one staying at home in the day, so there no one there when kids come home from school with everyday life.

If we as Americans plan to lead the world’s economy, we must start with our future, our children. According to Ruhm, Parental leave results in better prenatal and postnatal care and strengthened parental bonding over a child’s life (Ruhm, 2007). This time provides long-term benefits that improve a child’s brain development, social development and overall well-being. Below is a diagram from the California Work and Family Coalition, showing the impacts of pregnancy and bonding. For example, Mothers who stay home before delivery experience a lower rate for premature birth and less surgical

As a result of the increase of pregnancy rates in the 1950s there was a decrease of employment. Instead of going to work, mothers cared for their children at homes. This reinforced the roles of women as wives and mothers. Today, women are now more liberated from these roles. That being the case Author Natalie Angier, of the article, “The Changing American Family, explains, 62 percent of the public, and 72 percent of adults under 30, view the ideal marriage as one in which husband and wife both work and share child care and household duties…” This quote demonstrates that majority of women are no longer the housemakers of the family. The twenty-first century women are through with stereo gender jobs and proved to be a family's breadwinner. In the 1950s, Author Brigid Schulte, of the article, “Unlike in the 1950s, there is no ‘typical’ U.S. family today,” points out, “....in the 1950s, 65 percent of all children under 15 were being raised in traditional breadwinner-homemaker families. Today, only 22 percent are.” This quote supports the belief that both husbands and wives should share the responsibilities of supporting their families with financial income and responsibilities in the

Being a mother is a full time job because as a mother you need to be around your child all the time. Even the father plays a similar role but nothing can ever come close to the nurturing capabilities of a mother towards her child. However, the present trends reflect that most parents are generally engaged in professional jobs where they need to devote a certain amount of time. Irrespective of the professional commitments that parents have, they must also give time to their children and take care of their responsibilities.

For years, society has encouraged women to engage in labor force participation and to create a career outside of the household. The feminist movement discouraged women to continue their roles as caregiver because it was considered a low status position in society. To be considered successful in life, one needed to achieve a high paying career and as everyone knows the job of mom is free of charge. The movement also portrayed the traditional family structure as a way to keep women confined to their homes, rather than a structure built with the main idea of women having complete focus on the most valuable job of their lives “Motherhood.” The feminist movement was to fight for women’s rights but at the same time the movement forced mothers to make a difficult decision of either entering the workforce and leaving children in daycare or continuing the homemaker’s lifestyle. After many years of liberation for women in the workforce there has been a decline in the number of women who continue a career after childbirth. Contrary to the feminist belief, mothers are finding a greater sense of fulfillment staying at home to raise children rather than focusing on a career. Data taken from the U.S Census Bureau in 2005 shows the amount of stay at home mothers is about 5.6 million (Zamora). More women are replacing the 1950s “housewife” stigmas and renouncing their roles in society with a new high status of “domestic engineers.” Although mothers who chose to stay at home might have a harder time reentering the workforce and many think it will make families struggle financially, more mothers of young children should stay at home instead of returning to the workforce. This will allow mothers to have more efficacious time to spend with children. Along with the unaffordable cost of quality child care causing

In her article, “A Mother’s Day Kiss-Off”, Leslie Bennetts describes the problem of how our culture depicts the typical mother as a stay-at-home mom and how mothers respond to that problem. She begins her argument by commenting on how Mother’s Day will come but pass leaving mothers to go back to their excessive responsibilities. She critiques the weight our culture imposes on mothers because raising children is still viewed as the mother’s job. Bennetts draws attention to the flaws in our society that prevent women from following their dreams because of motherhood.

Compared to contemporary society, the cliché stay at home mother is no longer the societal norm, as both genders are now assuming the maternal-home role.

Are children who have a stay-at-home parent more successful than children who do not have a stay-at-home parent? Through personal experience I can say that when my mom was a stay-at-home parent, I was more successful. My mom made sure her children were always busy and keeping themselves out of trouble, whereas when she was employed my grades slipped, I got into trouble more often and I was not involved in any activities. Stay-at-home parents are generally more involved with their children’s education, activities, and household responsibilities.

When the mother is stressed and exhausted from handling these multiple roles it is also said to affect the child in that they will also feel stressed from feeding off the mother’s attitude. Dr. Rosalind Barnett stated in her article, Women and Multiple Roles: Myths and Reality, that a common myth centers on “the underlying assumption that the roles of wife and mother are ‘natural’ roles and are therefore performed without undue stress”, and that the role of being employed is “seen as ‘unnatural’ and therefore highly demanding” leading to the belief that mother’s and wives should remain in the traditional role that society has set for them (2004:158). The message a lot of women are receiving from society is that they are selfish in pursuing “other” dreams, when they should be taking their role of mother and wife as the main job. Barnett explained that the message women commonly hear is “children of working mothers, especially during the crucial early years, will suffer a range of problems from insecure attachment to inappropriate externalizing behaviors” (2004:160). However, as Barnett points out, contrary to society’s perceptions of mothers working, the consistent findings in various studies, including cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, showed that a working mother with multiple roles “exhibited better mental and physical health” and consequently felt less stressed and less anxious overall (2004:160).

Studies have shown that though many husbands have helped fill domestic gaps in the home and with child care, there is still a common expectation that women should continue to fulfill their traditional role as mother and housekeeper as well as stay abreast in the labor force. “Most domestic work was seen as a woman 's responsibility. The Work and Family Report (2002) of the International Labour Office and the Ministry for Labour and Industrial Relations highlighted the fact that although on paper, many male respondents see some household tasks as a dual responsibility, in reality relatively few women say that this attitude translated into action on the part of their spouse (Bhowon, Ngtseung, Kaajal, 2008). While women have increased their employment activity, men typically have not increased their participation in home care. This creates tremendous strain on the working women, causing a loss in overall satisfaction.

Society speculates negative views on the impact of working mothers with a family. A mother is the person who gives a child life and love, She is the most important person for a child. Research shows that 75% of mothers work full time in the first year of their child's life. Since the majority of jobs within the United States only offers maternity leave for the first six weeks of a child's life, the mother is usually back to work when the child in still an infant. Based on this information a working mom can have several negative impacts both emotionally and academically .

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.