Study: Working Mothers Have One More Reason to Feel Guilty

These studies are absurd! I'm a working mother of two very healthy, smart children. My husband and I both share in the responsibility of taking care of our girls together. I don't feel any guilt over my working outside the home. I feel like I'm a strong female role model for children and that they will grow up to be productive members of society. Dr. Melinda Morrill needs to find somthing else to do with her time!

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Would you please be so kind as to quit referring to mothers who work outside the home as "working mothers"? ALL mothers are working women! ALL mothers "work." By using the term "working mothers," you perpetuate the notion that mothers who work within the home are doing nothing more than watching soaps and nibbling on bon bons. Being an at-home mother is the hardest work any woman OR man will ever undertake. A person working outside of the home has a time-oriented schedule: at 5-6:00 p.m., they get in their car and leave work behind. An at-home working parent's job is what is called TASK-oriented: that means it doesn't matter what the clock says. You aren't finished until the task is completed, even if it's midnight. It can be 24/7. In addition, when your 4 year old comes to your bedside at 3 a.m., you can't say, "Well, honey, I'm off duty right now." It's task-oriented, and that can go on around the clock. Credit where it's due, PLEASE! Stop using the term "working mothers!" All mothers are working mothers. No mother who is unemployed, just laying about, as the term suggests. In addition, recent calculations of what it would cost to replace ALL the work and jobs a mother performs (carpooling, cleaning, cooking, organizing, scheduling, and so on) comes to more than $200,000. It would cost that much to replace her contribution to the home, so please, please stop using the term "Working Mother." It's terribly demeaning and insulting to the women (and men) who dedicate their lives to running a home. Thank you so very much for respecting the work of parents.

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What a crock!! Being a single mom,I have always worked outside the home. My 6'1' son can't be considered overweight at 150lbs could he?!?! Oh, he also sits in front of the tv playing XBox so there goes that "study" as well!!

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Katie, I wasn't responding to your very fine note. My annoyance was directed to the writer (and headliner) of the article, Tom Henderson. It seemed obtuse, in this day and age, that we continue to use the term "working mother," and he rankled me considerably by using it. Nevertheless, it's used on this site way too often, and I had just HAD it, seeing it on here. No offense intended. You may be right that smart people are aware of the intensity of a homemaker's work load, but studies show that the homemaker herself tends to devalue her constant toil. When asked to guess what it would cost to replace the full contribution of her work, most at-home mothers said, "About $20-25K." If anything, I want the respect and acknowledgement of all mothers who work in the home. As someone who has worked in and out of the home, I know exactly what a hard job it is, and it doesn't stop with the clock. As I said, when your child comes to your bedside at 4 a.m. and throws up, you can't just say, "Well, I'm off duty. Too bad, kid." You take care of it, and you take care of her. So I guess I'll settle down when I see the majority of writers using terms like "women working at home," and "women working outside of the home." And this goes for men who carry that load, too. Thanks.

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What about working fathers? What are they to blame for? Why do these studies single out the mother as though the father is exempt from scrutiny or accaountability? And as though it is assumed that the father will always work and the mother may or may not work - but she that she shouldn't, and if she does, they'll be he*l to pay. It's wrong all the way around.

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I had this same conversation with my niece yesterday. She is going thru a bad divorce with two little daughters. Her husband is calling her a bad mother because she works so much. Truth to be told she is the only parent that is working. The man hasn't worked in ten years. She is filled with guilt and I'm furious with men and or women that think a mother that works in or out of the home is bad. Who else is going to come up with the money for the beautiful young girls. Women are to be celebrated damn it. They do tons more then they get credit for!!!!!!!

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Apparently the father working has no effect on a child's life at all. It's all our fault.

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It this supposed to be journalism or what?

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I assume all this guilt tripping by the media is a conspiracy to make these women quit their jobs so more men can find work in this economy. Hopefully, I could be wrong.

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What a hoot -- in the new reality of this economy, plenty of mothers now seem to be the primary income for the family. Dads who were in business got hit hard with layoffs, mothers who chose more female-dominant professions like nursing and social work survived. I don't hear too many Dads complaining about Mom working these days.
Sounds like this survey was done by the religious fundamentalist crowd. They have been condmening working mothers for years.

