working mothers advantages essay

Women’s Work Advantages and Disadvantages Essay

This argumentative essay about women’s work explains all the disadvantages and advantages of being a woman in the workplace. The positive and negative effects of being a working mother are also presented, so you might draw your own conclusion on the issue.

Introduction

• Disadvantages

In today’s world, women take active roles in employment, unlike during the olden days when they stayed at home and took care of their families. Women taking active roles in jobs have advantages and disadvantages. In contemporary society, women and men have equal opportunities for employment.

Working Women Advantages

The advantages of women working include more income for their families, the opportunity to explore their talents, and the promotion of economic growth. When women work, they make money that adds to their families’ financial well-being. This helps pay bills, buy food, and educate children. Women have goals and objectives to achieve in their lives. Working allows them to pursue their dreams and talents, as well as work on their goals by pursuing careers of their choice. Finally, women who work contribute towards economic growth through their jobs.

Women’s Work Disadvantages

Disadvantages for working women include the absence of enough time for their families, pressure from work-related stress, and conflicts of interest. Working women have little time to take care of their families because their jobs are very demanding and time-consuming. Many jobs are very stressful, and many women cannot handle high levels of work-related stress. Their nature predisposes them to anxiety and depression more than when compared to men. Finally, there is a conflict of interests. Their roles as mothers compromise their performance at work. They use working hours to take care of their children at the expense of their jobs.

Today, women seek employment opportunities just like men. This increases income for their families and gives them opportunities to explore their talents by pursuing careers of their choice. However, it affects their families because they do not spend enough time with their children. In addition, their role as mothers has involved my performance at work.

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Bibliography

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Working Mothers: How Much Working, How Much Mothers, And Where Is The Womanhood?

Jayita poduval.

* Assistant Professor, Department of ENT, Manipal Teaching Hospital, Pokhara, Nepal

Murali Poduval

** Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopedics, Manipal Teaching Hospital, Pokhara, Nepal

Motherhood confers upon a woman the responsibility of raising a child. This process also changes the way in which she is perceived in society and at her workplace. It can necessitate her to take more than available leave options, and job security can be at risk. Significant social and personal adjustments are necessary to cope with such a situation. A working mother, especially one who has the good fortune to be able to balance her home and work, enjoys the stimulation that a job or career provides. She develops the ability of raising a useful member of society and at the same time gains financial independence. Along with motherhood, work adds to the completeness of being a woman.

Introduction

“ I am relieved if, rather than sex bias; the reason why more women are not breaking through the glass ceiling of academic medicine is because their children are hanging on the tails of their white coats. Most of us are happy to have them there, and academic medicine offers a level of professional fulfillment, financial stability, and geographic flexibility that is well worth the juggle ” (Laine, 1998)

“ First, from the early 1950s, many employed mothers began to challenge, although not overturn, the dominant discourse of the ideal mother as exclusively bound to the home. The simple fact that so many women were drawn to work outside the home despite criticism demonstrates the monetary and psychological importance of employment for women ” (Wilson, 2006)

Both quotes above reflect the unique life situation of working mothers, who are now a visible part of the workforce in almost all professions. Many working women start their families while they are working, and some others may find the need to return to work sooner than expected in the postpartum period. The working mother is an institution in her own right, one who combines a successful career giving her financial independence, with an effective motherhood raising a child. It is important to understand that both these jobs are extremely demanding, and to do justice to each without neglecting the other is a formidable task.

In this article, we shall try to clarify the difficulties a working mother may have on functioning with such dual responsibility.

Working and Motherhood

One could define a working mother as a woman with the ability to combine a career with the added responsibility of raising a child. Within this broad term may be encompassed two different categories of working women: the stay at home mother who works from home and the woman who works away from home while managing to fulfill her maternal duties.

Material aspirations and the necessities of daily life often compel both parents to work. A qualified woman may insist on working to maintain an effective career and be financially independent. The single working mother is a combination of these entities, working not only to run the family, but also maintaining her position as a financially independent head of the family.

Some of the points we must try to address include the following:

• a) Does motherhood affect productivity at the workplace?
• b) Does motherhood incite subconscious gender discrimination at the workplace?
• c) Does motherhood imply that the employee be given special privileges beyond possible entitlements, say maternity leave?
• d) Do special policies exist regarding leave benefits and special entitlements that may be needed by working mothers, say sudden sickness of the child?
• e) Is flexible working desirable? Can it be taken undue advantage of by the employee?

In this context, some of the issues that come into play include the following:

• a) Employer issues–maternity, compensated working hours, childcare facilities at the workplace, gender discrimination of working parents, especially in the academic field
• b) Employee issues–fatigue, spousal support, parental support system, child care issues, child health issues (e.g., do children of working mothers have more health problems?)

Working and Mothers: Some Common Issues

The Department of Labour of the United States of America, in The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (1993), clearly recognizes the needs of working parents. According to this statute:

“The number of single-parent households and two-parent households in which the single parent or both parents work is increasing significantly. It is important for the development of children and the family unit that fathers and mothers are able to participate in early childrearing .The lack of employment policies to accommodate working parents can force individuals to choose between job security and parenting. Due to the nature of the roles of men and women in our society, the primary responsibility for family caretaking often falls on women, and such responsibility affects the working lives of women more than it affects the working lives of men. Employment standards that apply to one gender only have serious potential for encouraging employers to discriminate against employees and applicants for employment who are of that gender [The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (1993)]” .

Therefore, the need to support a working mother is well recognized. It has also been explicitly mentioned that the dominant role in childcare is recognized and assumed to be that of the mother and that this responsibility affects the working life of women more than that of men.

Certain common problems plague most working women. The Better Health Channelon the Web, ratified by the Government of Australia, states some of the common issues that may concern working mothers (Better Health Channel, 2008). Foremost amongst these are income difficulties. If the mother works, childcare support is essential and can be quite expensive. It may actually offset the financial benefits of both the parents working.

In Asian countries, and in many joint family systems, grandparents and other nonworking family members fulfill the need for childcare–they take over the job of childcare when the mother is at work. This very important benefit (of readily available child support from the family members themselves) in joint families not only recognizes that the working mother is an important member of the family, but also provides her the necessary support to be able to perform her dual role efficiently.

Stress loads can be quite high amongst working mothers and these may often reflect in their relationships at home. She is stressed to reach work on time, to send her child to school and to reach all the children's deadlines on time including food and dress, and she is also pressed for time to look after her home simultaneously.

Housework is still considered the woman's domain. Working women shoulder additional responsibility of the work place as well as at their domestic front.

Unexpected sickness of children is a calamity that can be difficult to handle. There often is need to use and avail of unpaid leave and unexpected absences from work. Few employers would consider the needs of sudden leave requirements in women with young children. Even in double-income families, it is still the woman who is expected to take care of a sick child (ibid).

Sexual relationships can also be quite strained in working mothers. Much of it can be attributed to lack of time and to fatigue, especially where both partners have long working hours (ibid).

Nutritional requirements may be neglected in the quest to complete and meet all targets at home as well as at work (Finn, 2000). These women, whom Finn calls Everyday Heroes , use everything from the dashboard to the desktop as a dining table. The result is an amazing variety of nutritional deficiencies, ranging from iron and vitamins to proteins. Despite confiding in their physicians many just do not get the support they need.

Mothers and Employment

The rush of married women into the workforce runs against traditional thinking that women must choose between family and career. Many observers condemned working mothers as selfish, unnatural and even dangerous to their children and society (Wilson, 2006). It was complained that the rise in juvenile delinquency could also be attributed to women who are working mothers, but needs and requirements of the family unit will always supersede ill-defined logic. Women, motherhood or not, continue to work. The reasons are, more often than not, aspirational. Many of these mothers are young and have spent years developing their careers. When both spouses work it may be necessary for the mother to retain her job if she has insurance benefits, and if she wants to retire with better retirement benefits (Edelman, 2002). Many of these women find the need to maintain a parallel source of income a social security and a sign of independence.

A mother may work out of a financial compulsion, a desire to fulfill herself, or to supplement the family income. In all of these three instances, she is a working mother, but the implications of her situation are different.

As Wilson (2006) says “ many working women said that they worked because they ‘needed’ the money and which they defined as specific material goods-an extra lesson, additional clothes, a vacation, furniture, owning a home, car or even just a television-arguing their work was bringing a rise in the family's standard of living .” Both men and women had material and emotional expectations for better standards of living and a working wife could add considerably to achieving those goals (Wilson, 2006).

A financial compulsion could be a less competent spouse with an inadequate income, or a single mother who is dependent on her earnings for survival. A second income from the mother adds to better living conditions and eases the stresses of struggling for a comfortable life. However, when the mother is returning to work purely to maintain and advance a career that satisfies her and keeps her independent, she comes under scrutiny and criticism (Heilman and Okimoto, 2008).

The working mother has to keep the convincing stance that she is working not just for her own sustenance, but also for the betterment of the family. Something like, “a working woman who put herself out for the kid's sake” (Wilson, 2006). Working women changed the image of a good mother from one who stayed at home to one who also took on extra burden for her family's benefit. This would however not recognize the working mother as an important member of the workforce and an important worker in her own right! It is possible for a working mother to defend her right to work in a number of ways. A less affluent member of society would simply say it brings in much needed extra money. A woman from a better class of living would say she has more money to spare and is utilizing her talents and skills to the best effect. In either case, the most important aspect is that it shouldn‘t affect the health and well being of their children in any way. In any case, “having to work” takes away much of the problems a working mother has to face (Wilson, 2006).

Employer's Perceptions of Efficiency and Relationships of Motherhood to the Working Environment

A working mother's ability to deliver is considered with trepidation. Having decided to work, will the working mother be able to deliver efficiently at the work place?

Motherhood leads to a definite bias in employment for women seeking a job in traditionally male settings (Heilman and Okimoto, 2008). In general, for both men and women, parenthood changes the way in which both men and women are viewed in terms of expected work focus, especially producing expectations of undependability. The authors also add that there are possible heightened associations with gender stereotypes that occur when women are mothers; this may lead to heightened performance expectations that predispose greater negativity to be directed at mothers than at non mothers when career advancement decisions are made (Heilman and Okimoto, 2008). They also noted that employment bias occurred against mothers irrespective of whether they were students or working people, and that women suffer definite disadvantages when at the workplace, a problem that has been called the Maternal Wall by Williams (Heilman and Okimoto, 2008; Williams, 2001).

It is well known that employment has positive effects on the mother (Barnett, 2004). There is an underlying assumption that the roles of mother and wife have relatively less stress, as they are natural roles, whereas the role of employee, being unnatural, is therefore highly demanding. This may question the ability of a woman to handle multiple roles without significant ill effects. There is also considerable rhetoric on the relationship of this unnatural employment to many social evils including juvenile delinquency and drug addiction (Barnett, 2004).

Regardless of the reasons, a young mother chooses to work, the workplace and work environment as a whole continue to be hostile. Shouldering dual responsibilities may actually decrease productivity at the work place. Some of the research done has focused on mothers who are working in the academic field, and slower academic progress has been attributed to working mothers in academic medicine (Carr et al ., 1998). They attributed a definite relation between family responsibilities and gender to academic productivity. Having identified 1979 full-time academic faculty from 24 medical schools across the country, a 177-point questionnaire was administered with the aim of describing dependent responsibilities by gender and to identify their relation to the aspirations, goals, rate of progress, academic productivity, and career satisfaction of male and female medical school faculty. In this study, the authors noted that women with children published less even after controlling for variables such as years as a faculty member, number of hours worked per week, and hours of dependent responsibilities (as noted from the peer reviewed publications); they had slower self-perceived career progress and were less satisfied with their careers. The difference seen between the genders was less apparent for faculty without children.

Carr et al . also noted that women faculty with children had less institutional support than men with children. They specially commented that, “In a group less able to expand working hours because of dependent responsibilities; however, institutional support may be especially critical for maintaining productivity.” It was noted here that familial responsibilities with special reference to child bearing disproportionately affected the careers of female faculty. They recommended special attention by scheduling fewer departmental meetings after working hours and making part-time tenures available for faculty (Carr et al ., 1998)

Maternity Leave and Benefits for Working Mothers

Women's recovery from childbirth and their resumption of work and family commitments are likely to be influenced by such personal factors as preexisting health status, parity, breastfeeding, the availability of social support from family and friends and work-related factors, e.g., the timing of return to work, job stress, and workplace support.

Can a working mother do justice to both her work and her motherhood? The answers vary from a firm yes to a vehement no, and, more often than not, the answer lies not in the ability or competence of the woman as much as it does on her support system. The question of a support system is very relevant because traditionally all support systems have revolved around men ever since the times when women were believed to be capable of only “kuche, kirche und kinder” [German for kitchen, church, and children]. A woman who was working before marriage will more often than not opt to take a protracted leave of absence to fully immerse herself in her motherhood. Some would even think of giving up their careers for good.

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 states that it is necessary to balance the demands of the workplace with the needs of families, to promote the stability and economic security of families, and to promote national interests in preserving family integrity; to entitle employees to take reasonable leave for medical reasons, for the birth or adoption of a child, and for the care of a child, spouse, or parent who has a serious health condition, and to promote the goal of equal employment opportunity for women and men.

Most of these summarize succinctly the needs of a mother who is working. Working mothers’ needs are to be served in the interest of preserving the family unit as a healthy foundation for society. Caring for a child has the fundamental value of a serious health condition and has been valued as such, deserving that the parent be allowed to take time off for caring for the child. This means that caring for a child is an essential duty that the parent has to perform and that cannot be substituted for in any other way. This is especially true in cases where the child is one with special needs (Thyen et al ., 1999; Yantzi et al ., 2007). Family support is highest among employed mothers and lowest in mothers who were employed neither currently nor before the child's illness, or who had quit employment to care for the child (Thyen et al , 1999). Caring for a child assisted by technology seems to create barriers to maternal employment diminishing family resources at a time when financial needs actually may increase. Lack of family support and child care services increase the likelihood that mothers of children cared for assisted by technology will stay out of the labour force. Remaining employed buffers the negative effects of care at home on maternal mental health (Yantzi et al , 2007).

Breastfeeding

Maternity leave provisions are essential for a working woman to effectively complete the transition from pregnancy to motherhood. Premature termination or too short a maternity leave may have undesirable consequences. Studies often cite early return to work as one of the reasons for premature termination of breastfeeding. Shorter maternity leaves were associated with less sensitivity in interaction with the infant and more maternal depressive symptoms (Clark et al ., 1997; Ryan et al ., 2006).

One-third of mothers return to work within 3 months of giving birth, and two-thirds return within 6 months. Mothers who are not employed are more likely to initiate breastfeeding than those who are employed full time. At 6 months after delivery, full-time employment has a significant effect on breastfeeding. Much less of the employed mothers continue breastfeeding as compared to the mothers employed part time or unemployed mothers (Ryan et al , 2006).

In order to comply with workplace requirements, mothers in a study focusing on educated mothers in managerial and/or professional occupations noted that mothers were obliged either to cease breastfeeding or to conceal breastfeeding activities when employed. Breastfeeding duration rates among professionally employed mothers can only be improved if negative attitudes about maternal bodies and employment are challenged and if employers, as well as mothers, are the focus of health initiatives aimed at promoting breastfeeding (Gattrell, 2007).

With the implications that this may have on neonatal well being, it may be necessary to have labour policies, including job-protected leaves from employment after birth, and labour standards that facilitate breastfeeding or the expression of breast milk at work (Baker and Milligan, 2008). The authors noted an increase in maternity leave entitlements in Canada, rising from 6 months in the year 2000 to almost one year for mothers who gave birth after 31 December 2000. This includes job protected leave and entitlement for maternity benefits. This led to a large increase in the amount of time before mothers returned to work post birth. An attempt at systematic review to assess whether interventions at the workplace help breastfeeding elicited no suitable trials (Abdulwadud and Snow, 2007).

A study of 360 mothers (Hansen et al ., 1993) analyzed the utilization of maternity leave by parents and mothers’ resumption of work after delivery in addition of duration of breastfeeding in correlation to mothers’ resumption of work. Almost all families utilized the maternity leave, with the majority utilizing the full duration of 24 weeks, many electing to prolong the leave with their holiday and often beyond that period. At one year after delivery, significantly more mothers were housewives than before. They recommended that maternity leave be extended. A positive association has been shown between maternal health and duration of breastfeeding with the length of maternity leave (Staehelin et al ., 2007). The authors found that longer maternity leaves were associated with lower perinatal, neonatal, and postnatal mortalities.

