Working Moms are Better than Stay-at-Home Moms

On this Mother's Day, I want to make the judgmental assertion that, on average, working moms deserve more credit than do stay-at-home moms, far more.

As I've previously written, the research is clear that in most situations, staying at home beyond the first few months, doesn't help the child. (I append a list of references at the end of this article.)

Beyond the research, logic makes clear that in many cases, the child, the mom, the domestic partner, the workplace, and the larger society are better served when moms work full-time on remunerative work.

Benefits to the child

The working mom's child is less likely to be self-absorbed, with a sense of entitlement, because Helicopter Mom is not 24/7, hovering at Junior's beck and call.

Compared with a working mom, a smaller percentage of a stay-at-home mom's interaction with her child is likely to be quality time. If you've worked outside the home all day, you're more likely to be glad to see your child, really pay attention, patiently teach your child, and simply enjoy him or her, which your child can feel. If you've been with your child 24/7, you may not be as positive or present.

The working mom's child is more likely to become self-efficacious. As I mentioned, stay-at-home moms tend to be helicopter moms, hovering, ostensibly to protect the child but often veering into overprotection. Why would stay-at-home moms be more likely to be overprotective than working moms? Because they don't have a worklife to provide additional meaning to their life, they may be bored and/or want to justify the usually cushier life that stay-at-home moms have--more flexible schedules, time during the day for some pleasure, no long commute to face not-particularly-meaningful and/or difficult work, nor a fire-breathing boss seething, "Where's that report!"

The working mom's child is also more likely to benefit because the child gets to see a role model of a person who can, beyond being a housewife, also earn money and be productive outside domestic tasks--even if it's just, for example, as a bill processor. Even that mundane job is of real value--helping ensure that people pay and receive what is fair.

Finally, the working mom is a more interesting person to her child than the stay-at-home mom because mom has seen more of the world than just the four-walls of her home, the play group, the lunch at the mall with a friend, etc.

Benefits to the working mom

Many stay-at-home moms admit that staying home "turns my brain to mush." Working outside the home helps keep you vibrant.

Stay-at-home moms have no income power, which cedes too much control to her domestic partner. That partner appropriately claims more control of what gets spent. And if the partner leaves, the stay-at-home mom has the Herculean task of trying to convince employers that a resume whose most impressive feature is volunteering for the PTA should be hired over the dozens or hundreds of applicants who have a more substantive work history.

The working mom also benefits because she feels more productive. Because, per the above, it's very likely that your child will be no worse if you go to work, stay-at-home moms, in the privacy of their thoughts (if they'll allow themselves to be honest with themselves) realize they've not only not been productive, not making a contribution to society, they've been parasites--relying on someone else to take care of them, even though they're able-bodied, compus-mentus adults. If there were two clones of me lying on my deathbed--one who was a stay-at-home mom, the other who was a working mom--I know I'd feel better about myself knowing I had been productive beyond being a mother and housekeeper.

Benefits to the domestic partner

The working mom's domestic partner benefits because, especially if there's a child or three, it's ever more difficult to make ends meet on one income. The working mom reduces the terrible stress that sole breadwinners often experience. It's well acknowledged that stress kills and so if a domestic partner truly loves her partner and doesn't just say so, working on a remunerative job may well save his or her life. Also if a mom is working, that gives her partner a greater chance of choosing a career based not so heavily on how much money it will earn but also on whether it's rewarding. So many of the most rewarding careers (for example, those in the arts) pay poorly so the partners of stay-at-home moms are forced to forgo them in favor of more remunerative but often less fulfilling jobs, for example, in sales, advertising, insurance, accounting, plumbing, finance, heavy industry, etc.

Benefits to the workplace

The workplace benefits because better-quality work gets done when employers can hire from a larger pool. Would-be stay-at-home moms can add immeasurably to the workplace.

Benefits to society

Society as a whole benefits when moms work. The products and services we buy are better when employers can hire from the full pool of people, including would-be stay-at-home moms. Also, because moms, on average, feel better about themselves when working outside the home, they're psychologically healthier and thus more likely to treat themselves and others well.

The need for expanded, excellent child care

I want to stress that I believe it is a joint parent/employer/government responsibility to provide excellent child care. That would be a far wiser user of ObamaDollars than propping up GM, Chrysler/Fiat, irresponsible banks, and people who took on more mortgage or credit-card debt than they could afford.

