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Working mothers at risk from too much guilt
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has released a report that will once again make working mums feel guilty.
The study, based on children born in the seventies, found that those with mums who worked about 18 months during their pre-school years had only a 64% chance of passing an A level. This fell to a 52% chance of success if the mother worked for an additional year. Additionally, the children of these working mothers faced a greater chance of suffering unemployment, up from 6% to 9%, and psychological stress, up from 23% to 28%, in adulthood.
These statistics are being presented in the press as further ‘proof’ that working mums damage kids. More and more we are told that working mums face a trade-off: the family’s finances and security versus the success and well-being of the children later on in life.
Like the subjects of this study, I was a child of the seventies. My mother gave up work when I was born and never returned. I can see her now: a bright, thirtysomething, spending every day with two children, fighting debt in between sticking bits of macaroni onto coloured paper. In our case, we would all have been happier with a part-time, fulfilled mum, rather than a miserable, full-time parent. So why, almost without exception, do these studies seem to condemn the working mum?
This latest study suggests that good exam results hinge on a mother’s presence during infancy, but other factors such as poverty, parental education and the quality of childcare play an equally important role. Thirty years ago, playgroups were rare and nannies existed only in Victorian novels and stately homes. So ‘latch-key’ kids were still largely cared for by elderly relatives, other mums or local childminders. The aunties or grandparents they stayed with during the day would take them out shopping and then make the tea or dinner. There were no such things as ‘educational’ toys or ‘quality time.’ As for the childminders, they were a far cry from the council-approved professionals available at great expense today. For a couple of quid a local mum would crowd as many babies as possible onto the carpet in her front room and try to keep them all fed, clean and quiet until their mums thankfully returned.
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