Before I start, I just want to say Happy Mother's Day to all mothers!
Many people in our world now look down on mothers who stay at home and don't have a job outside the home. I realize that there are mothers who have to work for different reasons. When possible though, I wanted to show that being a stay-at-home mom is an honorable and rewarding job. It's interesting to see from the Pew research center that 29% of mothers (about 10.4 million women) with children below the age of 18, stayed-at-home, compared to 23% in 1999. There are of course many different factors that affect this.
One thing I found interesting in an academic journal was, how big of a difference just the attitude of stay-at-home moms about working affected their experience with staying at home. The findings showed that parenting quality of the full-time stay-at-home mothers are influenced by their beliefs and attitudes toward maternal employment. This is one reason, that I think the way society perceives women not working outside the home, is so important. If women grow up thinking that they have to work outside the home to be successful, what kind of message are we sending to those great mothers who work so hard to make their home a loving, warm environment, where they can foster the growth of their children. Are we saying that focusing on your children and your family is beneath us as women? That you can't reach fulfillment in your life from your family?
It has been found that married stay-at-home mothers (85%) are more likely than single (41%) or cohabiting stay-at- home mothers (64%) to say they are not employed, because they are caring for their families. This is something that I have found very interesting as I've grown up. That more women seem ashamed or embarrassed to say that they are a stay-at-home mom, when asked what they do for work. Anyone in my opinion, who thinks that being a stay-at-home mom isn't a real job, has no idea what being a good stay-at-home mom entails and what it means.
I was blessed to have a mom who cared enough & was able to, not work outside the home and it meant so much to me. She worked hard to keep the house clean, to make meals for our family, to play games with the kids, to drive us places, to read to us, sing to us, talk to us, take care of us when sick and just watch us outside when we'd play to make sure we were safe. It was such a great feeling to know that when I got home from school that my mom would be there, to talk to me, give me a treat and help me with my homework. I see so many kids who don't grow up having this and it makes me sad. But, I also know the flip side to this. My mom started working when all of her kids were in school during the whole day. Even though she worked at the school so that she could be home when we were. There was a change, she didn't have as much energy and time for us, she needed time to relax just like we did. She also didn't seem quite as happy as she did before. It also meant that both of my parents were tired from work and didn't have as much motivation to do extra things, like doing fun things as a family. This is when I truly came to realize that being a stay-at-home mom is a blessing that can't be measured. Thank you mom!
What's your experience with moms working outside the home or being a stay-at-home mom?
Here's the link to
The Value of a Mom
The Real Value of a Stay at Home Mom
The peer-reviewed study I looked at was called- The Relation Between Mothers' Attitudes Toward Maternal Employment and Social Competence of 36 month-olds: The Roles of Maternal Psychological Well-Being and Sensitivity by Young Eun Chang
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