Children Perspective of Employment

This chapter, Ellen Galinsky compares and contrast what employed mothers and fathers say about the issue of work and family to empirical evidence of children. Her hope is to show gaps between the public debates and research findings.

Background
Galinsky drew mostly on the findings of a study of employed parents and children she conducted called Ask the Children study. It included a sample of 1, 023 children ranging from age 8 to 18 years old and they all were from diverse socio-economics and ethnic backgrounds. The study also included 605 employed parents with children.

Debate 1: Is Having an Employed Mother Good or Bad for Children?
Though most parents agreed that a mother with a job could have just as good of a relationship with their child compared to stay at home mother, a quarter of the parents surveyed were skeptical. Thirty percent of the fathers did not believe mothers in the workforce was ideal for raising children. Almost all parents agreed that it was fine if the mother had to work in order to keep the family financially stable but many felt when mothers did not need to work outside the home, they should not.

After surveying children of employed and non-employed parents about how they felt about mothers working, Galinsky came up with some surprising results. There was no difference in the results of employed and unemployed mothers. Children, especially infants, just wanted a warm and responsive mother regardless of her job status. The problem that children studied showed when the children graded both employed and unemployed mothers was that both mothers' grade were equally poor. 43% of children do not see their mothers as being good parents.

Debate 2: Is it Mothering of Fathering?
Are unemployed fathers particularly harmful for their children? More than half of employed parent felt that it was better for the family if the father earned the money while the mother stayed at home. 75% of men with unemployed wives supported the breadwinner theory. However contrary to what the parents thought, most children felt they had too little time with their fathers. 48% of the children do not feel like their fathers are raising them well.

Debate 3: Is Child Care Good or Bad for Children?
Many believe child care is bad because it shifts parental care from the parents to strangers. Parents feared turning their children over to people they did not know even if they were daycare professionals. Galinsky, found through literature that the fear was natural but child care did not supplant parent care. As long it was quality care, it could actually compliment parenting.

Debate 4: Is it Quality or Quantity time?
The majority of parents felt they had too little time with their child. Surprisingly, parents are spending more with their children now than twenty years ago. Mothers still spend the same amount with their children, while fathers are now spending much more time their kids than in the 1970s and 1980s. The reason for this stress over time may be because parents are now blurring the boundaries of work and the home. Since many people now bring their work home with them, they are likely to be working or stressing over work while being with their children. Most parents felt that their children wish to have more time with their parents, when in actuality the children just want their parents to be less stress.

Why these debates persist?
Much of the reason these debates still exist is because parents are assuming they know what their children want. Children are not being including in the discussion about them. Parents are having debates about their children well-being but they are arguing about issues that are not even relevant to what their children actually want. Children worry and stress about their parents. The way work affect parents' quality time with their children, affect their children. Parents must stop debating about working moms and dads, and start worrying about the time they actually spend with their children and what their children actually want.