Thus, maternity and child care leave provisions are essential for every working mother. It enables her to nurture the young child efficiently and thus decreases morbidity. The durations of these absences are variable and can depend on so many factors that it may be difficult to fix a uniform period for maternity leave. It may be a function of social circumstance as much as a regional preference. A working mother from a joint family may need much less leave than a single mother, or a woman from a nuclear family and with no child support systems in the family. Often provisions of child care in the office itself in the form of a nursery helps the mother resume work more seamlessly. Part-time work at the office and working from home may also help ease the stress. Part-time work allows women to cultivate outside interests, earn money, and have a defense from criticism of neglecting her children (Wilson, 2006)

Can Working Mothers Take Undue Advantage of Employer Benefits and Social Sentiments, and are They a Drain on Resources?

A woman may keep a job just to keep the home fi res burning, while another may fight against all odds to pursue her career. In the interests of working mothers in both these situations, a solid support system needs to exist, and the prerogative to work or not should lie entirely with the worker, as would be in the case of an ordinary working male. Parties concerned can exploit this situation, that is, a working mother may not be extended an adequate support system, or conversely, she may try to extract special concessions from her employer[s] at the cost of work ethics. Maternity leave, flexible working hours, child-friendly workplace sound extremely good, but what about the flip side? Maternity leave is known to be extended, sometimes indefinitely. Often, the mother quits work altogether. Flexible working hours might adversely affect other employees, and would definitely require their cooperation. As for creating a workplace with childcare facilities, a sufficient number of female employees are desirable. An employer who has a larger number of female employees is likely to be more proactive in providing child care and nursing facilities at the workplace for the working mother. Provisions for part-time employment and work at home opportunities are also easier to provide when the number of female employees, and thus the demand for such a facility, is greater.

The cost-benefit ratio of these privileges needs to be examined. The scale and size of the employer, the health conditions of the mother and child, social support, all play important roles. Definitely, guidelines need to exist and would vary across occupations. A working mother may work for pleasure or compulsion, but work ethics and professionalism must have their place. These in turn will generate more empathy towards working mothers from all quarters -- the employer, the spouse, the family and finally, society. In short, good employees would generate more empathy and better co-operation from their employers. And an understanding and co-operative employer would be able to extract the best from his employee without misuse of the benefits given to them.

Maternal health has been found to be negatively related to employment dissatisfaction. Studies (Romito et al , 2007; Glezer 1988) looked at women in employment before the birth of the first child. Three fourth of women were in the workforce and of these a third did not take maternity leave despite being eligible for the same, and about a quarter (24%) were ineligible for maternity leave for various reasons. Public sector employees availed of most of the maternity leave. As much as half of the women who did not take maternity leave in the private sector were actually unaware of these options. Working in the public sector, a strong attachment to the workforce, trade union memberships, and education were some factors that affected leave taking amongst working mothers (Glezer, 1988).

Working Mothers and Child Development

A woman has the privilege to actually choose between work and motherhood. Social conditioning entails that the woman put home before career even though no expense has been spared in her education and upbringing towards being independent. The equation in a household where both partners are employed changes with the arrival of a child. Maternal instinct ensures that in the initial crucial weeks; the baby is mostly, if not entirely, in the mother's care. During this period mother-child bonding becomes very strong and sees many women happily opting out of pursuing a career. Later on, financial implications of living on a single income and economic aspirations compel a majority of women to get back to work. Career ambitions are also a big driving force for a mother choosing to work, especially one who is well qualified. Women who resume work after a few months are torn between career ambitions and natural childrearing instincts. Even in households where grandparents, relatives or babysitters attend to the child, a working mother still feels ridden with guilt. In families where both the mother and father are equally involved in child rearing, the woman is able to experience less guilt and more satisfaction while being a working mother. Mutual understanding between spouses ensures that along with bringing in the income, both parents not only share the responsibilities of childcare and the immense fulfillment that comes with it, but also continue to enjoy each other's company as partners.

These attitudes and values are then propagated through the generations. That is why we do see many families where the working mother is not considered an anomaly but a welcome entity. This means that gender sensitivity must be cultivated at both the individual and social level so that as working parents, each partner has an equal responsibility towards the children, not merely by the ability to earn money but also by the inclination and commitment to be involved in the process of child rearing.

The effects of maternal employment on children are sometimes positive and sometimes negative (Youngblut et al ., 1998). Parents in non-employed mother families were more satisfied with their families at 18 months than parents in employed mother families (Youngblut et al ., 1994).Curiously it was also found that the infant's motor development was positively correlated with number of hours employed per week and degree of choice for the employed mother families, but negatively correlated with choice for the non-employed mother families. These results suggest that maternal employment may not be detrimental for infants born prior to term. Indeed, it may be beneficial, especially if the mother has a choice in the matter (Youngblut et al ., 1991). For preschoolers, neither mothers’ employment transitions nor their welfare transitions appear to be problematic or beneficial for cognitive achievement or behaviour problems (Chase-Lansdale et al ., 2003). Adolescents whose mothers began working reported statistically significant declines in psychological distress. This pattern was strongest for their symptoms of anxiety.

Employed mothers’ positive motivation for working, low role conflicts and gains in self worth were associated with their favourable descriptions of their children (Alvarez, 1985; Chase-Lansdale et al ., 2003)

Mothers’ employed status benefits children by improving family income, better disciplined work behaviour and better structure of family routines .Studies (Chase-Lansdale et al ., 2003; Alvarez, 1985) have noted that maternal higher education was found to be a powerful mitigator of possible negative consequences for children whose mothers were working from financial necessity or were experiencing role conflict. Youngblut et al ., (1998) explored differences in parent-child and family relationships for employed and non-employed single mothers of low birth-weight and full-term preschool children. They found that employed mothers had more positive perceptions and provided more enriching home environments for their children. They noted that in single-parent families, employment and consistency are positive influences on the mother-child relationship.

The answer to whether work pays as far as parenting is concerned is believed to be complex (Raver, 2003). Women who held lower rung jobs experience much more negativity in their parenting styles. Considering that income increase is a really positive factor that leads to better mental health of the family unit in the long term, low wage jobs may not benefit the family unit materially or economically. These factors can have an effect on the parenting style in working mothers (Raver, 2003). The families’ emotional climate and mothers’ mental health are both important factors that determine the effect of employment of mothers on the family unit.

Preschoolers experience a significant decline in time spent with their mothers when their mothers go to work and total time spent with the child has shown to decrease by as much as 2 hours per day. A trade off is found between time and money, as family income increases whereas mother's time with child decreases. Hence these two may offset each other. Mothers may often compensate for this by decreasing social, educational and personal activities that do not involve the children (Chase-Lansdale et al ., 2003).

The incidence of childhood obesity was found to increase with increases in maternal employment as the number of hours spent with the child decrease, thus decreasing access to healthy food and increasing dependence on junk food (Hawkins et al ., 2008). The Millennium Cohort Study Child Health Group stated that long hours of maternal employment, rather than lack of money, may impede young children's access to healthy foods and physical activity (ibid). Children were more likely to be overweight for every ten hours a mother worked per week and this relationship was significant for children from households with a higher annual income (ibid).

In contrast, it was noted that, for pre-adolescent children (Greenberger and O’Neill, 1992), maternal employment (typically, conditioned by mothers’ level of education and child gender) was more strongly associated with fathers’ and teachers’ perceptions of children than with mothers’ perceptions, and, in some cases, especially with fathers’ and teachers’ perceptions of daughters. Fathers perceived their 5-6-year-olds as having more problem behaviours when mothers were currently employed full time. Fathers and teachers viewed children's behaviour as more problematic when less educated mothers had been employed during more years of the child's lifetime.

Mothers’ transitions into employment were related to improvements in adolescents’ mental health. Adolescents whose mothers began working reported statistically significant declines in psychological distress (Chase-Lansdale et al ., 2003). The effect of maternal employment on adolescent daughters was studied by Jensen and Borges and they noted that daughters of non-employed mothers had a closer relationship with their fathers, perceived them as happier and friendlier, and experienced less anger and tension in the home (Jensen and Borges, 1986). With adolescents and teenagers an improvement in their mental health was found in correlation with increased incomes in the family. Depressive and aggressive symptoms increased with mothers’ exit from employment. It appears that when mothers of adolescents entered the labour force, they compensated for time away from their young teenagers by cutting down on time apart when they were not on the job (Chase Lansdale et al ., 2003).

Contrary to popular belief, a working mother can have a positive impact on her growing children but many variables need to be considered. The most important is obviously the availability of child-care facilities.

Where Is The Womanhood?

Women's movements have proved that a woman is no less than a man in every sphere of life, and women can take upon themselves to go a step further and prove that what a man can do, a woman can do better. So if a man could work to earn money, a woman could work, earn money and look after the kid[s] as well. Of course, a little help is always welcome, but we see scores of women who juggle all the three beautifully, and still do not complain.

Who does? The husband, the in-laws, some friends, and the conscience of the woman, who still think she is not doing a good-enough job.

Is it a question raised on her womanhood?

In society, womanhood continues to be described from an essentially male viewpoint. This can be especially true of societies in third world countries like India. Adjectives used to describe a woman may vary from feminine to tender, motherly, etc. A woman is all this and more. As a working mother, she is independent and empowered, especially if she is from a low socio-economic background. And that is the essence of her womanhood. Financial independence gives a sense of empowerment, and the additional income that the family gets, improves the family's standard of living and these together constitute a very essential upgrade for families with low socioeconomic background.

While there is no clear-cut relationship of the term manhood to nurturing a child, except for the capacity to procreate, womanhood carries with it the onus of a deep, strong instinct and inclination to nurture. Indeed, a woman feels, or is expected to feel, incomplete without being a mother, either as a biological trait or because of social conditioning. While the professional aspirations of the modern working woman continue to soar, as soon as she becomes a mother her priorities often change. A working woman is expected to be a good wife and mother before anything else, never mind her professional status or skills. Many women themselves put a premium on being a good mother at the cost of their work or career. Society does not look kindly upon a woman who attains great success at work and has little time to devote to her home. It is as though womanhood is at stake if being a wife and mother does not take first place in the life of a woman, contrary to what it would be in the case of a man.

Stereotypes rule and strong beliefs persist about the negative effects of maternal employment on women, their marriages, and their children, despite systematic evidence to the contrary.

It is also assumed that a mother's being at work leads to social ills like school dropouts, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, and divorce.

The argument that working mothers have little time to spare for their family, does not take into account the hours of unpaid housework and domestic chores of a full-time housewife. Working mothers put aside quality time to spend with their family and can contribute to a more cheerful and positive family environment. By efficient and effective time management, a working mother is able to allocate time to her various roles as well as appreciate her own worth and importance.

Conclusions

In short, it is possible to be a woman, a mother, and an achiever. Many have done it with help from society, and others have battled endless odds to prove the same. In today's world it is both desirable and incumbent upon mothers to be working, like their spouses. We, in the developing world, and still in the throes of a culture and tradition of a male-oriented society, should acknowledge that, contrary to traditional belief that a working mother is not a good mother, a working mother can, in fact, be a better mother.

A working mother, especially the one who has the good fortune to be able to balance her home and work, thanks to all the factors mentioned above, enjoys the stimulation that a job or career provides. She not only feels better about herself but is also forced to take better care of herself in order to make an impression. Along with motherhood, a successful career adds to the completeness of being a woman. The major stresses of being a working mother remain lack of time, and a feeling of guilt, due to perceived neglect of the parenting role. The rewards are many, including personal benefits, financial rewards, and improved family life.

To enable this, considerable adjustments are necessary at the individual level and at the workplace, which help the mother to fulfill the dual responsibilities of career and motherhood.

Take Home Message

The working mother epitomizes modern womanhood. The modern work environment needs to consider the special needs of this working population, changing its orientation from male dominance to gender neutrality and parenting friendly behaviour. The joint family and the nuclear family unit both need to adjust to the needs of the working mother so as to allow a healthier family to develop.

Questions That This Paper Raises

• 1) Is the profile of a working woman conducive to raising a healthy child as well as functioning adequately at the place of work?
• 2) Is a working woman a norm and the housewife slowly becoming a rarity?
• 3) Are radical reforms required to help a working woman cope with the dual stresses of motherhood and a career?
• 4) Are more studies required to assess the impact of motherhood on proficiency in careers?

About the Author

Dr Jayita Poduval is an alumnus of the Sir JJ Hospital and Grant Medical College Mumbai, and the Seth GS Medical College Mumbai. She is a practicing consultant ENT Surgeon at the Manipal teaching Hospital, Pokhara Nepal, and Assistant Professor at the Department of ENT at the Manipal College of Medical Sciences at Pokhara in Nepal .

Dr Murali Poduval is an alumnus of the Sir JJ Hospital and Grant Medical College Mumbai, and the Seth GS Medical College Mumbai. Formerly, he was lecturer at the Department of Orthopedics at the KEM Hospital Mumbai. He is a practicing consultant Orthopedic Surgeon at the Manipal teaching Hospital, Pokhara Nepal, and Associate Professor at the Department of Orthopedics at the Manipal college of Medical Sciences at Pokhara in Nepal. He edits the Asian Journal of Orthopedics and Rheumatology .

Conflict of Interest: We declare no conflicts of interest, commercial or otherwise, in relation to the matter published in this article. As co-authors we share equal responsibility for the contents and views presented as part of this article.

Declaration: This is an original work and has not been submitted to any other journal for publication. It is not under consideration at any other journal.

CITATION: Jayita P., Murali P., (2009), Working Mothers: How Much Working, How Much Mothers, and Where Is the Womanhood?. In: Some Issues in Women's studies, and Other Essays (A.R. Singh and S.A. Singh eds.), MSM , 7, Jan - Dec 2009, p63-79.

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Benefits of Being a Working Mother

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Published: Feb 8, 2022

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• BLS. (2018). Employment characteristics of families. Washington, DC: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• Cox, F. (2008). Human intimacy: Marriage, the family, and its meaning. New York, NY: Cengage Brain.
• Greenberg, C., & Avigdor, B. (2009). What happy working mothers know: How findings in positive psychology can lead to a healthy and happy work/life balance. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
• Nickells, E. (2010). The funny side of living with ADHD. New York, NY: Troubador Publishing.

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Essay on Working Mothers

Students are often asked to write an essay on Working Mothers in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Working Mothers

The importance of working mothers.

Working mothers play a pivotal role in our society. They not only contribute to the family’s income but also serve as role models for their children. They teach important values like hard work, independence, and resilience.

Challenges Faced by Working Mothers

Balancing work and family life can be challenging for working mothers. They often juggle multiple responsibilities like professional tasks, child care, and household chores. Despite these challenges, they strive to excel in both domains.

The Impact on Children

Children of working mothers learn to be independent and responsible from an early age. They get inspired to pursue their dreams and ambitions, seeing their mothers’ dedication and commitment.

Also check:

• 10 Lines on Working Mothers

250 Words Essay on Working Mothers

Introduction.

The concept of ‘working mothers’ has evolved significantly over the years, shifting from a socio-economic necessity to an emblem of women’s empowerment. This phenomenon has not only transformed the structure of the family but also influenced societal norms and perceptions.

The Evolution of Working Mothers

Historically, mothers were confined to the domestic sphere, responsible for nurturing the family. The feminist movement, however, challenged this traditional view, advocating for women’s rights to work and contribute economically. The rise of working mothers since then represents a significant shift in societal structures.

Impact on Family Dynamics

Working mothers have redefined family dynamics. They have proven that it is possible to raise children while pursuing a career, thereby debunking the myth of the ‘ideal’ mother being confined to the home. This shift has also led to a more equitable distribution of household chores, promoting gender equality.

Economic Implications

Working mothers contribute significantly to the economy. They not only support their families financially but also add to the national income. This economic independence further empowers them, allowing them to make decisions about their lives and families.

Challenges and Solutions

Despite the progress, working mothers face numerous challenges, including societal judgment, work-life balance issues, and lack of support. Addressing these issues requires societal change, flexible work policies, and robust support systems.

In conclusion, working mothers are a testament to the evolving roles of women in society. They symbolize resilience, strength, and the ability to balance multiple roles, thereby challenging traditional norms and contributing to societal progress.

500 Words Essay on Working Mothers

Working mothers are an integral part of society, demonstrating the epitome of multitasking by juggling personal and professional responsibilities. They are the pillars of their households and workplaces, contributing significantly to the economy while shaping the future generation.

