I recently ran across a Pew study in which parents were essentially asked numerous variations on this theme: “how much do working moms, like, TOTALLY SUCK?” Respondents were queried as to whether “the increase in working mothers” is “good” or “bad” for society, and were then asked to rate working moms of young children as “better” or “worse” than other Things Americans Hate, such as gay people having children and – I kid you not – straight women NOT having children (for the record, working moms scored worse than those sad, sad barren women, but better than the lesbian pervert moms.)
You get the picture here.
Women with children were also asked whether they would “prefer” full time, part time or no paying work, and not surprisingly, most women said they would prefer part time work. Well, DUH. Wouldn’t pretty much EVERYONE prefer not to work full time, if all options were actually an option? Seriously, if you asked everyone in America – men, women, parents and non-parents – whether they would prefer to work 8 hours or more a day, 5 days per week, what percentage of people would tell you that they would voluntarily choose to work 40 hours instead of 20 hours? But when mothers say they would prefer to work part time in a study like this, it’s held up as indicative of some kind of societal trend illustrating working mothers’ dissatisfaction with their lots in life.
In the interest of saving all the researchers out there some time and effort in their mom-bashing going forward, I’m going to lay this all out for them right now. So here’s the deal. Mr.or Ms. Pew Researcher: pretty much EVERYONE agrees that family life would be most satisfying if we all had plenty of money, plenty of time with our children, and worked fewer hours (but still some hours, because we like to see adults sometimes) at wildly satisfying and intellectually stimulating jobs. Furthermore, we all get that happy, financially secure parents are better for society, so there is no need to ask us whether stressed, overworked and underpaid mothers are “bad for society.” And we are all in on the fact that babies and young children thrive best when they have plenty of hands-on, consistent, loving attention from a family member or other attached caregiver who likes her job. So there is no need to ask “research” questions like:
“Which kind of childcare do you believe is best for a toddler with a working parent?”
A-Grandma
B-Other parent
C-Live-in Swedish au pair
D -FILTHY, OVERCROWDED, FOR PROFIT DAYCARE CENTER RUN BY SYBIL’S MOTHER????!!!”
Yes, Mr. and Ms. Pew Researcher, we GET THIS STUFF. So you can stop asking us to do things like rate ourselves as parents, on a scale from 1-10 (as the Pew Study I reference actually did), and then announcing to the media that women with children – women who are working many hours per week at paying jobs while also handling most of their families’ laundry, shopping, cooking, homework supervision, etc - rate themselves slightly lower as parents than mothers with more time to spend doing things like, say, taking their kids to the playground.
Next time, why not ask working mothers and stay at home mothers to “rate themselves” on the basis of how well they “provide for their families.” I suspect your results would be reversed. But neither question really tells you much. They are both equally ridiculous.
Ok, enough of this for now. I need to quit blogging so I can go neglect my children some more…
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Hmm.. as for that last hypothetical question… as a stay at home mom, I actually would rate myself quite highly on how well I provide for my family, as I would expect working mothers would too. That’s how I prefer to see it. Now if we asked who made more money, then yeah.
Wow. It is amazing to me that it is even being discussed and researched. Not working for any parent in the modern world is a luxury. Yes, I understand that some families make sacrifices to have a parent at home, but for the majority or the people I know, it is not even an option.
I am thankful that my husband and I are generally at home with our children. We are at home working. It is an imperfect compromise of working way too much while being quasi available. My children are old enough to ask why I work so much. I used to work just as much, but I was away at an office and they could not see it. Now they are there to object. I think it is good that they see how we juggle work, and homework, dinner and laundry. I think it is great that they see us both being passionate about our work. It is a different kind of providing. After all, as much as I am here to love my kids, I am also here to make sure that one day they will be able to move out, work, and have an amazing life all on their own.
Are you quite certain this isn’t an SNL study?
Did they ask the fathers ANYTHING?
Melissa: Yes, they ask fathers what they consider the ideal for themselves – working full time, working part time, not working. 72% said working full time was the ideal.
Funny, I bet very few of those full-time idealist dads felt even a pang of guilt, and rightfully so. Every parent does what they need to do, the best they can. Or sometimes, the best they can at the moment. And really- its all good, as long as the love is there!
There aren’t any questions about guilt, so there’s no way to tell from the study. Fathers self-rated the quality of their parenting lower than women did.
I find the study fairly interesting – especially if you read the entire thing, which lists the questions, and how the responses varied among men, women, and other sub-groups. Of course the Pew group is “still” asking these questions – the Pew group studies trends. You can’t study trends unless you keep asking the same questions over a long period of time.