In sum

In sum, on this Mothers Day, I want to salute the millions of working mothers and exhort those stay-at-home moms who think their child and they will be better off if they stay at home to reread this article and consider joining us in the workplace: you, your child, your domestic partner, the workplace, and society as a whole will likely be the better for it.

* * * * *

Here are the research studies I found on the question of whether it's wiser for moms to stay at home or become a working mom.

A study titlted Caring and Counting by Tracey Reynolds, Claire Callender and Rosalind Edwards found that "the mother's work had a positive impact on their family relationships. The mother's employment provided skills and resources that meant they could meet their children's emotional, developmental and material needs better. Their relationship with their partner was enhanced because they shared the financial burden of providing for their family and had more common interests."

The book, Ask The Children, is based on in-depth interviews with 600 parents and more than 1,000 children in the third through twelfth grades from diverse backgrounds. It found that "having a working mother is not predictive of how children assess their mothers' parenting skills, based on a number of attributes strongly linked to children's healthy development and school success. These include 'being someone I can go to when I am upset' and 'knowing what is really going on in my life.'" This study's results were reported to the public in a cover story in Working Mother magazine called "Hey Moms, Drop the Guilt!" Its core assertion: millions of children with working moms do just fine. What counts most is quality time: reasonably consistent, loving, limit-setting but not punitive parenting, even if it begins after the workday.

Here are links to additional research indicating that, if anything, kids and moms benefit when mom works outside the home:

http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED439841&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED439841

http://behavioural-psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/working_mothers_less_depressed

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2659_128/ai_61586736

http://www.ncpa.org/pd/social/pd030199e.html

http://www.medem.com/medlb/article_detaillb.cfm?article_ID=ZZZWLZUNYDC&sub_cat=106

http://virgil.azwestern.edu/~dag/lol/WorkingMoms.html.

The Parasite Syndrome

Most of the women and men I know are hardworking. For example, my wife, Dr. Barbara Nemko, Napa County Superintendent of Schools, works 60 hours a week while being a good wife and mother.

However, over my 29 years and 4,500 clients in my career counseling practice, in my out-of-work conversations, and in reading trend pieces in the media, I've observed a dramatic increase in the number of people, capable people, afflicted with what I call the Parasite Syndrome.

Here's how the Parasite Syndrome prototypically plays out:

1. After graduating from a brand-name college, the parasites in-training go abroad, for example to India or France, to "find themselves." They return a month or year later, no clearer, although perhaps more desirous of a pleasant and fulfilling life.

2. They take a pleasant and/or fulfilling but low-paying job. (Most pleasant and fulfilling jobs pay poorly--supply and demand.) But because of a desire to live a middle-class lifestyle, the person mooches off parents or romantic partner.

3. At this point, many of the female parasites-in-training think that potential long-term romantic partners who don't make good money are losers. Most males don't think that way of educated low-income women, and so are more willing to marry them. And so, many more female than male would-be-parasites find a host.

4. Sometimes, the income-generating spouse prefers that his spouse not work but that's now uncommon except among the wealthy. More often, the income generator (or his or her parent) asks the spouse to try harder to land a professional-level job so she can contribute to the family income she's good at spending.

So, the non-earner makes a half-hearted failed effort after which she or he rails, for example, "You don't understand how tough the job market is, especially for a woman, and especially with a liberal arts degree."

Few husbands or parents have the guts to tell the non-earner, "Then why did you major in art history?! (or French literature, sociology, women's studies, etc.)" They fear the onslaught of fury, tears, or retaliatory accusations likely to follow.

5. Soon after, if a woman, she gets pregnant. Sometimes, the husband subtly or not subtly asks her if she wants to have an abortion, for example, "Do you think we're ready?" Because he can't force her to have an abortion, the baby comes, even if he doesn't want to be a father nor financially support it, let alone become the sole source of income so she can be a stay-at-home mother.

Men, unless you are ready to be a father or have absolute trust that your partner, without fail, uses reliable birth control, you must wear a condom every time or, if you're sure you never want children, have a vasectomy. Why? Because if she gets pregnant, you have no power: No matter how fervently you plead that you don't want a baby, if she decides she wants it, you're stuck with at least 18 years of enormous commitment of time, energy, and money.

Ah, relationships: They can be so rewarding yet so fraught.

5. She (or occasionally, her husband) insists it's important for her to stay home at least until the child is five, although, as I've documented in earlier posts, the research does not support the validity of that assertion. See, for example, the review of the literature I present in the third-from-the-last comment on this post.