Historically, societal norms and expectations confined women to domestic roles. However, the rise of feminism and women’s rights movements in the 20th century led to a paradigm shift, encouraging women to step out of their homes and pursue careers. Today, working mothers are prevalent across various sectors, from science and technology to arts and humanities.

The Balancing Act

The life of a working mother is a delicate balance between work and home. They often face the “double burden” of managing household chores and professional tasks, leading to a phenomenon known as “time poverty.” Despite these challenges, many working mothers successfully navigate this complex terrain through effective time management, family support, and flexible work arrangements.

Impact on Children and Society

The impact of working mothers on children and society is multifaceted. Children of working mothers often grow up to be independent, resilient, and empathetic, having witnessed their mothers’ hard work and dedication. Moreover, working mothers contribute to the economy, help reduce gender wage gaps, and challenge traditional gender roles, fostering a more equitable society.

The Role of Employers and Policy Makers

Employers and policy makers play a crucial role in facilitating the journey of working mothers. Workplaces need to offer flexible hours, remote work options, and family-friendly policies. On the policy front, governments should ensure equal pay, provide affordable childcare, and enforce maternity and paternity leave laws.

Working mothers are the backbone of a progressive society. They not only contribute to their family’s well-being and the economy, but also inspire the next generation to challenge societal norms and strive for equality. The journey of a working mother is challenging yet rewarding, filled with hurdles and triumphs. By acknowledging their efforts and providing them with the necessary support, we can create a society where both men and women can thrive in their personal and professional lives.

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Being a working mom is important to my identity, because building my dream also builds my child’s future

@ilonakozhevnikova/Twenty20

I don’t want to say my life stopped because I had kids. I had kids, and then I continued. But this time, with more passion and more drive. Because I want my kids to see how much I love what I do so that they chase after their dreams and do what brings them joy, too.

By Mariah Maddox March 30, 2022

My husband and I have this ongoing joke that one day, I’m going to retire him and he’ll be a stay-at-home dad while I’m the working mom rushing out the door each morning with a tea in one hand and briefcase in the other. I don’t know how much of a joke it actually is, because one day… it honestly might happen.

The truth is, I love working. I love feeling accomplished at things other than keeping my son occupied long enough to wash the dishes and throw the clothes in the washer. I love showing up unapologetically in the workplace and not always having to tiptoe around the house out of fear of waking up my baby just so I can get some things done.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t love the duties that come with motherhood and staying home with my child , because I wholeheartedly do. But I equally enjoy the fulfillment of working. And not the work that drains me and cuts into family time and has me dreading Mondays, but the work that doesn’t feel like work. The work where my passions have room to thrive and I get to be a walking example of what it means to operate in your purpose.

And I think my kids need this from me. Though I’m only a mom of one right now, years down the line when we’ve expanded our family and our kids are doing their own things in the world, I want them to remember how much their mama loved doing what she did.

Related: My working mom was passionate about her job

I don’t want them to feel like their mama gave up her career or her dreams to raise them. That’s how I viewed my mother growing up, as the woman who stopped everything she was doing and poured her all into her kids and family until it seemed she had nothing left to give.

But raising children is a revolutionary act. And so is continuing to chase your dreams while doing so— if that’s what you want to do.

For so long I always wondered if she regretted it. I know she made the decision to become a stay-at-home mom (I mean, she did have nine kids) while my dad worked endless hours. But I know she had dreams and I always wondered what they were and if she just felt like she didn’t have room to chase them after becoming a mother.

I think that’s often the case in society. Everyone thinks a woman gives up her dreams once she has children. But raising children is a revolutionary act. And so is continuing to chase your dreams while doing so— if that’s what you want to do.

And I’ve decided that is what I want to do. Because being a working mom is important to my identity. Doing what I love is how I continue to ground myself, which fills my cup and in turn, gives me more to pour into my family. I don’t feel depleted or empty when I have something that I can call my own. Being a working mom gives me a sense of independence in the midst of me having so many people who depend on me.

Related: Working makes me a better mom

I see it as a blessing that I have the ability to do what I love simultaneously: raising my son and working from home.

I love it all. And I can do it all. Because I’m not just a mom. I’m a woman with a dream in mind.

So when people ask me if I’m still working—the answer is yes.

And when they ask me what I do? Well, I’m building my career and I’m also building my child’s future.

And for those who want to know how I balance it all? Well, it’s easy when you’re doing what you love.

Related: Working moms have long-lasting benefits for their kids

I love working. And I also love spending time with my son and husband. And I also love meeting career goals. And getting the clothes folded and put away. I love it all. And I can do it all. Because I’m not just a mom. I’m a woman with a dream in mind.

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The Upside of Working Motherhood

There are lots of reasons women should feel hopeful about having a career and children.

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Download the discussion guide for this episode

You’ve heard the story: Motherhood and work are at odds, and women who pursue both have to make endless trade-offs and compromises. And yet, lots of women go for it, with great results for themselves, their families, and their careers. In fact, research suggests that parenting can enrich our careers, and vice versa.

Professors Danna Greenberg and Jamie Ladge talk about the benefits of being a working mom. They share advice around setting expectations, finding child care, asking for help, and advocating for ourselves as kids get older. Then, our fellow HBR editor Erica Truxler checks in with a listener about returning to work after parental leave.

Download this podcast

Danna Greenberg is a professor of organizational behavior at Babson College.

Jamie Ladge is a professor of management at Northeastern University.

• Maternal Optimism: Forging Positive Paths through Work and Motherhood , by Jamie Ladge and Danna Greenberg
• “ How Working Parents Can Manage the Demands of School-Age Kids ,” by Daisy Wademan Dowling
• “ How to Launch a Working Parents’ Support Group in Your Organization ,” by Daisy Wademan Dowling
• “ 4 Conversations Every Overwhelmed Working Parent Should Have ,” by Joseph Grenny and Brittney Maxfield

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Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.

DANNA GREENBERG: It’s hard to imagine the positive pieces of this story when so much of it is about going to work with clothes that are messed up, your hair undone, worrying about how your boss is going to see you, worrying about how the stay-at-home moms on the playground are going to see you. And that rhetoric makes you feel like you’ve got to focus on just self-preservation and management.

NICOLE TORRES: You’re listening to Women at Work, from Harvard Business Review. I’m Nicole Torres.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m Amy Bernstein.

AMY GALLO: And I’m Amy Gallo. This episode, we’re looking at an aspect of working motherhood that in my opinion doesn’t get nearly enough attention: the positive pieces. There are lots of reasons women should feel hopeful about having a career and children.

NICOLE TORRES: We’re talking to two professors who — between their academic research and experience raising three kids each — are experts on working motherhood: Danna Greenberg, of Babson College, and Jamie Ladge, of Northeastern University.

JAMIE LADGE: A lot of the women that have been part of our research over the years are older first-time mothers, so much of their identity is wrapped up in their professional life, and pregnancy and impending motherhood throws a real wrench in that identity.

AMY BERNSTEIN: They’ve organized their insights and advice into a book; it’s called Maternal Optimism.

[MUSIC ENDS]

AMY BERNSTEIN: Jamie, let me start with you. What were you seeing in the coverage of working motherhood that made you want to do this work?

JAMIE LADGE: Well, as you all know, there is no shortage of books about working mothers, and we knew that there were quite a few. And we were a little bit hesitant to get into it. But we were frustrated by a lot of the rhetoric — having it all — and a lot of the negativity surrounding the issues that a lot of working mothers face. And certainly, that exists, all the biases and stigma associated with being a working mother. But we really wanted to first and foremost try to come at this with a very positive spin, not that it’s all positive, but there are experiences that women face throughout the course of their motherhood transitions and working mother transitions that work out well. And we wanted to be able to share those stories through the stories that we had seen and the research that we’ve done over many years.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

JAMIE LADGE: The other thing we were sort of tired of was kind of this one-size-fits-all approach. We know that a lot of women share common ground with their experiences around being a working mother, but we also think that no two mothers and working mother stories are alike, and we wanted to make sure that we shared a wide variety of different experiences in the book.

DANNA GREENBERG: Part of that of no two mothers stories being alike is the idea that there is not a start and end to being a working mother. So many of the books out there talk about this idea as if, you’ve returned to work. You made it. You are a working mother. And that’s just the first of so many transitions women experience throughout their careers as working mothers. And we felt like it was really important to help women start to understand: this is, this is a long distance run. It’s not short term. It’s not just about return to work. And there are constant iterations going on. And we thought giving them some perspective on that could be really helpful.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So in your book, you talk about how working motherhood really starts well before you have a baby in your arms. What do you mean by that?

DANNA GREENBERG: So, one of the things that we find is how frequently young women, long before they even have a partner, are starting to ask questions about combining work and motherhood. In ways that I don’t think we did in our generation. And one of the things that we worry a lot about and we see is that women are making choices early on that are about, will this be a career that I can eventually combine work and motherhood? And so I’ll give you a perfect example. My daughter is a chemistry and women’s health major. She’s premed. And she recently had a family member say to her, why don’t you think about becoming a physician’s assistant or a nurse practitioner, because it’s going to be much easier down the road to combine work and family. Now, my daughter is really career driven. She’s thinking about surgery and specialties. She is not, by the way, a nurturing primary caregiver. [LAUGHTER] So, nurse practitioner is not here thing. But women start to do that as young women, even in college and in those early years. And one of the things that we see, and we really advise women, is that this is a really important time to build your career, to figure out what you want to do and to use the time and space you have to build up your power, your credibility, your skill sets, your knowledge so that if and when you have a family, you have the resources to ask for what you need. And as I go back to my daughter’s story, as a physician who perhaps some day is in a specialty, there are lots more ways to create a flexible schedule if that’s what she wants, or to structure or to have the financial resources to have the childcare she needs than would be the case if she were a nurse practitioner. But this is advice many young women are still getting today.

NICOLE TORRES: So Jamie, your research on working motherhood started with this question: Is there ever a good time to have a baby, in terms of your career? And you’ve studied the effects that the timing of childbirth can have on a woman’s career. What have you found?

JAMIE LADGE: So one of the things I wanted to do, because there had been tons of research done, particularly in sociology, that looked at the effects of timing childbirth on women’s wages, and also on promotions. And so we knew that was a problem for women, that it’s much better to wait to have your first child, because during those early years in your 20s, you know, you’re building up your educational attainment. You’re making connections and building up your network, and all the human capital variables are just building up for you. And so that made sense for wages and for promotions. But I actually wanted to find out, well, are women happier? Are they more satisfied with their careers? So I wanted to take a more subjective approach. And so we looked at that, and I mean, sadly I can’t say that there’s a magic age for when the best time is to have a baby. I would have loved to have been the one that discovered what that age was. But I have to be like, you know, typical consultant mode and say, it depends, because it really, it does depend. But one of the things we did find, that the women that had their children earlier in their careers were actually more satisfied later on. This is taking more of a life course approach. And we surmise that that’s because they had more time that had elapsed since when they started their families. So they were able to build their career back up. As opposed to a lot of the women that we’ve interviewed over the years who were much older first-time moms, well into their 30s, some in their 40s, and they had kind of the sense of, well, I paid my dues at work. And now that I’m having my child, I can kind of take a step back, or I can mold my career however I want to mold. So, not a perfect age, but if you want to be happy with your career, it really doesn’t matter, but it does seem that you can get going a little bit earlier.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, I want to talk about the decision to have more than one child. We know that, you know, there are penalties to having more than one kid. You know, there’s your wages will suffer and so forth. How do women who would like to have more than one kid stay positive? What should they be thinking about?

DANNA GREENBERG: So, one of the things we don’t think about is how the family structure changes when you have multiple children. One of the things that we know from our own research is that when women have their first child, one of the biggest challenges is enabling their partner to be a real partner, particularly if they’re in a situation where they’ve got a maternity leave, and their partner doesn’t. They start taking on a lot of the childcare responsibilities, and they don’t figure out a way to really share parental responsibilities with their partner, and they don’t make them a real partner. When you have a second child, that goes out the window, because all of a sudden, there’s a lot more childcare responsibilities to have, and they have to be shared. So women have to let up. They have to enable their partner to be a real partner to them, to share some aspects of that childcare responsibility, which enables them to be more confident and more engaged at work. Because they know that there is another person who is equally capable at home. So that’s one of the things that happens in the family that can be really beneficial for a working mother. The other thing that we talk about in our house is that having multiples of children, somebody’s always happy, and someone’s always unhappy. [LAUGHTER] We call it the Whack-a-Mole game. Remember that old game you had as a child? And you hit the mole, and they’d pop right up. But one of the things women often do, working mothers, is they add guilt to themselves when something’s not working with their child. Oh, it would be different if I were home full time, if I wasn’t working, if I were focused. When you have multiples, you get that go, because you start to realize, their challenges, they’re experiencing them as individual people. And you see one child having a good day and one child having a bad day, and it really has nothing to do with you. It has to do with them. So, those feelings of guilt that you’re causing this really change.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, the second and third and fourth and 12th child give you perspective.

DANNA GREENBERG: They give you a lot of perspective. You’ve also accumulated a whole level of knowledge. You get to the third one — for me, I had three sequentially. You get to the third, and there’s a whole knowledge about how to deal with this, how to ask for help. You start to get much more comfortable being transparent about your work life and your family life, because you’ve been doing it for a while. It’s not a question of, am I a working mother? I have to hide it. What are the people going to think of me? This is who I am. So I actually have a colleague, the CFO at Babson. She has five children. She most recently had the fifth child, and the baby came with her to many, many meetings, and we just passed the baby around. This is a woman whose children range from 19 to probably 2. And she is a rock star CFO. There is no question. And you know what? Her childcare broke down, and she needed the baby to be there, and the baby just got passed. But there wasn’t this sense of conflict or guilt, which she certainly would have experienced having a first child. Never bring a first child to a meeting. But a fifth child, forget it. [LAUGHTER] Bring the child, send me around the meeting, all is good.

AMY GALLO: So, what are the positive benefits of being a working mom?

DANNA GREENBERG: It’s funny you ask, because I just did a study looking at women and asking them very much that question. After you’ve returned to work, what do you experience as positive about that? Or, what has enabled you to be more mindful. And there a couple of different things that we’re seeing in the research as we’re starting to look at the data. The first of which is perspective. There is a sense of, you know what, how important is this? Where does it fit into my day? How much do I have to do all of this myself? Or is 80% good enough? And that can be helpful for women to do their job more effectively. One of the things we see changing in managers is a stopping of micromanagement, because they don’t have time to do that. One of the things that women often do is they want everything to be perfect. They want everyone who’s working for them have everything perfect, and when they return to work after having a child, they realize, you know what, that’s not what really needs to get done, and that’s not helpful for my team. The third thing, which is a really interesting one we’re starting to see, is something we’re seeing in relational capacity. Women talk about returning to work and having now be in this caretaker role, all of a sudden I’m better with my employees. I am more thoughtful. I’m more understanding. I don’t always like what they’re saying. I don’t always agree with what they’re saying. But I have a little bit more patience for dealing with people in a way that maybe I didn’t before becoming a parent. So, I suspect that these are things — this study we’re looking specifically at women, but I would suspect these are absolutely very similar things for working men when they become fathers and are engaged caregivers.

AMY GALLO: One of the themes I took away from your book is that working moms need to have realistic expectations. I would say lower their expectations, but I’m trying to be optimistic. What are some examples of how you can set realistic expectations? And maybe you could specifically talk about the crappy dinners example. I loved that example in your book.

DANNA GREENBERG: Crappy dinners example. So, the crappy dinner idea is a great idea that we’ve seen written about where —

JAMIE LADGE: Otherwise known as every night for me. [LAUGHTER]

DANNA GREENBERG: I like to cook. I find it relaxing. This was actually really empowering for me was the idea that you get together with another friend during the week. You bring your families together, and you serve whatever you can find in your house. No one’s allowed to clean up. No one’s allowed to buy anything. It’s not the Martha Stewart, Real Simple of the world. It’s just, let’s get together and share some friendship and help each other out during these difficult periods of time. And women need to let up. They need to let up at home, they need to let up at work so that they can embrace those more joyful moments, which sometimes are just about connecting and sharing stories of our day.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I met a woman who, our kids were in preschool together. I said, oh, our families should get together for dinner. And she said, we just can’t handle that. But if you’d like to meet us for a grocery store picnic, you can. I was like, what is that? And she said, we go to the grocery store. We go grocery shopping. We let the kids get stuff from the hot food bar, and then we sit in the car and talk. And I was like, wow, I’m totally doing that. And it became like a weekly thing we started doing on our own, too, because it was, you got your errands done. The kids were super happy, because they got to eat crappy food from, you know, the grocery store. And there was no cleanup. You know, it was just, it was so easy.

