Working Mothers: Stop Feeling Guilty

If one thing is certain, it’s that working mothers get the short end of the stick. Are we doing enough for our children? Are we sacrificing our children’s well-being by working? Are we worse parents as a result?

These questions are consistently posed by the media and by society as a whole. And while no one states it directly, we mothers usually hear an unqualified “yes” in response. Just one month ago, yet another study was released in which the findings were presented as suggesting that day care kids were worse off. Evidently, a small percentage of these children were more disruptive in class than at-home kids. Never mind that the day care kids had better vocabularies. Never mind that the debate moved immediately to the question of whether moms should be staying home rather than whether dads should instead. We working moms were failing our kids. Oh, to go back to the days when Mom stayed home and Dad earned the cash.

The truth is, though, that we mothers are harshest on ourselves. A Pew Research Center study released Wednesday supports that view. More than half of Americans (56 percent) say that mothers are doing a worse job today than 20 or 30 years ago. By comparison, 47 percent of Americans say fathers are doing a worse job than fathers did 20 or 30 years ago. More telling yet, most women say that today’s fathers are now doing a better, or at least as good a job, as fathers did 20 or 30 years ago. But a full 54 percent of women say today’s mothers are doing a worse job when compared with mothers 20 or 30 years ago. And while no distinction is made between employed and nonemployed mothers, the overall message is that moms are not performing well.

I’d like to suggest that this blog post be the last discussion of this matter. The fact is that women and mothers now work outside the home — in fact more than three-quarters of mothers with children under 18 do. Even more to the point, moms and dads are managing to spend more time with their kids.

A recent study by The Council on Contemporary Families supports that view. The study actually found today’s youth are doing better than their parents and grandparents and that married mothers increased their time doing childcare by 21 percent (and fathers have more than doubled their time (from 2.6 to 6.5 hours per week).

What’s been sacrificed as a result? Time Mom and Dad spend on themselves.

Check out our articles for working mothers.