Sounds like something in the Onion. Yeah, it’s common sense in offensive #s. And pointless. Are we going to fix the fact that cost of living is paced with one person’s salary? No. We’re not.
I would prefer to work a little but make bucket loads of money. I wonder if the Pew people know where I can get a job like that.
I think it’s important to ask these questions about and of working mothers because the workplace still does not accommodate them to the degree it should. I am not following the “duh” response … I hope researchers keep asking these questions. Flex time is harder to get in a tight labor market, by the way.
If anyone is really interested in the topic, I urge you to read the actual Pew report rather than Katie’s inaccurate synopsis. For example – from Katie’s blog:
“Respondents were queried as to whether “the increase in working mothers” is “good” or “bad” for society, and were then asked to rate working moms of young children as “better” or “worse” than other Things Americans Hate, such as gay people having children and – I kid you not – straight women NOT having children”
The survey did NOT ask respondents to rate working mothers as “better” or “worse” than those categories. The question was:
“Next, please tell me if you think each of the following trends is generally a good thing for our society, a bad
thing for our society, or doesn’t make much difference?”
It then listed 9 trends, including “More mothers of young children working outside the home”, “More women not ever having children”, “More fathers staying home with children so their wives can work full-time”, etc.
From the answers, you might deduce what people think is better or worse, but the survey did not ask that.
Barbara, I don’t think that Katy is trying to say that we should not ask critical probing questions about the state of employment for mothers. However, these specific questions, and I read the while report, reveal nothing useful or actionable. What does it do to improve employment conditions for us to keep asking us how bad we feel about the fact that we don’t have enough time for our families, much less ourselves. We should be asking employers hard questions about why they still won’t offer flex time or remote work for good employees and we should ask legislators how they can justify a system with no paid maternity leave and no public childcare options to speak of.
I would like studies like this if someone actually used it to try and help families better their lives. I was talking to two other moms that are both lawyers but not practicing right now and both of them cited they would like to work part-time but the insurance and licensing fees, etc. and the fact that neither of them were far along enough in their careers to have so many clients were such that it was not really financially feasible to work part-time. So for them it was 60+ hours or nothing. What I notice is that it seems most ‘full time’ professional workers in America actually work far more hours than 40 and are expected to do such by their employers.
@Marti–well stated! I so agree.
Who paid for this study?
I’m off to find out.
Most likely the Pew Charitable Trusts.
http://www.pewtrusts.org/
@Clisby:
You are correct that I should not have put “better” and “worse” in quotes when referencing that piece of the report, as that inaccurately suggested a verbatim quote. However, I disagree with you that I mischaracterized the intent and tone of that question in any way.
While the question did not ask people to rate working mothers RELATIVE to these other “trends,” it did ask them to answer whether each trend in a list was “good,” “bad” or neutral for society. The question was set up as a list of trends, one after the other. The obvious intent of the question was to compare these trends, and to ask respondents to compare these trends. The way the data is gathered in that question/series of questions presented in the report reinforces the intent. This was a comparative question, and while I got the words “better” or “worse” wrong in my recap, that isn’t really much different – in terms of intent and tone -from the words they DID use, which were “bad” and “good.”
Plus, if they intended to be truly neutral, why are there no “trends” in that list that are widely recognized as really positive? Instead, they mixed working motherhood in with a list of trends American generally dislike, ranging from a little dislike to a lot of dislike.
-Katie
They should have also asked how working lesbian moms rank. Is it better for lesbians like me to work so that we’re not perverting our kids, or should we stay at home so that our kids aren’t in daycare?
On a serious note, I would love to work part-time, but the structure of our society won’t allow it. My partner and I can’t cover each other with employer-based health insurance, so we both have to work. Universal (or even half-assed reform) health care would do a world of good for all kids–those whose parents would then have the option to stay home, and those who are cared for in daycare by staff who are healthier because they have health care.
The link in Katy’s post is from 2007.
Here’s the current one.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1360/working-women-conflicted-but-few-favor-return-to-traditional-roles
I find this noteworthy:
A survey taken this summer by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project asked working mothers whether they would prefer to work full time or part time. A strong majority of all working mothers (62%) say they would prefer to work part time. Only 37% of working moms would prefer to work full time. Working fathers have a much different perspective. An overwhelming majority (79%) say they prefer full-time work. Only one-in-five say they would choose part-time work.
These findings echo the results of a 2007 Pew Research Center survey in which a majority of working mothers (60%) said the ideal situation for them would be to work part time. This represented a significant increase from 10 years earlier when only 48% of working mothers said the same.