JAMIE LADGE: I actually think the setting realistic expectations is an interesting proposition because there’s so many idealistic expectations. And I actually just wrote a paper with Laura Little at University of Georgia about this very topic, where the expectations very much become our reality. And we subscribe so much to what we think we should be doing or what other people think we should be doing in terms of being an ideal worker or an ideal parent, that we don’t even have time to figure that out for ourselves, or that influences what that turns into, or what that looks like for us. So, our identity is very much shaped by this whole idealistic expectation. So, I wish we could have realistic expectations, and I think that women need to really figure out what that means for them as opposed to what it is at a more societal level.

AMY GALLO: It strikes me that being a working mom is really just an extreme exercise in prioritization. And you just have to decide what you’re going to prioritize at the moment, because your life is full, as is everyone’s, whether you’re a mom or not, and you just have to decide what you’re going to do and what you’re not going to do. And it’s not about necessarily sacrifice. It’s just about prioritizing.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Also what I’m hearing is what you’re going to care about, what you’re going to let get to you. Because people are really judgy. They always have been. They always will be. [LAUGHTER]

JAMIE LADGE: And some of those people are the people that are closest to you. Right?

DANNA GREENBERG: I also think, Amy, your point about what are your priorities at the moment is a really important one to figure out. Right? Because those priorities are going to shift and change, and that’s part of the story. Right? And so you make those decisions. This is right for me at this moment. And that can be really easing up for a working mother, versus, this is a choice I’m making, and I’m locked into it, versus I’m doing this now. It’s right for me today. In six months, in a year, in five years, it’s probably going to look really different, and that’s good.

AMY GALLO: Right. Well, and I think, when you look at kids, how much they change from infancy to teenage years, or even young adulthood, you have to think about how as a mom you’re going through the same evolution, right, and as many changes. I remember thinking, you know, I want to work part time while my kid is really young. And then I realized, I hated fighting about nap, right, when she was giving up her nap, one of her naps. I was like, no, this is a great time for me to work, and someone who’s a professional to handle this nap transition. And then six months later, it’s different. I had the luxury of making different choices about how to handle my work life and go full time or part time, because I was working for myself. But you know, I think we think there’s going to be a plan for the 18 years, and really, you know, really the plan’s six months at most. Right?

NICOLE TORRES: But how do you deal with, how do you make yourself OK knowing that priorities could shift at a given moment, a given day, when if you’re working in an organization that is not very flexible, and is not going to accommodate your shifting priorities?

DANNA GREENBERG: There are a couple of different ways to think about that. It’s not an easy situation. Right? Organizations don’t make it easy for us and our shifting priorities, and also, as you point out, as your children change. And so thinking about some of that in advance can be really helpful. Preparing for yourself about, OK, my children are going to be going to elementary school or middle school, and what might that look like, or who in my organization can I talk to who’s parenting older children? And what advice can I get from them about how do I manage this next stage? What am I going to do differently? Keeping your professional network up is absolutely critical, because at the end of the day, if you can’t make it work in your current organization, having a strong professional network means that maybe you can find choices outside in different organizations.

NICOLE TORRES: So, both of you write in your book, you talk about the importance of new mothers developing what you call “childcare bench strength.” What is that?

DANNA GREENBERG: So, bench strength is a term that we adopt from athletics. Right? When you think about a really strong athletic team, you’re thinking about not just having that first-string player, but having a really strong second-string player, and even a third-string player, because at some point the first-string player, something’s going to happen. And they’re going to be out of commission, and you have to rely on the second string. When we talk to women about childcare, we find they spend a lot of time thinking about what I call that first-string childcare: what’s the best childcare I can find that works for my child, works for my job, and works for our financial situation? And that’s great. But that childcare’s going to break down. It’s going to break down because your child’s going to get sick. It’s going to break down because you’re going to have an emergency meeting first thing in the morning, and your partner’s going to be traveling. It’s going to break down because the childcare provider is going to be sick. It’s going to break down, in my case, because we had to fire our childcare provider suddenly. Right? It breaks down. And so those are the moment that women often panic. They’re also the moments where women who always thought they were going to work may decide not to work. If you’ve got bench strength, it helps ease the anxiety about that. So figuring out in advance when my childcare situation breaks down, what am I going to do? What’s it going to look like? And we’ve seen women do a lot of very different creative things on this. It can be anything from obviously family members. It could be an elderly, if you don’t have family members in the area, an elderly neighbor that you’re close with. It can be another stay-at-home mom, somebody who’s staying home and can take your child and help you in that particular way. It can be formal backup care programs. But figuring out that in advance, having those phone numbers, being ready to dial so when the childcare situation breaks down, you’re ready to figure out what comes next. Because it’s going to break down. It’s just a part of being a working mom is, you’re going to have days where the childcare isn’t there.

AMY GALLO: One of the stories I really liked in the book was a woman named Martha, who was a single working mom, and befriended another working mom, and they essentially ended up co-parenting. Right? Even though they didn’t coexist in the same household. Can you talk about how common that is?

JAMIE LADGE: I actually don’t think it’s common enough, because I think women are so worried about asking for help. I do it. I don’t do it as much as I probably want to do it, because you do feel like you’re leaning on someone too much. But it’s really challenging. I mean, there’s a lot of people who don’t have families around them. You know? I mean, not everybody has the luxury of having grandparents and whoever around to fill that bench strength. And so I would just, this might be digressing from your question, but just to add to what Danna was saying, it’s not only the woman or the mother building up that bench strength, but also making sure, you know, in terms of people, physical people that are helping you out, but also making sure that it’s OK. Like the example you gave of the professor or the faculty member who brought their child to a meeting. But making sure you’re surrounded, you’re surrounding yourself with people at work that are perfectly fine with you doing kooky things like that, or even, I’m just reflecting back on when I was in my PhD program. I started that program, and I was with three single men. And I just stated right up front, we’re having any group meetings at my house. I mean, fortunately, I lived right near the university, but every group meeting is going to be at my house. And they were perfectly fine with that. They loved that. And my baby was there, and they would play with the baby, and so there’s a different form of bench strength that also goes beyond the childcare aspect as well.

AMY GALLO: I want to be clear that we are strongly advocating for more babies at meetings. [LAUGHTER]

AMY BERNSTEIN: All for it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, the challenge of finding supportive childcare doesn’t stop when the kids go off to school. So, talk to us a little bit about the stress of, you know, the after school pick up, on women’s careers, and how people deal with it. What are some creative strategies?

DANNA GREENBERG: So, when we’re talking about after school stress, one of the things, there’s been a lot of research actually done on this topic, we know that when working parents feel a lot of stress about, is their child well taken care of after school, or in this out of school time, it affects their engagement at work, it affects their work stress. It actually affects the quality of work they’re doing, as well as their overall psychological and emotional well-being. So, the impact of after school stress isn’t just on us at home. It’s on us in our workplaces as well. So, one of the things that really happens for working mothers in that first transition is when you’re child leaves whatever traditional childcare arrangement you’ve figured out for yourself, they transition to elementary school, typically a kindergarten in the United States. And all of a sudden, you’re shocked. It’s a shock to a family system because kindergarten, or any elementary school situation is usually about six to seven hours. It runs 10 months of the year. And about 30 of those days are not covered. Right? So you’ve got huge gaps in the care situation you have, and while we’ve done some work to improve quality childcare in the early years, we’ve done very little to improve quality childcare in those later years. So again, thinking about that in advance can be really helpful for working families. One of the things that we talk to families about a lot is this idea of, how do you think about the community you’re going into, and to what extent is this going to be a community that has systems in place that are going to help you as a working mother? So people make decisions about doing into a community based hunt, typically. What kind of house, how big a house I can afford? What’s the quality of the school system? But they don’t think at all about, is there before-school care in the system? Is there after-school care? Is there an after school care program that my kid’s going to have to get bussed to? How does bussing work in the system? Will they pick my child up at the end of my road? Or will they pick them up at the end of my driveway? That creates a really different context. Are there other working parents? You can use that from census data and available data. Does the recreation system, is it set up in a way that there’s summer camps, and there are vacation camps? And are those things that are actually used by parents in the community? Doing some research on that can help you figure out, how do I get into a community that’s going to be able to be a place where I can be authentic about who I am and have the support I need and be more comfortable asking for those supports, versus feeling like I’ve got to hide a little bit, either side of my life.

JAMIE LADGE: And emotionally, as well, I think finding communities where there are other working parents, working mothers, around, because I’ve used after-school programs, and even, well, in a community where there’s probably predominantly fewer working mothers, but you feel guilty about being the last one to pick up your kid in an after school program that goes until six. You feel guilty about dropping your kid off at seven in the morning when you don’t see any other parents or kids around. There’s this emotional struggle having to feel like you have to downplay your work, or you have to sacrifice your work to be there. And so the stress is not just the financial stress, but there’s also the psychological stress associated with feeling the guilt about, you know, utilizing these programs that are the very programs that are supposed to alleviate the stress to begin with. So I think the community thing is an interesting one, not just in terms of what resources are available, but also what people, you know, you surround yourself with in those resources.

DANNA GREENBERG: And I also tell people to really try to find partners in your organization, other working families that you can switch off or trade off with. So I really advise our junior faculty about this. They struggle with those vacation weeks, because we’re teaching. We’re in the classroom. And so, find another faculty member who’s got kids, maybe around your same age, maybe not, and maybe you can trade off one day for one day, that kind of a model. Or you can trade off pickups. And so that community support can be at your home community, but it can also be in your work community too.

AMY GALLO: Our neighbors, we have a text chain that, whenever school vacation’s coming up, or snow days, it’s like, who’s going to be home? Where can the kids go? It’s OK if they watch TV all day, but will anyone be home? And it’s great, because it’s, you know, I can still go to work if I need to.

DANNA GREENBERG: Right, and it sounds like you live in a neighborhood where you have a lot of dual-career working parents. Right? So being in a neighborhood where you know sending that text out, or also knowing on the other hand that you’re sending the text out, and there might be a stay-at-home mom who’s happy to help and pitch in, because there are going to be other ways you’re going to be able to support her, too. So part of the network and community is also building relationships between those who are currently working and those who aren’t.

AMY GALLO: There’s a stay-at-home mom at my daughter’s school who is like the uber stay-at-home mom. And I know if I send her a text and say, I can’t get to pickup, can you pick up my daughter, she will text back within 30 seconds. She’ll list the snacks she has packed. Are there any food allergies? I mean, it’s insane, and so comforting, because you know she has your back. And there’s no judgment about it at all. She’s great. She’s amazing.

DANNA GREENBERG: I want to move to your neighborhood. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: So Jamie, your twins are 12. My daughter is also 12. So, I’m particularly interested in what you have to say about how work changes for women when they’re mothering pre-teens or teens. I understand from your research that workplaces sort of forget that women have caregiving responsibilities at this age. How do women advocate to still get the support they need when they’re mothering older children?

JAMIE LADGE: I think that’s a great question. And one I think about all the time. I hate saying this. But I know it’s true. You know, little children, little problems, big children, huge problems. And I think people forget that. But I think one thing is figure out what your best approach is for how you deal with your work and family challenges. There’s research that shows that people often either make a choice between whether they segment their work and family or integrate their work and family. I think as I know I’ve gotten older, and accumulated more work and family knowledge, I’ve become more of an integrator, and I’m not afraid to show people that I —

AMY BERNSTEIN: So what does integrating look like?

JAMIE LADGE: So in other words, when I was starting out having kids, I didn’t have pictures of them on my desk. I didn’t talk about them at work. And I feel like I am confident enough in my ability as I’ve gotten older through the years, and as my children have gotten older, I’m less worried about any stigma that I may face as a working parent, because I’ve already proven myself, or at least I feel as though I’ve proven myself to others. A segmenter would not have pictures on there, and an integrator would bring their child into work and not have any qualms about it. And I try to signal that preference to people. And hopefully I’m a model to others that will do the same, because I think that there’s a real positive aspect of being able to show and highlight to people that work and family are important.

NICOLE TORRES: Is it harder to talk about parenting challenges older children than younger children?

DANNA GREENBERG: Absolutely. The conversation about I’m leaving early because they’re little or sick, there’s an assumption that older children are very self-sufficient in our society, good or bad. Even in high school, they’re not yet really self-sufficient. And so there can be needs to be present there that just aren’t articulated. And they’re not comfortable being incredibly transparent about what are those needs. The other thing that checks is, how interested are you in filling those needs? I don’t love big children. [LAUGHTER] Again, maybe my children listening to this, I’m not as good in the teenage years. It’s not my strength. Right? I’m lucky. I have a partner who’s really good in the teenage years. And so one of the things that we’ve actually flopped a little bit. I’m much more active and engaged at work, and he is much more the call, the go-to when they have those particular problems. And in a certain way, I think it’s easy for him to respond, because he didn’t respond when they were little. Right? So it’s new, and it’s different for him. So, it is really hard in organizations to say and advocate. I think it’s also hard for women if they worked full time their whole careers, and all of a sudden they’re saying, you know what, my kids are teenagers, they’re in high school, and I want to be a little more present. How do I advocate for myself now when I never advocated for that before?

JAMIE LADGE: But I do think it’s easier to advocate when they children are older, because there’s less fear that there’s going to be some kind of bias involved. I think one of the real challenges in what we’ve seen in our research for pregnant women or new mothers is that if I ask for something, if I advocate for something, that’s going to set the tone for my whole now life as a working mother in this profession, or whatever. And like I said before, if you have the confidence in yourself, and you know you’ve proved your value, then advocating things when your children are a little bit older I think becomes slightly easier to a large extent. But I think the challenge, what Danna’s pointing out, is the challenge of having older children doesn’t necessarily get easier.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So Danna, your kids are, you know, as you’ve said, a little older than Jamie’s. One’s in college. Two others are 16 and 18. You’re entering a new family stage. What transitions are happening to you professionally? What feels positive to you about this period?

DANNA GREENBERG: So, all of a sudden for me, there’s this energy to engage in my research and my writing and leadership in the college in a way that I just didn’t have before. And so it’s a really exciting phase. There’s also a lot of positive feedback, that starts to come from your young adult children that you don’t get from a toddler or an elementary schooler. Right? When you’re dealing with little children, there often can be more angst and tension and things that they say that make you realize and think, oh my gosh, they’re upset I work, or why do you work, Mommy, or those kinds of questions that cause you angst. When they’re older, they’re excited about your working. And Kathleen McGinn’s done some great research on this, looking at how working mothers impact both their daughters’ and their sons’ careers. And see it in my household all the time. My daughter’s studying chemistry and women’s health, and she’s done research and done research projects, and she calls me for help. My sophomore came home one day from his honors English class with 20-some odd kids in it, six boys, and the six boys got on a conversation that all six of them noticed they had working mothers in a community where there are not a lot of working mothers. And so they start to see ways in which your life has impacted them positively. And that has really exciting repercussions for a working mom.

AMY GALLO: I can imagine that being really rewarding.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, you know, as your kids are getting older, and more independent, and they’re going off to college, you get, you know, there’s a lot more coming your way. You’ve got more bandwidth. You have more opportunities. You have more experience. How do you figure out what to do with your time? How do you sort of sort through all of the options?

DANNA GREENBERG: I think it comes back to the same thing you do at early stages, which is, you have to hear your own voice. The options that come your way are exciting. They’re flattering in a lot of ways. And it’s very easy to jump in and say, yes. Yes, I’ll do that. Yes, I’ll do that. And we hear a lot from women at this stage that all of a sudden, instead of being overwhelmed with home responsibilities, they’re overwhelmed with work responsibilities. They’re overwhelmed by board responsibilities. They’re overwhelmed by community engagement responsibilities. So, taking some moments to think about, again, I don’t have to do everything at the same time. What’s my priority? Where do I want to engage? What’s going to be rewarding and fulfilling in this moment? And where am I going to say no? Because just like in your early careers, you’ve got to say no to some things. And so making those decisions based upon what I want, not what everybody else is expecting or asking of me, is really important to do.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And so, we hope by this point in your life, with all of these other balls you’ve had in the air, you’ve figured out which ones you really want to catch, right? Is that the idea?

