| More American mothers than ever are
working, and more workers are mothers. Yet their march into the world of paid
work continues to cause suspicion. One recent survey found that 48 percent of
Americans believe that preschoolers suffer if their mothers work, while another
found that 42 percent of employed parents think that working mothers care more
about succeeding at work than meeting their children's needs. All mothers deserve our support--those who care for children at home and those who have joined the work force. But many working mothers continue to believe that they are shortchanging (少找钱)their children. They shouldn't. Research tells us that kids do just fine when mothers work. Suzanne Bianchi a scientist of the University of Maryland, has found that mothers today spend as much if not more time with their children than they did in 1965, even though the percentage of mothers who work rose from 35 percent to 71 percent. Then there are the obvious financial benefits. For many children, these earnings are the difference between living in poverty—or out of it. The kids are all right. Studies conducted by the University of Michigan have consistently demonstrated that a child's social or academic competence does not depend on whether a mother is employed. In my research four out of five children (nine out of ten in single parent families) told me that having a working mother was their preferred arrangement. My study found that children with working mothers are no more likely to drop out, take drugs, break the law, or experiment with sex prematurely than children with non-employed mothers. Children have taken their mothers' example to heart. Ninety percent of the young women I interviewed said they hoped to combine work with motherhood, while two-thirds of the men said they wanted to share parenting and work. Sadly, children support working mothers more than we do as a society. Parental leave and child-care benefits in the United States remain inadequate, particularly when compared to what's offered in other countries. Children thrive when their mothers have satisfying, well-paid jobs when they can count on other caretakers to share the load. The challenge facing us is thus not whether good workers can also be good mothers, but whether we can create the conditions that enable working mothers and fathers to be good parents. |