6. When the baby reaches school-age, the brand-name-U-grad mother knows it's unseemly to remain a stay-at-home mother, so she gets pregnant again or goes to graduate school.

7. After taking a long time to finish graduate school and after another desultory job search, she fails to find more than an easy, ill-paying, part-time job, claiming, for example, that the job market is tough for stay-at-home moms.

8. The stay-at-home woman or man creates make-work to seem busy, taking longer to do things than necessary: for example, cooking unnecessarily time-consuming meals ("I had to stop at the Indian market for this spice,") searching for the perfect bathroom accessories, and getting overinvolved/overprotective with the kids, often inhibiting the child's self-confidence and self-efficacy.

Here's a less obvious example. After booking a teenager onto my show to talk about the book he wrote, his stay-at-home mother sent me a dozen emails filled with more information about him than I could use in five shows. Despite my saying, "I have more than I need," she kept sending more stuff. That enables her to tell her husband and friends that it takes a lot of time to support her son's efforts to promote his book.

9. If our reluctant worker lands a job, he or she doesn't work hard at it. She or he invokes excuses she's heard from her friends, pop psych or women'smagazines, or therapist, such as "I'm so afraid of failure that I don't try." or "I'm a perfectionist, which is painful, so I avoid tasks."

10. So this person continues as a mediocre worker, or quits, complaining that the boss is a jerk, work is too stressful, that corporate America (or government, or nonprofit employment) sucks, and/or that the workplace isn't family-friendly, or that "It really would be better if I stayed home with our child."

11. Women live much longer than men, in part because of the stress of an out-of-home job, so it is likely that women non-earners will bury a beast-of-burden husband or two and go to her grave having taken far more from family and society than she has given. She has been a parasite.

The saddest part is that these people--both the women and men--who are afflicted with the Parasite Syndrome are so capable; they could so abet society.

Alas, they choose to have hurt the society they could have helped. They take up slots at prestigious colleges.,  having written application essays asserting that they want to do important things to improve society. (I've never known of a successful application essay to Brand-Name U whose admission essay said, "I aspire to be a stay-at-home parent.")  They then freeload off parents and spouse, and later, often squander yet more societal resources by going back for another degree without ever making much use of it. They certainly never come close to living up to their potential. You don't need a brand-name degree or two to be a good stay-at-home parent, let alone a stay-at-home childless wife, which, as reported in a recent study, is a growing group.

Medical school is a particularly unethical example. Many people go to medical school knowing they'd like to work part-time and take some years off for parenting--Given the shortage of physicians, especially in urban and rural areas, that is unethical.

If you know someone, male or female, who is afflicted with the Parasite Syndrome, consider emailing or showing the person this article. True, their first reaction will likely be defensiveness at being called a parasite, but if their behavior, in fact, fits the syndrome and they are reasonably well-adjusted, their desire to not be thought of as a parasite is more likely to motivate them to change than would a tactful request to put more effort into their career. Why? Because a tactful request rarely disturbs complacency, let alone a parasite.

A Gross Story with a Point

Last night, my head finally hit the pillow at 1:30 AM, whereupon I smelled feces. The source? A clump had stuck to my dog's behind, and to try to get it off, he had scooted along the quilt and bed sheet. I had to get up and change the quilt and sheet, and get into the shower with Einstein to remove the smeared feces from his backside before I finally, at 2 AM could get back into bed.

That's about as unpleasant as "parenting" gets and yet it was less stressful than many worklife tasks. And I got immediate gratification for my work: In a half hour, all was clean and dry.

Again and again, I see stay-at-home moms having much more pleasant lives than people in the workplace. Sure, they have to change diapers and clean toilets, but also, they're on the phone with their friends while their kid is in the crib. They're strolling in the mall or supermarket, relaxedly picking out things. They're seeing the concrete rewards of unstressful tasks like cleaning up the house or making a yummy dinner. If their kids are in school, they have time to get their nails done, take an art class, etc.

Yet women and women's advocacy groups endlessly complain of the stress and difficulty of being a stay-at-home mom, even claiming that mommyhood is the most difficult job. In fact, as a commenter on a previous post wrote, very few women would trade their job as stay-at-home mom for their husband's job out in the work world. Today, even white-collar careers tend to be stress-packed: landing a job, keeping a job, succeeding in a job, fighting the commute, etc. And blue-collar work is typically even more exhausting if not downright dangerous.

Men and women who work outside the home, you deserve a lot of credit for what you do, moreso than do stay-at-home moms or dads.