The wording — only 37% of mothers want to work fulltime — seems backwards to me. That’s a lot, that’s nearly 4 out of 10 women. If that number were half that, say only 18% of mothers wanting to work fulltime, then presumably 80% of mothers would prefer part-time work. At that point perhaps there would be critical mass to reform the workplace. But if you think about it, these numbers explain why it’s next to impossible for working mothers to get more flex time. There’s a large number of mothers who want to work fulltime, not a majority, but not a tiny minority, and, taken with the number of fathers who want to work fulltime, this means the impetus is not as great as it would be if more mothers wants part-time work.
Of course, if 62% of fathers wanted to work part-time, we’d see flex time in spades. I think the answer to Marti’s questions are in these numbers. The labor market is just that, a market, and right now there is a glut of parents who are willing to work fulltime.
Katie:
Your putting “better” and “worse” in quotes is completely irrelevant. You stated:
“Respondents were queried as to whether “the increase in working mothers” is “good” or “bad” for society, and were then asked to rate working moms of young children as “better” or “worse” than other Things Americans Hate …” That is simply false. Take out all the quotes, and it’s still false.
Did you read the entire report? If you did, then you know:
1) This was a telephone survey – i.e., it’s not like respondents could read ahead to see upcoming questions.
2) For this particular survey section, the first trend mentioned was:
“More mothers of young children working outside the home”.
At the point a respondent gave this a rating, he/she had no idea what the other trends would be. So it’s absurd to claim the intent was to compare working motherhood to a list of other, unpopular trends. If that were the intent, working motherhood should have been at the end of the list, not the beginning.
Had my mother not worked, we would have been homeless and hungry, many times over. It was my father who could not keep a job…and also expected my mother to work two jobs and be a housewife in her spare time.
I work because it fulfills me, it actually makes me a better mother – I enjoy my kids when I’m with them – and tragic accidents happen every day. If something happens to my husband, I want to ensure I can take care of my kids financially. I will NEVER put myself in a position where I am solely dependent on someone taking care of me financially.
With world today, it is really getting more and more difficult to balance family and work life. Being parents, we want to provide the best for our children which is why we usually need to work very hard. And with the increasing prices of commodities, it is hard to keep up without sacrificing one for the other. This is the reason why my husband and I decided to put up a sound online income strategy. It was difficult at first but now that we have adjusted to it well, I am happy to say that we are finding the balance. Good money is coming in to provide for our needs. And yet we have more quality time with the kids than before.
It is soooo last generation to talk about working mothers, okay? Let’s just end it now. We’re parents and we work — mothers, fathers, stepmothers, stepfathers, providers, beer-money makers. Over 50% of the workforce is women. Men are being laid off in higher proportions. More women are graduating from college. Let’s just stop with the question of “should she or should’t she?” — because you know what? She is. She’s working.
If the goal of this study is to structure the workplace to operate better with working parents, here are the questions that SHOULD HAVE been asked:
1. What are the ideal work hours for a working parent?
2. How much can you afford to pay for childcare per week?
3. Has one parent ever had to sacrifice work because it didn’t pay enough for childcare?
4. Do you believe a worker who is a parent (and must leave or arrive at a certain hour) gets treated equally in the workplace?
5. Do you believe children suffer from spending time with and learning from adults other than their parent?
You’d see answers with a pretty different slant, right?
Joanie,
For heaven’s sake, the goal of the study isn’t “to structure the workplace to operate better with working parents”. I’m completely baffled as to why anyone would think this. If you want to know more about the research Pew does, you can check the website.
As much as I wish parents could be at home with their children, it’s not today’s reality in most families. For many, it is a matter of bare survival. Granted, there are some who work so they can buy a new BMW and live in a McMansion, for many more it is so they can provide food and shelter and pay bills for their Chevy Nova and WalMart clothing. I worked when my children were young because I had to. I didn’t want to work – even part time – but there wasn’t any choice. Now, I’m glad I did. If I hadn’t, I would not have had a career and a paycheck and retirement benefits when my marriage ended. With more than half of all marriages failing, it is a valid and important factor in the whole debate.
This was so well put..duh…I am lucky enough to work part-time in a professional role, though with less pay and status as I would otherwise — but hey, I bargain/compromise on all fronts, all the time!!! AND I am a grateful person. I still bring in more cash than I would clipping coupons. Oh, and we’ve tried all the care options..the filthy, overcrowded daycare, the au pair (that went awol), the grandma, and me as an at-home parent, at times. Now my kids are older and in an after-school learning environment, and every day/week/month we make refinements to our situation, test out new ways of doing things, reassess, and readjust.