DANNA GREENBERG: Or, which ones you want to catch now. Something — a ball that wasn’t important to you five or 10 years ago may all of a sudden be really important to you, and you’re going to really want to run with that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Mhm.

AMY GALLO: I loved the line in the book about having a proud, engaged mother be more important than a big backyard. Why do you think women lose sight of the positive sight of the positive impact their working has on their children?

DANNA GREENBERG: I think they lose sight for a couple of reasons, the first of which is the rhetoric we talked about, that we’re all told. I think the other reason you lose sight of the positive is that it is hard. The day-to-day responsibilities of loving your job, wanting to be successful in your career, in your work, wanting to be there and be present for your family and be an active and engaged parent and partner, if you have a partner — it’s not easy day to day. And I think like anything else, we lose sight of the big picture; we lose sight of the joy in those really small moments that happen, and we lament what we didn’t do. And so giving up a little of that rhetoric, giving yourself space, and looking for the joy in the day. What is that joyful moment? It might be just the cereal bowl and what happened over that conversation. Or it might be one thing that you do during the day that has an impact on a colleague or a client. But focusing on the joy changes the story you’re telling yourself. And that’s what we need to help women do, change the story we’re telling ourselves.

JAMIE LADGE: And we need more positive stories. We need women to feel good about — we need ourselves to feel good about — the choices we make, as opposed to, like Danna said, lamenting over decisions. We shouldn’t look back. We shouldn’t always feel we have to look back and say, I wish I had done that. We need to own and feel confident about the choices we make. And if they don’t work out the way we intended them to, OK, they didn’t work out, but at least we know that we can move forward from that, and maybe the next choice will work out. And just because so-and-so down the street did this or my colleague in the office did that, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work for me. It’s good that I have that model. It’s good that I have that guide to follow, but I’m going to chart my own path.

NICOLE TORRES: Jamie, Danna, thank you both so much for joining us and talking to us today.

JAMIE LADGE: Thank you for having us.

DANNA GREENBERG: Thank you.

NICOLE TORRES: So do you, Amy G, feel more optimistic about this? I mean, you’re kind of entering this new phase of working motherhood. Harper is 12. You know, she’s an older child. [LAUGHTER] How are you feeling after the conversation?

AMY GALLO: I do feel more optimistic. Reading the book, I felt there was a lot that resonated with me that I thought, oh, I hadn’t quite those about it that way. Because I think there is this sense that it’s motherhood and working are at odds, and that it’s more about compromise on both sides so you can make it work. And I like that they sort of talked about them actually feed one another in a positive way. And I’ve definitely seen that in my own life. And the transition I made from Harper being sort of a young child to being this tween, that was a very optimistic transition for me, because she was more independent, and she was observing me working in a way that she hadn’t before, because she was completely self-centered, as kids are.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, I’m curious, though — you just said that being a mother and working, that the two sides of you fed each other. How — what was that? How did they feel each other?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well, I think the way that Danna and Jamie talked about it was that, and this is what felt true to me, is that I’m better, I’m more efficient with my time, because I have greater demands on my time than I ever have before. I use work, particularly research we find, or tactics I use, time management, I use those at home. So, I think I’m better organized at home because of it. And I think because of having a kid, I’m much more empathetic with other people. You know, having a kid, trust me, you get frustrated and mad, but you realize it’s not their fault. And I think I treat people like that at work more often. I see them all as like the child whose needs aren’t being met, rather than the adult who’s being a jerk to me in this meeting. I’m sort of more emotionally grounded than I was before I had Harper.

NICOLE TORRES: Like Danna says, working motherhood isn’t just return-to-work; it’s a long-distance run. But returning to work is the start.

HANNAH: I’d decided to take four months off. This is my third child, but it’s my first time going back to work full time because my other two children, I was self-employed, and I worked from home part time.

NICOLE TORRES: That’s Hannah, a listener who’s been in touch with us over email. Hannah first wrote us after hearing our episode “Managing Parental Leave (Yours or Someone Else’s).” She was on leave at the time, after having her daughter Greta.

HANNAH: As the three-month mark was approaching, I was feeling so unprepared, and I wasn’t ready to leave Greta, and I just had so much guilt about being away from her for so many hours during the day.

NICOLE TORRES: Hannah said the stories our colleague Erica Truxler shared in that episode helped her feel like she could manage the challenges of returning to the office full time after leave. A few months later, Hannah offered to tell us how it’s been going for her. And we thought it would be great to get Hannah and Erica on the phone together. And it really was.

ERICA TRUXLER: Well, Hannah, I just wanted to start by saying thank you so much for emailing us after our episode from last season. You know, it was very vulnerable putting myself out there and how difficult I had a time getting back into work, and hearing that you found comfort in my story really, honestly, helped me, too. So, we were helping each other [LAUGHTER] from across the country.

HANNAH: Yeah.

ERICA TRUXLER: So, I just wanted to know how, how things are going and — I don’t know if you could go maybe just into a little bit more detail about maybe even just your first month back at work and how that went and, really, yes, just an update on how things are going on your end.

HANNAH: Yeah. Yeah. So, I had a positive outlook, but I think — I mean, I tend to be a little bit type A, so I think I took it, like, to the extreme a little bit. And I was just — I went back to work with this attitude of, like, I’m going to do it all. I’m going to fit it all, everything I want to do in one day into a day. And I’m going to do all this self-care. I had this — you know, I had this crazy schedule of, like, I’m going to wake up at 5 a.m. every morning and meditate and work out and do all these things before the kids wake up. And I was kind of doing it on some weeks, but I had such a frantic energy, going from one thing to the next. And even though I was trying to practice all this self-care, it was not really self-care because —

ERICA TRUXLER: Yes, yes.

HANNAH: It was like a stressful thing to complete it. So then it was like this crazy rollercoaster. Within two weeks of getting back to work, our whole family got hit with the stomach flu. Oh, then I got strep throat.

ERICA TRUXLER: Oh, my goodness, yes, I had exactly the same experience. [LAUGHTER] I was going to mention, this was my first winter, daycare, germ-filled winter, with my 1-year-old now, Claire. And truly it was almost, like, back to back. We also had — I think it was two or three stomach flus, the flu, also pink eye, hand, foot, and mouth, double ear infection at the same time as hand, foot, and mouth. So, anyways, all of this is to say, I hear you, and I feel that it’s one of those things where, you know, you kind of go in and you’re like, I can do this. I set myself up for success. I even carve in some me time before babies wake up. And then the reality hits.

HANNAH: Yeah, and it’s hard to figure out, like, what is, like, the best perspective to have. And I know that you gave me the advice to just be gentle with yourself. And I feel like that’s a really good thing to focus on, but sometimes, like, I know for me, I had to go through that curve of having all these expectations and having them backfire and being like, oh, OK, this is what it means to be gentle with myself, you know?

ERICA TRUXLER: Yes, yes. And Amy is — Amy Gallo is careful to say it’s not lowering our expectations; it’s setting expectations for the moment that we’re in in our lives.

HANNAH: Yeah. I work with a coach through my work that was actually a leadership coach to start, but she morphed into my maternity leave coach [LAUGHTER].

ERICA TRUXLER: Yes.

HANNAH: So, and we were working on all these things, like, OK, don’t expect to do everything in one day. Let’s stretch out the time. Maybe it’s you’re trying to complete those things in one week or two weeks. The other thing I did, which was crazy, but I stopped drinking coffee. And I feel like that really helped my frantic energy. And even though I was sleep-deprived and tired, I think it was better to be in that state than it was to have that kind of buzz going on all the time.

ERICA TRUXLER: Anxious energy, yeah.

HANNAH: Yeah. So, like I said, I’ve always been kind of a go-getter, exerciser every day — that type of thing. And I just was like, you know what, I’m not even going to exercise. I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to go to work and be with my family. And I feel like taking it way down I finally accepted it, and I feel like that was a huge —

ERICA TRUXLER: It’s huge!

HANNAH: Yeah, it made such a difference.

ERICA TRUXLER: Yeah, and I do feel that there is positivity that we often miss in the rush and the bustle of going back and forth and rushing to daycare and doing deadlines and work.

HANNAH: Mhm.

ERICA TRUXLER: And I was just wondering if there are any moments that you can think over the past few months where you really did feel happy at work, and you came home and you felt happy at home, and you realized, wait a second, I wouldn’t have this feeling if I weren’t doing both?

HANNAH: Yeah. Well, for one, I mean, compared to my first two children, I think — and this is of course something that’s so different and is such a personal thing for everybody, but I really like working outside of the home. It’s really nice having that — I mean, it is like a little bit of a break. You know, when you’re a parent and you’re working so hard, and it’s such a demanding role, sometimes it’s nice to step out of that. And I think if you’re not working outside of the home, it’s a little harder to orchestrate that as frequently or have it be as effective as working outside of the home. So, I think that that was something that was really a positive thing this go-around. And the other thing about that, I was so worried about all the hours I was going to be away from Greta, and in the end, that was probably one of the least challenging things for me.

HANNAH: I mean, of course I missed her at work, but I don’t feel like I have a deficit of time with her.

ERICA TRUXLER: Yes, you know what’s funny is, I’ve noticed, on Sundays, when I’m with Claire all day, and I’m there starting at 5:30 in the morning, by, like, 9:45, I’m, I’m starting to get very tired, and I start to check my phone. And I start to go on Instagram or something while she’s sitting next to me.

HANNAH: Right.

ERICA TRUXLER: And I’ve had this realization that when I pick her up from daycare, it’s such a happy moment for me. Like, literally, yesterday, I was in her — they have a little playground — and I was talking to one of her teachers, and I didn’t see her right away. And then all of a sudden, I hear, mama, mama, and she’s running towards me, and it was just, like, the happiest moment, honestly.

ERICA TRUXLER: And then we come home, and we have about two hours, so it’s not much, but those two hours I make a point to not have my phone in front of me, and we are playing, and I value that time so much. And when I’ve had a good day at work, I often think, I’ve been able to accomplish, you know, edit that article, and I came home and had a great evening with Claire, and I feel very positive about it. And often those positive moments do get overrun by, you know, the illnesses. And so I’ve been trying to kind of note the positive moments more when I can as well.

HANNAH: Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s something that for me, when I slowed everything down, it really helped me to have more of that kind of attitude and really recognize what I was accomplishing.

ERICA TRUXLER: Right! Thank you so much, Hannah. This has been such a great conversation.

HANNAH: Thank you.

AMY GALLO: That’s our show. I’m Amy Gallo.

NICOLE TORRES: And I’m Nicole Torres. Our producer is Amanda Kersey. Our audio product manager is Adam Buchholz. Maureen Hoch is our supervising editor. We get technical help from Rob Eckhardt. Erica Truxler makes the show’s discussion guides. And JM Olejarz is our copyeditor.

AMY GALLO: And one more note: we’ve heard from a lot of our listeners about the discussion guides. I was actually at an event in California a couple weeks ago, and someone stopped me at the sink in a bathroom to tell me that she uses the discussion guides with her women’s group at her organization.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That is fantastic. We also got this email saying, and I’m going to quote here: “The guides are having an impact on how we talk, act, and lean on each other in the office.”

AMY GALLO: If you want access to the guides, you can find them on our website, at HBR.org/podcasts, on the Women at Work page.

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This article is about gender, partner center.

Why Supporting Working Moms Can Benefit Families, the Economy, and All of Us

As a researcher who’s studied economic and wealth disparities for years, I see regular data on how mothers aren’t fully and fairly included in the economy. As a mom myself, I take a special interest in the data.  Even prior to the pandemic, mothers earned less than fathers— by some estimates, only 75 cents for every dollar (PDF) fathers were paid—and had considerably less wealth . Moms were overrepresented in low-wage jobs and had less access to workplace benefits that help build wealth.

Author Ana Hernández Kent with her two children.

Yet, if mothers were equitably included in the economy, we could all benefit. The U.S. might be more competitive internationally and have a larger economy, more vibrant businesses and thriving families. Research shows us ways to get there: by expanding benefits and flexibility in the workplace; improving access to quality, affordable child care; and encouraging a cultural shift toward appropriately valuing “women’s” contributions, both paid and unpaid, among other ideas.

The Pandemic Recession Disproportionately Affected Moms

The COVID-19 recession reinforced many of the barriers mothers face and was truly a “mom-cession” in that mothers disproportionately faced setbacks . A larger share of mothers than fathers found themselves out of their jobs , and many mothers were pushed out of the labor force entirely . This matters, because more and more American families rely on mothers’ wages , despite moms being paid less than dads. This gap means that moms must make fewer dollars stretch further, a problem made even more acute by rising prices of groceries, gas and other essentials.

Compounding these struggles, mothers—particularly single mothers—often have extremely low levels of wealth. Research shows that single moms suffer a “motherhood wealth penalty,” having just $7,000 in median wealth compared with more than nine times that amount for single women without children. (Single fathers, by the way, do not experience a commensurate “fatherhood penalty”—in wages or in wealth.) That extra $58,000 means greater financial security, like ensuring that trip to the ER for a broken arm doesn’t plunge the family into debt.

Taken together, this means that after the COVID-19 recession hit, not only were moms more likely to be out of a job, they also had fewer resources with which to withstand the income loss.

Single Mothers Have Little Wealth

SOURCES: Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances and author’s calculations.

NOTES: Wealth is rounded to the nearest $1,000; 95% confidence intervals are shown by the error bars. The differences in median wealth between the three groups with overlapping error bars does not reach the level of statistical significance. Single mothers had median wealth significantly lower than the other three groups.

Why We Should Care about How Well Mothers Do

Some readers who are not parents or whose children have grown may wonder, “Why should I care?” I’m glad you asked.

Research shows supporting mothers is good for the economy, businesses and families.

Economic expansion

First, the broader economy could expand through higher labor force participation if mothers were better supported . More mothers in the workforce means tax revenue would potentially be boosted, while increasing mothers’ wages could result in less reliance on the social safety net. More broadly, Federal Reserve researchers have found that closing gender gaps in earnings, employment and hours worked could add billions to the gross domestic product of each state annually. Researchers also found that closing these gaps could add $1.7 trillion to the nation’s GDP each year (PDF) . Because most women will at some point become mothers, the full inclusion of moms is vital to closing these gender gaps.

International competition

Second, supporting women in the workforce more fully could strengthen our ability to compete internationally. Today, American women’s participation in the labor force lags that of many comparable nations , like the U.K., Australia and Canada. The U.S. is also the only industrialized country with no paid family medical leave. Policies such as paid federal family and medical leave could help us get a start on a workforce that’s more welcoming to mothers—and is more internationally competitive.

Thriving businesses

Third, businesses stand to benefit from a greater diversity of ideas and increased innovation and productivity. When women leave the workforce, even temporarily, their careers are put on hold. This shrinks the pool of women that businesses can draw from to fill senior leadership positions. Companies can make a difference by providing options for flexible work schedules and telework, on-site child care, pretax benefit accounts for dependent care, and reimbursement for backup child care. Importantly, research has shown that these options can make businesses more profitable by reducing turnover and absenteeism and by increasing productivity and employee morale.

Bolstering families

Finally, supporting mothers helps their families as well. Because the majority of households are dual-income earning, addressing pay gaps and helping moms stay engaged in the workforce when their children are young can have widespread effects on American families’ potential for upward mobility. Further, the earlier investments in children are made, the larger the returns . Research has shown that early care and education programs are widely beneficial to children as well as to the mothers who are raising them.

We need to move beyond a relief and recovery mindset to reimagining how we want our moms to live. Getting back to pre-pandemic conditions is not enough. Supporting mothers’ full participation in the workforce can help promote a stronger economy and benefit us all.

The Economic Impact of Child Care by State

Get child care data for all 50 states , including:

• child care affordability estimates
• data on the percentage of single parents
• labor force participation rates
• statistics about workforce-related struggles facing child care providers

Fact sheets prepared by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis researchers.

Ana Hernández Kent is a senior researcher with the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Her research interests include economic disparities and the role of systemic biases and historical factors in wealth outcomes.  Read more about Ana’s research .

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This blog explains everyday economics, consumer topics and the Fed. It also spotlights the people and programs that make the St. Louis Fed central to America’s economy. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the St. Louis Fed or Federal Reserve System.

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Having a Working Mother Is Good For You

Jim Aisner jaisner+hbs.edu 617-495-6157 Rimjhim Dey [email protected] 917-514-3359

About Harvard Business School

Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 250 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and PhD degrees, as well as more than 175 Executive Education programs, and Harvard Business School Online, the School’s digital learning platform. For more than a century, faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching, to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. The School and its curriculum attract the boldest thinkers and the most collaborative learners who will go on to shape the practice of business and entrepreneurship around the globe.

