Dear Pew Research: Stop Asking How We “Feel” About Working Mothers
“We Can Do It”? How about, we’re *already* doing it, so let’s stop talking about it already.
Well, lookie-hoo: The Pew Reseach Center recently published the results of survey that reveals the following: A full four in ten households with kids under age 18 have mothers who are the sole or primary breadwinners. (That’s 40%, folks!). Drill a bit deeper and you discover that 37% of that number are married mothers who make more money than their husbands; the greater majority, 63%, are single moms. But either way, it’s a large jump. The figure was 11% in 1960, when my grandmother was about 6 years shy of retiring from the full time job — sewing dresses in a factory — she’d held, in one place or another, since she was 13, being a mother notwithstanding.
My point being, well duh women always/often have worked. In my nonscientific analysis, it seems to me that the heyday of stay at home mothering was probably in the post-World War II years, when Rose the Riveter went home and families (thanks to the GI Bill among other things) could actually create a decent middle-class life on one salary. These days, while it’s not impossible to raise a family on one salary (particularly if the one salary is a nice one), it’s not easy for most people, and it’s not desirable for a lot of us, for a whole host of personal, professional and economic reasons.
Now, I know plenty of modern mothers (and some fathers, a growing minority) choose to stay home and I am not against that choice — though I have trouble, in our fragile, shifting economy and in a time when the middle class is basically a dying notion, with the thought of one person giving up earning potential, given that marriages end and people get hurt and die and lose their jobs. I was there, my husband was out of work for ay ear and a half at one point. What if I had to restart a career from scratch at that point?
These are just realities, so what is the point of wondering how we all feel about mothers working? Seems to me that finding out, via Pew, that half of respondents say “that children are better off if a mother is home and doesn’t hold a job” is unhelpful information. Worse, the information as reported all over the place seems designed to stir up mommy-war-style guilt and infighting, and aren’t we all sick and tired of that by now?
The survey reports that we (Americans) are “conflicted” about how it’s possible that the fact of working mothers puts stress on families and make it harder to raise children and keep marriages strong. As if it’s the very fact that they work that messes up a nicely functioning, if fictional, notion of how society should work. I mean, how about wondering how the working world itself, and policy makers, could effect changes that would make it easier for working mothers and fathers to raise children?
We can’t go back to Donna Reed, people; and she wasn’t real anyway. My point, really, is this: I’m annoyed and dismayed that the Pew also wondered, and reported on, how all us Americans feel about the woman-as-breadwinner phenomenon.
I read this opinion piece by writer Connie Schultz that nails it, for me. In it, she writes:
I don’t fault anyone for reporting that part [the 51% part] of the study. I do wonder why Pew feels the need to keep asking how many people approve of women who exhaust themselves by raising and financing their families, but hey, it got me out of bed.
This time, I want to assure all you hardworking mothers out there that this latest round of mom-shaming will be over soon. Until the next round. If I could give you anything, it would be my hindsight. We get only so much energy each day, and any minute you spend on guilt over what you do to support your family is a wasted investment. You’re doing the best you can, and your children are better for it.
Well said. Guilt is useless and wheel-spinning. And Pew, seriously. Leave that question off next time. It’s so not useful, not for me, not for other working mothers,not for stay at home parents, not for anyone, anywhere who has a hand in shaping workplace policies. Think about this: If large companies get it stuck in their heads that “half” the country thinks mothers should be home with their children, will that motivate them to create more family friendly policies?
What do you think?
June 1, 2013 @ 10:41 am
THANK YOU for this post! Women in the workplace, women being breadwinners, dual-income families is not a new notion anything to get excited about. It’s just the way our society works. Let’s stop stating the obvious and start thinking about ways companies and policy makers can create better environments for families and work/life balance.
June 1, 2013 @ 11:13 am
They were asking the wrong question, or questioning the issue incorrectly.
There was a big gap between bread-winning mom who had the father at home/working part-time, versus a mother who had no father in residence and had the burden of daycare/picking up the children/appointments/activities all on her lap.
These women are the sole bread winners by default, due to parental abandonment by the man.
I have no problem with women being the bread winner, but the question failed to address of father absence. Even if mom and dad are no longer together, we want the father to be involved not just in terms of child support but equally engaged in the child’s life.
Is there a way in this research to compare mothers who have the father completely absent compared to a non-residential father who happens to be still fully engaged with his children covering not only expenses but also the shuttling back and forth to activities and spending quality time with their children???
Being OK with a woman being the sole bread-winner, does not equal I’m OK with men not being fathers to their children.
June 1, 2013 @ 11:26 am
Personally, it just feels like another way to try to pit women against each other, and I simply don’t understand why we do that. Can whatever choice you make be the best choice for your family, and we can call it day?! Great post! Stopping by from #SITSSharefest.-Ashley
June 1, 2013 @ 11:54 am
Great post. Nothing is perfect and every family has to make all sorts of decisions about all sorts of issues that are personal. I stay home – partly by choice, partly because I have a special needs child who requires a great deal of extra care and partly because when we had kids my husband had an established 10+ year career that keeps him away from home 70+ hours a week and I had just finished grad school and didn’t have an established career yet. No way in hell my income would even come close to covering my special needs child’s care (plus my 2nd child’s care) so my career would be solely for my own satisfaction (not a bad thing)…and I would still be doing all of the housework/cooking/grocery shopping/child rearing because my husband isn’t home during the week. Do I think my kids would be better off with two parents who were home for baseball games and dinner every night instead of just me every single day? Of course. But that just ain’t in the cards. Pretty sure we’re all trying very hard to do the best we can with the cards we have.
June 1, 2013 @ 12:56 pm
I stayed home nearly full time with mine when they were smaller because we couldn’t afford for me to work. Childcare in my area costs a bomb. 200+ per week for baby, 175 ish for an older toddler. It’s more in large daycare centers. If I worked, I would pay all my salary plus extra, to the daycare. It was a no brainer to watch our expenses and have me stay home.
That said, I did work after hours one evening per week to keep my foot in the door and my skills solid. When my daughter was one and my moms work situation changed, she offered to babysit one day a week and I picked up more hours. Luckily we have family in the area that are willing to babysit for free, or I would still be at home. I hate that staying home is always represented as a choice when it’s not always so.