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Wow! A lot of pressure on women these days. Haven't seen a job push like this since the "boys come marching home again" after WWII. Can't figure out who is pushing the push, though, since we are hearing that there are more house husbands because the women have jobs and the men don't. Women still work for less, I figure. Are they trying to get barefoot and pregnant women back in the kitchen so there are low paying job slots for the guys? Well, the guys would at least be working and not holding rallies in the state capitols and Washington. Hmmmm?

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This woman's advice is about as good as Dr. Spock's book.(remember him), you waved it at the child to get his/her attention, then raised them as you knew how. Why is that people with no kids, want to tell us with kids how they should be raised>

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I know that working moms have a real delima, help pay the mortgage and put food on the table OR have your kids well behaived. My next door neighbor's both work and aked me to watch their two boys when they get home from school and help with homework. WELL the boys DON'T listen to me at all, wouldn't even come in to do their home work, half the time I don't even know that they are home from school. I have heard the parents with my own ears telling the kids to do their home work first then play and to listen to me, but it falls on deef ears, and they are SO-SO fresh, I am almost ready to tll them that I can't watch the boys any more because they just don't respect elders and will not listen, they are heading for big trouble some day.

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I've got 2 words for the author of this crap and they aren't "Thank you".

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Amen to "just saying". I am a single mother of 3 children and I have had to work to support them all for the last 23 years. I also have a nine year old. I have been working as an independent contractor performing services and have kept a flexible schedule to be there for my children when needed during office hours, but self-employment becomes a 24 hour on call job. I like to think that as the kids grow into full adulthood they will understand more why I had to take the time away from them to support us all and pay the bills. I even bought my own home as a single mother...and my daughter is in her last year of college...It can be done single ladies! Not to mention being the mother and the father and the breadwinner at the same time. Many of us can't stay home...unless we choose welfare or disability. Also a successful business is something that we can leave to our children to continue on as it is very difficult for us to save money being single mothers these days! I think our kids need to learn more about hard work ethics to succeed also.

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This entire article/study is utter nonsense. I am the product of a home that had a working Mom, (LPN< RN

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Perhaps they also need to look at corresponding time line events. Yes, over the last appx 20 years more mother's have left the home for the work place, but also in the last 20 years more children are eating outrageous high calorie school lunches. I work out of the home because in today's economy who knows when the next time my husband is going to be laid off. We watch closely what our family eats at home, but when I researched the fat content and worse caloric levels in my children's school lunches I about choked when I saw they were eating "healthy":meals that had almost 3000 calories in one sitting! So I honestly feel this study is a blind shot in the dark for real reasons of obesity in our youth today.

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First, I agree with most everyone here that the article is just more crap piled on top of already stress mothers who are trying to hold home and hearth together, very often without any other wage-earner in the house. I completely reject the blame that this ridiculous article tries to lay at the feet of hard-working women and mothers.

Second, some of the guys who responded here are angry because they either feel that mothers get a free ride (AKA meal ticket) once the kids come along. I stick by my conviction that at-home parenting is some of the toughest work any human being can do so, if you think your wife has it easy, let her be the breadwinner, and you stay home with the kids 24/7. If men want children, then someone has to be there to raise their children, one way or the other. You can't want a family then blame your wife for being a bum for "not working." If you think it's an easy ride, then you do it.

As for fathers not getting their due recognition, I agree, but the very definition of "fathering" has shifted dramatically in the last generation. More women have pursued careers and are happy to be the wage-earners; more men are thrilled to stay home and be the full-time parent. Children need care, and each couple has to work it out according to their own needs. It's fantastic that there are more and more fathers who are taking on full-time parenting. The contribution that these men make to their children is wonderful, and I have as much respect for these full-time fathers as I do for full-time mothers.

Men and women should be blaming each other; rather, I think this article is the source of the contention. We, as parents, have to reject B.S. finger-pointing articles like this that try to blame us for living full, competent, and engaged lives while giving care to the children we love and adore.

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