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The challenges for working mothers, and what companies and others can do to help

May 9, 2021 The pandemic’s dramatic effect on working parents isn’t news anymore—but even as many slog on, juggling jobs and family alike, a substantial chunk of working mothers say they’re considering downshifting their careers or dropping out of the workforce entirely. That’s a problem, and not just for moms. Get perspective with several recent publications that unpack the issues and offer ideas for building a better tomorrow. And, in case you need a break, we’re including a few things to occupy the kids while you rest and recharge. (We’ve been there.)

For mothers in the workplace, a year (and counting) like no other

Author Talks: Joann S. Lublin on lessons for working mothers, their families, and their employers

A fresh look at paternity leave: Why the benefits extend beyond the personal

Seven charts that show COVID-19’s impact on women’s employment

Five Fifty: The pandemic’s gender effect

Women in the Workplace 2020

COVID-19 and gender equality: Countering the regressive effects

For the kids

A tiger’s tale about what nature is really worth

(Food) waste not, want not

Hungry fish, baffled farmers, and what happened next

From the New at McKinsey blog

Liz Hilton Segel: What I’ve learned about life and leadership from my mom and daughter

Working Mothers: Everything you need to know

Whats Inside?

Working mothers versus housewives , challenges faced by working mothers, working mothers’ trends , working mothers’ statistics , how does a working mother affect a child.

Working mothers have been a topic of debate for decades. Some believe that women who work outside the home are better mothers because they are role models for their children. Others believe that working mothers are bad mothers because they are away from their children too much. Research show that working mothers have many benefits for children. 

When Marissa Mayer became the CEO of Yahoo! in 2012, she made headlines not just for her job title, but for her decision to take just a few weeks of maternity leave . She was the most visible working mother in the country, and made other women feel as though they had to choose between a successful career and motherhood. But instead of focusing on what women can’t do, let’s celebrate what they can do.

Working mothers face many challenges. There are the logistical problems — arranging child care , managing the household, finding time for yourself. Then there are the emotional challenges — the guilt, the worry, the sense that you should be doing more, the pressure to be the perfect mother and the best worker. And if you don't have an employer that offers maternity leave, the challenges are even greater.

Related: Women At Work And Why They Need Your Support

The debate over whether moms should work or stay at home with their children has long raged in the media. The advantages and hazards of moms focusing on their children's well-being are highly politicized. 

Related: Returning to work after pregnancy and the struggles that come with it

Today, women have the opportunity to pursue careers, pursue their education, and even start their own businesses . But that doesn't mean that women can't also be mothers. Today, women can have both a career and a family, thanks to the rise of the working mother.

When a woman works outside the house, she is able to provide opportunities for her children that she would not have been able to provide if she stayed at home. Children of working mothers have been shown to have higher incomes and become more successful in their careers . Being a working mother also gives a woman the chance to provide her family with other luxuries, such as trips and education. Working mothers also have a chance to provide their children with financial stability , which is something that is very important in today's economy.

Working mothers are good for children because they provide their children with a good role model. Children learn a lot from watching their mothers, including how to be successful in the workplace. They also learn how to manage their time, how to be a professional , and how to balance their responsibilities. Working mothers also provide their children with financial support, which is essential for their children's futures.

Working mothers give their children the opportunity to learn how to function in the world. Children who are raised by working mothers learn to take care of themselves, clean up after themselves, and sometimes even cook for themselves. Working mothers also provide their children with an understanding of the world. Children who are raised by working mothers learn about how to interact with other people.

Working mothers help their children understand the importance of a career , and they encourage them to work hard and pursue their dreams. This can help children to become independent adults. Further, working mothers provide their children with a better financial background. When their mothers are working, children learn to appreciate the value of money.

Working mothers are good for children because they offer unique role models for their children. Working mothers also provide their children with financial security. When both parents work, the family is able to live a better lifestyle than if one parent stayed at home.

Related: Jobs For Working From Home

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The biggest challenge faced by working mothers is the challenge of time. Working mothers are often faced with the challenge of finding enough time to be with their children and still work. This is a difficult challenge, but it can be overcome through good time management . When a working mother finds that she doesn't have enough time to do everything she needs to do, she can prioritize her tasks and complete the tasks that are the most important to her first.

When a woman works outside the home, she has the opportunity to offer her family with opportunities and luxuries that she would not have been able to provide if she stayed at home. Working mothers also have a chance to provide their children with financial stability, which is very important in today's economy. Being a working mother also gives a woman the chance to provide her family with other luxuries, such as vacations and education for her children.

The challenges faced by working mothers are perhaps the most difficult challenges that a woman must face. When a woman is a working mother, she is faced with the challenge of finding a balance between her career and her family. For many women, this has meant leaving their career at some point to raise their children, or at least reducing their hours so that they can be home with their children. This means that the mother is not able to provide her family with the financial security that she might otherwise be able to provide.

Research indicates that parenthood can lead to inaccurate perceptions that mothers are less competent, devoted, and productive in their professional roles. This phenomenon, known as the "motherhood penalty," results in lower pay for mothers and a higher likelihood of being passed over in hiring and promotion decisions. Surveys suggest that one in every three mothers has considered seeking less demanding job opportunities due to these challenges.

Working mothers trends have changed the working mother landscape. In the past, women who wanted to work often felt pressured to quit their jobs when they became mothers. Today, more women are working throughout their pregnancies and after their children are born. This has led to a greater understanding of the importance of women in the workplace.

Each year, women provide their families with the food, clothing, and shelter that they need to survive. Working women often provide their families with an even better quality of life than women who choose to stay at home. Working mothers have the opportunity to provide their families with financial stability, providing their families with the opportunities and luxuries that they would not have been able to provide if they stayed home.

Another trend that has changed the working mother landscape is the rise of the working father. Today, more and more fathers are working than ever before. This has led to a greater understanding of the importance of men in the workplace. When both parents work, the family is able to live a better lifestyle than if one parent stayed at home.

It was previously common for women to continue working after becoming moms. Today, more women work during their pregnancies and after their children are born.

Related: Remote working jobs you can do at home

The statistics on working mothers are interesting. In 2017, mothers who worked full-time were employed in almost half (48%) of all jobs. This is an increase from just 26% of all jobs held by working mothers in 2000. Today, more than one in five women (22%) work full-time while raising their children.

Statistics on working mothers also show that women are the primary breadwinners in a growing number of families. In 2017, women were the primary breadwinners in nearly half (47%) of all families with children. This is an increase from just 13% of families in 1970. Today, in nearly one-quarter (23%) of families, women are the primary breadwinners.

Half of U.S. families report difficulty finding child care, according to a survey by the Center for American Progress. One-in-five working parents say they have turned down a promotion because of work and parenting responsibilities.

The percentage of moms who were working while caring for their children at home fell by 22 percent between April 2019 and April 2020. The amount of time that parents spent on child care more than doubled, and women were responsible for the majority of it. People without college degrees quit their jobs at a rate that is twice as high as college graduates, and this is true for both women and men.

In the year 2020, over one-third of all working moms in the United States were employed in some capacity. The challenges that millions of working moms confront every day cannot be ignored or downplayed by their places of employment.

Related: Working Moms Are Struggling, Celebrating Mothers

Parenting is never easy, and being a working parent adds another layer of complexity to the already frustrating experience. The stress, time constraints, and constant juggling act have an impact on the parents and children, and have led some to question the value of having a parent at home. However, the reality is that being a working parent has many benefits for children, including better educational outcomes, increased social development, and a better sense of self-worth. The best way to understand the impact of a working mother on a child is to look at the research, which has shown that the benefits of a working parent far outweigh the drawbacks.

When a mother works, it often impacts the lives of the people closest to her: children. The amount of time a mother has to dedicate to her children, and the quality of her time with them, are both affected by her work schedule. Working moms sometimes have less time to spend with their children, and their jobs can have an effect on the way their children are brought up as well as the education they get. DeLancy Geddes, director of the Parenting in Technology Program at Harvard University, says that parents have to balance child care/support and work . 

When a working mother finds the time to provide the best care for her children, her children often benefit greatly. Parents who are able to focus on their children rather than their careers tend to have better relationships with their children, which leads to better education and behavior. Their children also tend to have better relationships with their parents, which in turn leads to better grades and behavior at school. Most of the time, working mothers are able to provide the best care for their children.

Examining the research that has been done on the subject is one of the most effective methods to gain an understanding of the effect that having a mother who is employed has on a kid. Children whose moms worked when they were young had greater levels of social development and self-esteem than children whose mothers didn't work, according to a study that was conducted in 2011 and published in the journal Child Development. 

In a study in 2012 and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that children who had mothers who worked when they were young had superior academic performance.(USS study). Children whose moms worked when they were young had better levels of success and higher levels of schooling than children whose mothers didn't work, according to a study that was conducted in 2016 and published in the journal Human Development and Family Studies.

The research on the impact of working mother on children has found that the impact is overwhelmingly positive. Working mothers are able to provide their children with more education, which leads to better educational outcomes. A working mother may have more time to spend with her children and can dedicate more time to their education, which can help improve their grades. Working mothers also tend to have more money than stay-at-home mothers, which can be used to provide their children with a better education.

If women are required to work long hours or are subjected to stress as a result of their professions, it is possible that the quality and quantity of the interactions that mothers have with their children would suffer as a result. The Growing Up in Scotland research began in 2005/2006 and tracked 2,200 youngsters up until the time that they were around five years old. At the age of five, the children were evaluated on their capacity to reason by having them name items that were depicted in a pictorial booklet.

 The maturation of a child's cognitive and linguistic capabilities may be significantly influenced by both the individual features of the child and the environmental circumstances that the child is subjected to throughout their formative years. If women keep their jobs for a longer amount of time, there may be an influence of a mother's employment on children's cognitive development and growth in language, but this is only likely to happen if mothers keep their jobs for a longer period of time.

Part-time working moms are healthier and happier than stay-at-home moms, study finds. Researchers analyzed National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Study data. These findings were reported in the Journal of Family Psychology published by the APA in its December edition. According to the findings of the research, "in every instance where there were substantial differences in mother well-being, the comparison supported part-time work." According to the findings of this study, working women are equally as active in their child's education as stay-at-home mothers are. It would indicate that mothers who work part time are more responsive to the needs of their pre-school children.

Many different opinions exist on working mothers. Some people believe working mothers are bad for children's development, while others believe that working mothers are the best for children. Still others believe that working mothers are fine as long as they don't overwork or underparent. As is the case with most topics, the truth may be found somewhere in the middle.

Memory Nguwi is an Occupational Psychologist, Data Scientist, Speaker, & Managing Consultant- Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, a management and human resources consulting firm.Email: [email protected]  or visit our websites https://www.thehumancapitalhub.com/ and  www.ipcconsultants.com  

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Top 20 Advantages and Disadvantages of Working Mothers

Working mothers definition.

Working mothers are the ones who move out of the house for the purpose of earning money and also maintain household chores. The trend of being a housewife is now changing with the change and need of the time.

Working Mothers Day

International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 every year . It is a focal point in the movement for women’s rights.

Every single woman prefers to work as they have the capability to balance both the work and family . It is now very rare that a girl does not prefer to work and chooses to remain at home as a housewife.

Working Mother Quotes from Most Powerful Women in the World

Former first lady of the united states – michelle obama :.

“ For me, being a mother made me a better professional, because coming home every night to my girls reminded me what I was working for. And being a professional made me a better mother because by pursuing my dreams, I was modelling for my girls how to pursue their dreams .”

YouTube CEO- Susan Wojcicki :

“ People assume it’s hard to have a child with the job I have, but my energy level is high. I also have a lot of resources at home and at work, not to mention the skills to run a big organization .”

Facebook COO and Lean In author Sheryl Sandberg :

“ When a couple announces that they are having a baby, everyone says ‘Congratulations!’ to the man and ‘Congratulations! What are you planning on doing about work?’ to the woman. The broadly held assumption is that raising their child is her responsibility. In more than thirty years, this perception has changed very little .”

Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi :

“ You will look back and it will hurt like hell .”

Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington :

“ I think while all mothers deal with guilt, working mothers are plagued by guilt on steroids. ”

Working Women Statistics & Survey

Source: bls.gov

Top 10 Best Companies for Working Mothers

• Bank of America
• Ernst & Young LLP
• Johnson & Johnson
• McKinsey & Co
• Prudential Financial

Working Mothers Research Papers

Here you can find the list of Research Papers that are related to the working mothers.

• Working Mothers vs Stay at Home Mothers: The Impact On Children
• The Effects of the Mother’s Employment on the Family and the Child
• Working mothers – Australian Institute of Family Studies

As a coin has two sides, the concept of the working woman also has many advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of Working Mothers:

Here we are mentioning you a few positive effects and negative effects of working mothers. They are

1. Working Mother Children are Smart:

The children of working mothers become smart and active as compared to the children of non-working mothers. This is because of the fact that the mothers being working have to move out of the house leaving all the household chores intact.

The children behind understand their responsibilities and manage to do all their tasks without being dependent on others, thus become smart and active enough.

Mothers working from Home: Top alternatives to 9-5 Jobs

2. Independent:

The children become independent as they don’t find their mother at home all day long and thus they are left with no other option than doing their homework, breakfast, packing bags for school, preparing uniforms and all such things of their own.

Doing all those little tasks that a child can do on his own makes him independent and responsible. He or she no longer depend on others for their work and become co-operative to their mothers.

3. Inculcate good habits:

The working mothers are nowadays helped by their spouse in household chores after returning from work.

By seeing the fathers being a helping hand to mothers, children learn good habits and inculcate manners of helping others as well as their mothers, thus in this way good habits are inculcated in them.

4. Mothers shower more love:

The mothers who are working ought to remain away from home and their children for long hours and could not devote quality time with them.

But the other way is good as well as when mothers are back from work and spend less time with their kids, they show all their love and affection for them. So this is also one of the advantages of being a working mother.

5. Financial help:

A working mother also adds to the advantage of helping the family financially. It is beneficial as a woman becomes a helping hand to the husband in terms of money. Apart from this they also are gaining important life skills .

This way family runs in a very smooth way without any financial difficulty and the kids also get the best as parents are able to afford due to a good income level.

6. Kids get all facilities:

The woman when works, will be able to help her spouse in money matters. This further helps in giving their children world-class facilities as they are not short of money in any way. The kids are able to join extra classes and other activities also.

In this way, they become intelligent and spontaneous in their working. Those children stand different than the children of non-working mothers.

7. Inspiration for kids:

The mothers when work, become an inspiration for their kids as they look up to their mom and say that they aspire to be like their moms in the near future.

Working moms not only work but also look after their children without any difficulty. So such kids need to look at others for inspiration, but they get to see inspiration at home only. This way, they also learn to do hard work in their life.

8. Life becomes exciting:

Non-working mothers remain at home and are not more outgoing. This way they are not able to have or expand their friend circle, but the working mothers are able to do so and take their children out for outing whenever gets time. So that is the reason why every woman should work. 

In this way, the children also learn socializing, communicating and behaving in front of others.

9. Good standard of living:

A person can give his or her family a high standard of living and makes sure that no financial problem arises.

The kids also live life in a healthy and comfortable manner as all the comforts are provided by mom and dad.

This is not exactly the case with a non-working woman and their kids might remain aloof of all pleasures and comforts the children need in today’s era.

10. No dependence on the husband:

The working woman does not have to depend on the husband for money or any other thing.

She becomes independent and earns her own without relying on a husband. She is able to fulfil all her wants and needs without being accountable to anyone in the family.

Gender Equality at the Workplace:

Disadvantages of Working Mothers:

1. tiredness:.

After working for 10 hours continuously in office creates fatigue and tiredness. The activeness vanishes the moment the mother reaches home. This affects the whole family, including children, husband and the others in case of joint family.

Tiredness does not let the woman have an eye on her kids and this way kids may remain aloof for the whole day. Thus affecting the family life badly.

2. Health issues may arise:

A working mother has to manage both house and office both at an equal level that too on a daily basis.

Having the same routine regularly without any rest may lead to health issues and other problems which also ruins the family life.

If the mother becomes ill, the kids and the husband both are affected and this creates tension in one’s life.

3. Children may feel alone and fall into a bad company:

Children get freedom in excess when they don’t see mothers around to stop them from vices. This way they may fall into bad company and inculcate vices in them.

Not only this, they might feel alone and find for the company as mothers are not available for kids due to work.

4. Mothers are not able to attend important school meetings of kids:

Due to office work, working mothers are not able to attend the school meetings, functions etc. which may develop feelings of inferiority and guilt in them.

Such cases may end children going into depression, thus affecting their health to a larger extent.

5. Less time for kids:

A working woman is not able to devote quality time to their kids. This way the kids are not able to share their feelings and remain quite over the important matters. This makes them introvert and are not able to express their feeling with parents. But this problem can be solved if they gain time management skills .

6. Children are kept in child care centres:

Mothers have to keep their kids in childcare centres as there is no one to take care of them. Those kids remain void of love and motherly affection.

In such cases, the mother feels guilty for not sparing quality time to raise her kids and have to compromise in the development of the kids.

7. Missing out first words, first steps of kids:

The mothers who work i.e. are working have to compromise in terms of motherly emotions and miss all the first words, steps and activities for kids. This way she has to end up with all her feeling just to earn a little more for her kids and family.

8. No helping hand:

If the husband is not helping the wife in household chores, it may cause difficulty for her as she then has to work 24 hours all alone without any help, it may affect co-operation and husband-wife relationship, resulting in the end of such a pious relation.

This way the whole family gets destroyed and even the future of children is affected.

9. Suffering harassment at workplace:

Working women often have to suffer harassment like eve-teasing to even sexual harassment. Many women had to go through all such on a daily basis. Whereas non-working woman does not have to face all this.

10. Conclusion:

So, above are the advantages and disadvantages of being a working mother. Nowadays due to inflation and other economic problems it has become vital to make more efforts for good earning. So for such a thing, a woman has to earn and understand the responsibilities of her family.

Keeping aside the disadvantages of being a working mother, one should be positive and strive to see the advantages it offers a family. A working mother should feel proud of herself as she has the power to give best to her family at the same time not forgetting her responsibilities. One thing a woman should keep in mind is that she should not get angry or irritated over kids rather should try and tackle kids with love, affection and patience.

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Expert Commentary

What research says about the kids of working moms

We spotlight research on working moms. Overall, the research suggests maternal employment has little impact on kid's behavior and academic achievement over the short term and may have long-term benefits.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by Denise-Marie Ordway, The Journalist's Resource August 6, 2018

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/economics/working-mother-employment-research/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

Most American moms work outside the home. Nearly 70 percent of women with children under age 18 were in the labor force in 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

In recent decades, as more mothers take paid positions, families, policymakers and scholars have wondered how the trend may impact children, especially during their early years. Many women, single parents in particular, must work because they either can’t afford to stay at home to raise their kids or the government agencies they rely on for assistance require them to be employed.

Work is also a choice for a lot of women. As more women in the United States complete college degrees — the percentage of women earning bachelor’s degrees skyrocketed between 1967 and 2015  — many have opted to leave their youngsters with a family member or daycare provider while they pursue careers and other professional interests.

Is this trend good or bad? Are kids with working moms different from kids whose moms are unemployed? Do they have more or fewer behavioral problems? Are their academic skills stronger or weaker? Let’s look at what the research says.

The good news: Overall, maternal employment seems to have a limited impact on children’s behavior and academic achievement over the short term. And there appear to be benefits in the long-term. A study published in 2018 finds that daughters raised by working moms are more likely to be employed as adults and have higher incomes.

Below, we’ve gathered a sampling of the academic research published or released on this topic in recent years. If you’re looking for workforce trend data, check out the U.S. Department of Labor’s website , which offers a variety of reports on women at work. A May 2018 report from the Pew Research Center, “7 Facts about U.S. Moms,” provides some useful context.

———–

“When Does Time Matter? Maternal Employment, Children’s Time With Parents, and Child Development” Hsin, Amy; Felfe, Christina. Demography , October 2014. DOI: 10.1007/s13524-014-0334-5.

Do working moms spend less time with their children? And if they do, does that hurt kids’ cognitive development? Amy Hsin from Queens College-City University of New York and Christina Felfe of the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland teamed up to investigate.

The gist of what they found: Mothers who work full-time do spend less time with their children, but they tend to trade quantity of time for better quality time. “On average, maternal work has no effect on time in activities that positively influence children’s development, but it reduces time in types of activities that may be detrimental to children’s development,” Hsin and Felfe explain. Each week, kids whose mothers work full-time spend 3.2 fewer hours engaged in “unstructured activities” — activities that don’t require children and parents to be actively engaged and speaking to one another — compared to kids whose moms are unemployed.

The researchers also find that children with college-educated mothers spend more time on educational activities as well as “structured” activities, which require kids to be actively engaged with their parents. “For example, college-educated mothers and their partners spend 4.9 hours and 2.5 hours per week, respectively, engaged in educational activities with their children; by comparison, mothers with less than [a] high school diploma and their partners spend only 3.3 hours and 1.7 hours per week in educational activities, respectively,” according to the study.

Maternal employment, generally speaking, appears to have a positive effect on children’s cognitive development. “When comparing the effect of maternal employment on child outcomes between stay-at-home mothers and mothers who work full-time, we see that the reduction in unstructured time resulting from full-time employment amounts to an improvement in children’s cognitive development of 0.03 to 0.04 SD [standard deviation],” the authors write. For children under age 6, the improvement is larger.

“Learning from Mum: Cross-National Evidence Linking Maternal Employment and Adult Children’s Outcomes” McGinn, Kathleen L.; Castro, Mayra Ruiz; Lingo, Elizabeth Long. Work, Employment and Society , April 2018. DOI: 10.1177/0950017018760167.

These researchers analyzed data from two surveys conducted across 29 countries to examine how men and women had been influenced by their mother’s work status. The main takeaway: Daughters raised by working mothers are more likely to have jobs as adults — and those who have jobs are more likely to supervise others, work longer hours and earn higher incomes.

There doesn’t appear to be a link between maternal employment and employment for sons, according to the study. However, men whose mothers worked while they were growing up spend about 50 minutes more caring for family members each week than men whose moms didn’t work.

The study, led by Kathleen L. McGinn of Harvard Business School , notes that these outcomes are “due at least in part to employed mothers’ conveyance of egalitarian gender attitudes and life skills for managing employment and domestic responsibilities simultaneously. Family-of-origin social class matters: women’s likelihood of employment rises with maternal employment across the socio-economic spectrum, but higher incomes and supervisory responsibility accrue primarily to women raised by mothers with more education and higher skill jobs.”

“Increasing Maternal Employment Influences Child Overweight/Obesity Among Ethnically Diverse Families” Ettinger, Anna K.; Riley, Anne W.; Price, Carmel E. Journal of Family Issues , July 2018. DOI: 10.1177/0192513X18760968.

This study looks at how maternal employment affects the weight status of Black and Latino children from low-income families in Boston, Chicago and San Antonio. The researchers find that an increase in a mother’s “work intensity” — for example, when a mother transitions from being unemployed to working or switches from part-time to full-time work — increases the odds that her child will be overweight or obese.

Kids whose mothers increased their work schedules during the children’s first few years of life were more likely to have a weight problem. “Children of mothers who increased their employment status during children’s preschool years had over 2.6 times the odds of being overweight/obese at 7 to 11 years of age compared with children of nonworking mothers,” the authors write. They also write that their results “suggest that changing work schedules and increasing work hours over time may be more disruptive to family environments and child weight than maintaining constant levels of employment over time (whether that is not working at all or working full-time).”

The researchers note that within their sample of 602 children, having consistent family routines such as mealtimes and bedtimes were associated with a 61 percent reduction in the odds of being overweight or obese. They also note that youth whose parents live together, whether married or not, tended to have lower odds of being overweight or obese than children living with single mothers.

“The Effect of Maternal Employment on Children’s Academic Performance” Dunifon, Rachel; Hansen, Anne Toft; Nicholson, Sean; Nielsen, Lisbeth Palmhøj. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 19364, August 2013.

Rachel Dunifon , the interim dean of Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology, led this study, which explores whether maternal employment improves children’s academic achievement. Dunifon and her colleagues analyze a data set for 135,000 children who were born in Denmark between 1987 and 1992 and followed through the ninth grade.

A key finding: Danish children whose mothers worked during their childhood had higher grade-point averages at age 15 than children whose mothers did not work. And children whose mothers worked between 10 and 19 hours a week had better grades than kids whose mothers worked full-time or only a few hours per week. “The child of a woman who worked between 10 and 19 hours per week while her child was under the age of four is predicted to have a GPA that is 2.6 percent higher than an otherwise similar child whose mother did not work at all,” the authors write.

The researchers suggest their paper “presents evidence of a positive causal linkage between maternal work hours and the GPA of Danish teens. These associations are strongest when mothers work part-time, and among more advantaged mothers, and are not accounted for by mothers’ earnings.”

“Maternal Work Early in the Lives of Children and Its Distal Associations with Achievement and Behavior Problems: A Meta-Analysis” Lucas-Thompson, Rachel G.; Goldberg, Wendy A.; Prause, JoAnn. Psychological Bulletin , November 2010. DOI: 10.1037/a0020875.

This is an analysis of 69 studies that, over the span of five decades, look at the relationship between maternal employment during children’s early years and children’s behavior and academic performance later in life. Overall, the analysis suggests that early maternal employment is not commonly associated with lower academic performance or behavior problems.

The analysis did, however, find differences when comparing different types of families. Early maternal employment was associated with “positive outcomes (i.e., increased achievement and decreased behavior problems) for majority one-parent samples,” explain the three researchers, Rachel G. Lucas-Thompson , now an assistant professor at Colorado State University, and Wendy A. Goldberg and JoAnn Prause of the University of California, Irvine. Early maternal employment was associated with lower achievement within two-parent families and increased behavior problems among study samples comprised of a mix of one- and two-parent families.

The researchers offer this explanation: “The results of this meta-analysis suggest that early maternal employment in sole-provider families may bolster children’s achievement and buffer against problem behaviors, perhaps because of the added financial security and health benefits that accompany employment, as well as improved food, clothing, and shelter because of increased income and the psychological importance of having a role model for achievement and responsible behavior. In contrast, early maternal employment may be detrimental for the behavior of children in two-parent families if the increases in family income do not offset the challenges introduced by maternal employment during children’s early years of life.”

There were differences based on household income as well. For families receiving welfare, the researchers found a link between maternal employment and increased student achievement. For middle- and upper-class families, maternal employment was associated with lower achievement.

The researchers note that they tried to gauge how child-care quality might influence these results. But there weren’t enough studies to allow for a detailed analysis.

Family separation: How does it affect children?

Maternity leave and children’s cognitive and behavioral development

How to tell good research from flawed research: 13 questions journalists should ask

About The Author

Denise-Marie Ordway

• Family Life

Stay-at-Home Moms Vs Working Moms: Here's Looking At The Advantages And Disadvantages

Struggling to decide whether to rejoin work after pregnancy or be a stay-at-home mom? Here are the advantages and disadvantages of working mothers versus looking after the baby at home

This has to be one of the most debated topics of all time. Should I stay at home or resume work after the arrival of the baby? Women face many challenges in both scenarios and are often caught in the dilemma of what to do post-delivery. As all mothers know, it is not an easy decision.

Barring a few exceptions, the concept of working moms, or even working women for that matter, was not very prevalent in the early ages. But as many women came out of the confines of their homes during the struggle for India's freedom, they also started to look for opportunities to work.

For ages, few women in our country defied norms to join the workforce. Most led a routine and domesticated life confined to their houses with minimal interaction with the outside world. But this entire scenario has witnessed a change in the last few decades, with almost every sector now being represented by women.

Change in workplace dynamics

Moreover, with industrialization and globalization, India saw a drastic change in workplace dynamics. Not only did it create employment and job opportunities, but it also helped in changing the mindset of the people. It was a new ray of hope for women who wanted to showcase their skills and expertise, attaining financial independence in the process.

Lack of a support system

Though there has been a lot of changes when it comes to working women, there are still some impediments when new mothers want to go back to work, after giving birth to a baby. A woman's career inevitably takes a back seat after motherhood.

This is not because the woman is less interested in pursuing her career but because she lacks a support system that would allow her to go to work without worrying about her child or looking after the needs of the family. These include a dearth of child care facilities and daycare centers closer to her workplace, the fact that she cannot get enough help from the family, lack of reliable babysitters, and so on.

Motherhood is a blessing. However, being a working mother has to be one of the toughest jobs. Also, due to many constraints, women prefer to be stay-at-home moms.

However, there are pros and cons in both scenarios and mothers should follow whatever is best for them, based on their specific situation.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Stay-at-Home Moms

Advantages and disadvantages of working mothers.

These days, there are many work options that allow you to use your free time by taking up work-from-home assignments. But you have to strike a smart balance to avoid a burn-out

Whether you are a stay-at-home mom or a working mom, both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Hence, a smarter and feasible option can be jobs that allow you to work from home for some time - like when the baby's asleep.

This is less daunting as compared to a regular office job and moreover, you can dedicate your time to taking care of your child. If you decide to be a working mother, make sure you have a good support system in place, to avoid getting stressed. In both scenarios, allow yourself to enjoy once in a while and allocate some time to relax on your own.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Being a Working Mother

Today, we no longer see a woman as a stay-at-home mother with stereotyped tasks. In the past, we used to define motherhood that involves lifelong goals of taking care of children and doing household chores alone. That all changed when people worldwide fought for the freedom we enjoy today. Women now play a vital role to contribute to the economy, thus proving they can compete in the job market. Still, some believe mothers should be staying home and tend to their children’s needs. However, women of today beg to differ. So, what are the pros and cons of being working moms?

Pros of Being a Working Mother

Even if they can’t attend to their children full-time, working mothers experience various benefits with their living status. We listed some of these advantages below.

1. Working moms become positive role models.

Children should know women shouldn’t be just domestic servants. Instead, a woman can be someone who works outside the home and pursue a professional career. This instills in children the idea that a woman’s role can include a thriving career apart from domestic tasks. Working for a living knows no gender—and working moms are a living proof of that.

2. They raise more independent children.

Children of working mothers tend to become more independent. Since working moms need to teach kids how to do chores on their own, they develop a strong sense of responsibility at an early age.

3. Working moms are less prone to depression.

According to Robert Locke, health expert and contributor in Lifehack , stay-at-home mothers are likely to suffer from depression. This finding may negatively contribute to childcare. So, as a working mom, it’s a good thing you can fight depression and anxiety in your own way.

4. They have stories to tell outside their personal life.

Aside from their family life, working parents have the opportunity to extend their circle with their colleagues. This also lets them go on work outings and bring along their children. That’s quality time with their family and colleagues in one.

Cons of Being a Working Mother

While it has its fair share of upsides, being a working mom also has its downsides. Here are some of them.

1. Working moms are more tired and stressed.

Just imagine working for nine hours, suffering through the traffic while driving home, and going home to restless children who need a parent’s attention. Working moms go through these almost every day, along with other matters they need to attend to.

2. They are also prone to health issues.

What happens when you involve working mothers with stress? Health issues. Having the same daily routine with little to no rest can put a mother’s health at risk, which can result to more problems.

3. They may miss out on the lives of their kids.

Some working moms miss out on the opportunity to witness their child’s first word, first step, and other priceless moments. Thus, it’s a drawback faced by a working mom supporting her family.

4. Working moms may also have less time for their family.

At times, they can’t attend family events due to their busy schedules. Also, some working moms tend to dedicate most of their time in their careers, so they may have less attention to family matters.

Work-Life Balance for Working Moms

Aside from knowing the pros and cons of being a working mom, read about helpful tips how one can juggle the joys of life and stresses of work.

While having to provide for their family financially, working women can take steps helping them achieve a more worthwhile work-life balance. With that, heed these pieces of advice.

1. Accept help whenever you can get it.

From babysitting, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, or even doing the laundry, let your family, friends, and colleagues help you. If they initiate to offer a helping hand, take it. It’s a win-win situation.

2. Surround yourself with supportive people.

Don’t be afraid to ask for support especially during tough times. Surrounding yourself with people who trust you and will help you through thick and thin helps you manage your life better.

3. Learn self-care.

Yes, you may be providing for your family while making your career worthwhile; but it doesn’t mean leaving yourself out. Meditate, exercise, go shopping, get your hair and nails done, or get a massage. Self-care helps us become less susceptible to depression, anxiety, stress, and other emotional health issues.

4. Make mornings easier.

Organize your chores the night before. Avoid a frenzied morning by doing this. Pack your kids’ lunches, iron their clothes, and decide what you want to make for breakfast.

5. Limit distractions.

Children are dependent on their parent’s attention. Their emotional development and well-being depend on how much time you spend with them. So discipline yourself and set a time limit when checking your phone or watching TV.

Be bold in discovering new opportunities to provide for your family. So if you’re a stay-at-home mom thinking of pursuing a career, be practical and smart in acing your job hunt. Start with a compelling resume written by the experts! Best 10 Resume Writers reviewed the best resume writing companies who offer various services tailored for your job search needs. Read our resume writing services reviews now and be ready to enjoy the wonders of being a working mom!

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To the Editor:

Re “ An Act of Defiance Can Improve Things for Working Moms ,” by Toby Kiers (Opinion guest essay, May 4):

I am a woman nearing the completion of my B.A. in philosophy, and I have the absurd hopes of going on to get my Ph.D. and work in academia and also have a family.

Dr. Kiers’s essay both shed light on the frustrating reality of the discrimination that mothers face in the world of academic research, and provided a shining beacon of hope to counteract it.

The false binary that women are presented and that so many people (including Dr. Kiers’s own child, she noted) assume is that we must decide: our research, our careers, our academic endeavors, or our children. One or the other.

Dr. Kiers has called this out; this is not actually a choice we have to make. Motherhood is not a detriment to our academic abilities and research contributions; it actually strengthens it in new and unexpected ways.

Dr. Kiers, in her refusal to choose between her research pursuits and her family, is helping to forge an exciting path forward. It is a path to a world where women can be celebrated, respected and supported with all that they are and all that they contribute, including their children.

That is the academic world I hope to enter into someday.

Megan Clancy Washington

Kudos to Dr. Toby Kiers! Her story is shared not only by fellow scientists, but by women at large. I admire her courage in bringing her 3-week-old son to work, and in pondering the advice of an older woman who discouraged her from being self-deprecating.

“What can feel like an inconvenience is often a blessing in disguise,” she writes. Amen to that! As far as detachment and vulnerability creating meaning? I now see vulnerability being valued and detachment being questioned in health care, via narrative prose and poetry by nurses and physicians.

I am a seasoned nurse. This article brought me back to the AIDS epidemic. In terms of science, we really had no idea what we were dealing with. I was on maternity leave and had come to know “brain fog” intimately. I received a call asking if I would open a new department for AIDS. After a day thinking about it, I accepted. My two boys went with me into the wilderness of men dying of a virus we knew little about.

My sons are now 40 and 50. The older one still recounts stories of things he learned and joy he felt at a party that those dying men held for us nurses on Mother’s Day. Vulnerability informing the work? You bet!

Pamela Mitchell Bend, Ore.

Since I am a woman who walked across the medical school graduation stage holding my toddler, while eight months pregnant with No. 2, I can certainly identify with Toby Kiers’s essay about managing a career as a scientist while parenting.

It was extremely trying for me to charge into residency with very small children at home. But I am blessed to have a wonderful husband who loved fathering, and was able to take a sabbatical for some of my residency.

As a result, our two daughters, now young adults, are very close to their father. I think that this is the real win in how things are evolving for women in the workplace. Partners get to join in on the nitty-gritty as well as the glorious moments of parenting.

I do believe I missed out on the sort of lovely parenting my mother gave me as a stay-at-home mom. But I was also able to show our daughters what commitment to an intellectual and humanistic goal looks like.

I certainly think medical residency programs are over the top in terms of workload and emotional toll; this needs to evolve. But I think enjoying the participation of both parents in the up-close-and-personal part of child-rearing makes all of our children stronger.

Susan Ferguson Berkeley, Calif.

Re “ Trump Embraces Lawlessness in the Name of a Higher Law ,” by Matthew Schmitz (Opinion guest essay, April 4):

Mythologizing Donald Trump — either Mr. Schmitz fancifully comparing him to outlaws like Robin Hood, Billy the Kid and Jesse James, who titillated people with their challenges to authority, or Christian evangelicals’ even more far-fetched casting of Mr. Trump as King Cyrus or even Jesus — fails because most of us see him for what he is, a narcissist with no positive agenda and no respect for the law.

If we must make comparisons, it’s to David Duke, the Klansman who ran for president, or Gov. George Wallace, standing in the schoolhouse door to block integration. The only people who saw them as rebels with a cause were themselves defending a lost cause, much like those who flock to MAGA now.

Steve Horwitz Moraga, Calif.

Re “ Inmate’s Death Highlights Failures in Mental Health ” (front page, May 6), about the troubled life and death of a prisoner, Markus Johnson:

As a social worker who has worked in the field of mental health for more than 50 years, I read with interest and sadness yet another article about a mentally ill individual who was not provided with adequate treatment and subsequently died in prison.

This article highlights the failure of deinstitutionalization. It demonstrates how our prisons have become the institutions replacing those that formerly housed the mentally ill. Not only are the mentally ill being ill served, but so too is the public, which is at risk of harm from those hallucinating on the streets.

Our shelter system is also not in a position to manage needed services and supervision. The last resort is a cell. I believe that providing long-term residential programs with highly supervised step-down programs would provide a solution to the tragedies we currently read about daily. Certainly the cost would be less than incarceration.

Let’s look to providing real help rather than punishment for our mentally ill population.

Helen Rubel Irvington, N.Y.

“ Offshore Oil Production Expands as Companies Cite Energy Needs ” (Business, May 10) lays out Big Oil’s plan for the Gulf of Mexico. Let’s be real: We’re in a global climate crisis. The last thing we need is for the fossil fuel industry to expand offshore drilling.

If climate change, rising ocean temperatures and the risk of horrific events like the Deepwater Horizon disaster weren’t enough reason to stop offshore oil expansion, we also know that this industry cannot be counted on to clean up its mess when the wells have run dry.

There is a huge backlog when it comes to plugging defunct or abandoned wells, removing old oil platforms and remediating the seafloor damaged by drilling operations. Oil and gas companies have already littered the Gulf of Mexico with more than 18,000 miles of disused pipeline and over 14,000 unplugged wells , which can leak chemicals like methane into the ocean.

It also comes with financial risks: If offshore oil and gas operators file for bankruptcy (as 37 have done since 2009 ), U.S. taxpayers could be forced to foot the bill for cleanup.

Enough is enough: We cannot afford more offshore drilling.

Andrew Hartsig Anchorage The writer is senior director, Arctic conservation, for Ocean Conservancy.

Difficult work arrangements force many women to stop breastfeeding early—here's how to prevent this

R esearch shows that six months of exclusive breastfeeding, and continuing until two years old or beyond, provide multiple benefits for the baby and mother .

It can prevent deaths both in infants and mothers—including in wealthy nations like the United States . It also benefits the global economy and the enviroment .

However, after maternity leave ends , mothers returning to paid work face many challenges maintaining breastfeeding. This often leads mothers to stop breastfeeding their children before six months—the duration of exclusive breastfeeding recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and others .

According to the WHO , less than half of babies under six months old worldwide are exclusively breastfed.

In Indonesia , research shows 83% of mothers initiate breastfeeding, but only 57% are still breastfeeding at around six months. In Australia , 96% of mothers start breastfeeding, but then there is a rapid fall to only 39% by around three months and only 15% by around five months.

Among the key reasons for low rates of exclusive breastfeeding are the difficult work conditions women face when they return to paid work.

So how can governments and workplaces—especially in countries that have yet to do enough, like Indonesia and Australia—better support breastfeeding mothers, particularly at work?

Half a billion reasons to change

For more than a century, the International Labor Organization (ILO) has set global standards for maternity protection through the Maternity Protection Convention and accompanying recommendations , as well as the ILO Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention , aiming to protect female workers' rights.

So far, only 66 member states have ratified at least one of the Maternity Protection Conventions, while 43 have ratified the Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention. Unfortunately, Indonesia has not ratified either convention . So far, Australia has only ratified the family responsibilities convention .

In some countries, protections are aligned with the ILO Conventions. For example, in Denmark and Norway , the governments offer maternity leave of at least 14 weeks. During leave, mothers' earnings are protected at a rate of at least two-thirds of their pre-birth earnings. Public funds ensure this is done in a manner determined by national law and practice, so the employer is not solely responsible for the payment.

A Canadian study highlights the proportion of mothers exclusively breastfeeding to six months increased by almost 40% when paid maternity leave was expanded from six to 12 months. At the same time, average breastfeeding duration increased by one month, from five to six months.

Evidence shows paid maternity leave and providing an adequate lactation room at work both contribute positively to breastfeeding rates.

Despite this, half a billion women globally still lack adequate maternity protections .

For example, welfare reforms in the US encouraging new mothers' return to work within 12 weeks led to a 16–18% reduction in breastfeeding initiation. It also saw a four to six week reduction in the time babies were breastfed.

Indonesia and Australia aren't doing enough

Neither Indonesia or Australia are currently doing enough to meet the ILO's maternity protection standards.

In Indonesia, the 2003 Labor Law urges companies to give 12 weeks of paid maternity leave for women workers to support breastfeeding. Furthermore, the 2012 regulation on exclusive breastfeeding obligates workplace and public space management to provide a space or facility to breastfeed and express breast milk. However, the monitoring of its implementation is weak.

In Australia, paid parental leave (PPL) policy supports parents who take time off from paid work to care for their young children.

Eligible working mothers or primary caregivers are entitled to up to 20 weeks (or 22 weeks if the child is born or adopted from 1 July 2024) of government paid parental leave within the first two years of the birth or adoption of a child.

In the Federal Budget announced on 15 May 2024, the Australian government has added payment of superannuation contributions to the parental leave package for births and adoptions on or after 1 July 2025. However, the PPL is a low amount , paid at the national minimum wage ($882.80 per week) ].

Some mothers can combine the government payment with additional paid leave from their employer. However in 2022-2023, only 63% of Australian employers offered this, leaving nearly half of new mothers with only minimum financial support .

Unlike Indonesia, Australia has no legal requirement for employers to offer paid breastfeeding breaks in their workplace, so mothers can express and take home their breastmilk. This can badly impact women's and children's health .

While Australia's support for breastfeeding mothers is welcome, it's still inadequate to meet the ILO's international standard—particularly Australia's low payment rate of government PPL (at the minimum wage, rather than two-thirds of previous earnings) and the lack of legislation for paid breastfeeding breaks.

How employers and colleagues can help

Globally, the barriers to maintain breastfeeding include not only lack of maternity leave duration and pay, but also unavailability of breastfeeding and breast pumping facilities at workplaces, sometimes unsupportive colleagues and supervisors, and lack of time at work to breastfeed or expressing breastmilk.

Breastfeeding a baby should not preclude women from earning a living. In 2022, female workers were 39.5% of total workers globally , while in Australia and Indonesia they made up 47.4% and 39.5% respectively.

An accessible facility or space for breastfeeding or breast pumping is vital to support breastfeeding working mothers.

In Indonesia, a 2013 Ministry of Health regulation outlines the procedure for an employer to provide a space and facility for mothers to breastfeed and breast pump.

The minimum specifications of this facility are described as a lockable, clean and quiet room, with a sink for washing, suitable temperature, lighting and flooring. While these specifications are technically mandatory, monitoring is weak, meaning if employers fail to meet the requirements there are no specific consequences.

But a breastfeeding space alone is not enough. In many jobs, mothers cannot leave their tasks during working hours, even if there is a lactation room.

Supportive employers need to regulate time and flexibility to breastfeed and express breastmilk, including providing flexible working arrangements and paid breastfeeding breaks during working hours. Supportive attitudes from co-workers and managers are also important.

Suitable staff training on breastfeeding and policies supporting mothers, such as providing time and facility to express breastmilk in work hours, are crucial. Training on how to support co-worker can include anything from basic information breastfeeding, to what to say (or not say) with a breastfeeding co-worker.

Access to supportive childcare is another issue globally.

For those families who can access childcare, childcare centers can also help by:

• encouraging and accommodating mothers to visit for breastfeeding
• having written policies supporting breastfeeding
• providing parents with resources on breastfeeding
• and referring parents to community resources for breastfeeding support.

Practical ways to support more families

The Australian Breastfeeding Association has an accreditation program that helps workplaces to be breastfeeding-friendly . Workplace policies, including adequate time and space for pumping, are positively associated with longer breastfeeding duration .

The program assesses workplaces for three aspects: time, space and supportive culture. This means, workplaces are encouraged to provide a special space and time for breastfeeding and breast pumping in a supportive culture and flexible working hours.

Mothers should consider to prepare how to align breastfeeding with work early—during pregnancy. Start by discussing your breastfeeding goals with health care professionals and finding a baby-friendly hospital .

Discuss your breastfeeding plan with your supervisor at work during your pregnancy, including finding out your maternity leave (paid and unpaid) entitlements. Also consider childcare arrangements that will work best for you with breastfeeding.

For further information and support, you can find resources from local breastfeeding support groups, such as the Indonesian Breastfeeding Mothers Association and Australian Breastfeeding Association .

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

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NYAMU: How employers can ease transition for new mothers returning to work

Promoting breastfeeding for the first six months to one year yields significant health benefits for mothers and babies.

• Businesses should actively involve female employees in planning their return to work by establishing a comprehensive onboarding process. 

Clarifying the business strategy and vision, and how it applies to different departments.

Introducing a new member into the family is undoubtedly a joyous occasion, yet it also brings a considerable amount of stress.

Furthermore, the prospect of returning to work adds another layer of anxiety for new mothers.

The emotional strain of leaving a newborn after just a few weeks, compounded by physical recovery, and the exorbitant expenses of childcare, can render the transition back to the workplace immensely daunting.

Within numerous corporate environments, navigating maternity leave presents a formidable obstacle, as existing policies often fail to guarantee financial security or career continuity for women. But let’s face it ­- mothers in the workforce are here to stay, and their wealth of maternal experience can offer employers invaluable advantages.

Here are ways managers and employers, can help take the pressure off of working mothers and lend their support:

Provide adequate pumping space

However, returning to work often deters mothers from continuing to pump due to pressure to perform without "distractions."

By demonstrating care for mothering employees, companies could enhance retention, promote job satisfaction, improve morale, and enhance productivity.

Moreover, Sec 71 of The Health Act No. 21 of 2017 requires employers to provide lactation stations.

Build a culture of empathy for new parents

If say a company is known for its hard-charging atmosphere, predominantly comprised of singles and childless couples, new mothers may feel apprehensive about returning to work, especially if they require understanding regarding time constraints.

While not every request may be feasible, exploring alternatives, like remote work options, demonstrates a commitment to accommodating diverse needs.

Consider a transition period

Depending on the health of both the baby and the employee, some new mothers may require additional time for postpartum recovery, or the baby may necessitate extra care.

It would be thoughtful to offer flexibility for new mothers to gradually return to work on a part-time basis for a period of weeks, easing the transition back to full-time employment.

Encourage community

Upon returning to work post-maternity leave, working mothers frequently encounter the need to continuously validate their value and competence.

In most cases, men are often assessed based on their potential, whereas women are judged by their past achievements. This viewpoint fosters division among coworkers rather than unity.

Plan the before, during and after

Ease an expectant employee's concerns by pre-planning task delegation and cross-training.

Assure them of periodic non-work check-ins during maternity leave and outline the return-to-work process and discuss contingencies for extended leave if needed.

Conduct a specialized employee orientation upon their return, updating them on company developments during their absence.

This proactive approach ensures a smoother transition back to work for both the returning mother and the team.

Keep critical meetings within the core hours of the day

The early morning and late evening team conference calls can strain anyone's schedule. To better accommodate returning mothers and all parents, offer flexible morning and evening options that align with their family responsibilities and commitments.

You are not only helping women succeed at home and in the office, but also helping to raise the future generations of the workforce.

A clear and structured onboarding (or reboarding) plan

Businesses should actively involve female employees in planning their return to work by establishing a comprehensive onboarding process. This includes:

Facilitating introductions to key stakeholders and providing insight into their roles.

Allocating time with the line manager to align priorities and discuss the employee's observations and insights post-return.

Understanding individual motivations

It's important to recognize that each female employee's motivations and ambitions may shift after becoming a parent, but it's unfair to assume they've all diminished.

Some may find renewed purpose and ambition, while others may reprioritize.

Acknowledge that parenthood can influence career goals and ensure a shared understanding of career paths and opportunities.

[PHOTOS] Smiles, cheers as Radio Africa honours mothers with cake

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