Working Mothers

The focus of Cal Thomas’ article (Editorial Pages, Feb. 4), points a finger of blame and guilt on those mothers who work. Many of these women are balancing the dual role of wage earner and homemaker and being accused by some of child neglect.

The problems of the working mother are not new to the lower classes where women have always worked. Additionally, mothers have not always been the primary caretakers at all financial levels. However, the economic climate has changed so that women of pre-school children in higher classes must work to ensure the family’s survival. The majority of women in the labor force need the money. Out of four working mothers, three are married, and one is single.

Women are needed in the work force because: (1) they take the lower paying and part-time jobs; (2) there are jobs that traditionally have employed mainly women; (3) the talents and abilities of women are a valuable resource; (4) and those women who work for “different reasons” are perhaps contributing to the betterment of society.

Working parents do not axiomatically mean a chaotic household. Thomas gives no credence to the father-child relationship as being vital, or that caretakers could be male. The stress of working parents on children will not take a right turn with the Moral Majority. Instead of looking back to 1909, we need to look forward to the flexibility of job structures, the possibility of senior citizens employed in community child care and other time-saving ideas for working parents.

I submit this reply as a former single, working parent, where the effect of limited but quality time spent together produced one child now in law school and another attending Stanford.

TONI WELLEN

Corona del Mar

What a relief Thomas’ article was! He articulated what many of us “stay at homes” have felt deep down in our guts but have been unable to say.

We have set aside our selfish needs to do the best for our kids; some of us even wash our own diapers, or live in less luxurious surroundings to do so.

Now we will hear a cacophony of howls from mothers who choose to work, who feel the absolution for their guilt lies in federal day care!

C. OROZCO

San Pedro

Thomas dismisses economical survival as the reason three-fifths of the married women with children are working. He is a proponent of the “full-time homemaker” because two-income families “tend to be more chaotic and less organized.”

Not only is Thomas incredibly naive about the cost of living for parents, I wonder if he has read President Reagan’s proposed budget to limit guaranteed student loans to families with an adjusted gross income of $32,500 or less? Will he attribute it to “personal ambition” when middle-income families are scrambling to provide higher education for their children?

I am not surprised to see the vice president for communications of Moral Majority, Inc., laying guilt on the working mother, but I would be surprised to see him or the organization he represents offer a more compassionate solution such as increased government involvement in developing guidelines for licensed day-care facilities that offer a smaller ratio of children to adults with activities geared toward developmental stages.

If Thomas is really interested in doing his “duty,” he would admit that full-time motherhood, or fatherhood (which he doesn’t even consider) is becoming an increasing economic impossibility for all but the rich families in our country.

SUZANNE M. QUIRK

La Jolla

I was so pleased to read Thomas article on the value of mothers staying home with their pre-school children. I have chosen to do this and I appreciated reading an article in The Times supporting my decision to stay home.

It is an important time in a child’s life (ages 0-5) in terms of building self-esteem, learning values and developing certain physical skills. I feel a mother has the best ability to do these things with her child and the best motivation: love.

HEATHER SHENNUM

Santa Barbara

Thomas contends that employed mothers risk “severe . . . permanent emotional damage” to their children. Textbooks of research on child development show this claim to be nonsense.

Studies have not found any negative effects of mothers’ employment on children. A child placed in a good day-care center, whose mother reserves evening and weekend time for intimate, enjoyable interaction with the child, has an advantage over a child who must follow a distracted and bored mother as she does the housework. Warmth and affection are communicated by the quality, not the quantity, of parents’ interaction with their children.

Studies reveal that children of employed mothers may derive certain advantages; for example, daughters of working mothers are more independent, with less traditional sex-role views and higher achievement aspirations, than daughters of full-time homemakers. Day care lowers the stress level in two-career couples, whose children also enjoy the benefits of a higher family income.

Social conditions for mothers’ employment and child care can be improved. Husbands with employed wives often fail to do their fair share of child care and housework. Mothers (and fathers) should not allow work problems to carry over into their time with children. Day-care providers should receive better supervision and licensing, along with higher wages to attract more committed and educated personnel. It is erroneous however to suggest that employed mothers must necessarily choose to sacrifice either their career or their children’s well-being.

STEVEN L. GORDON

Associate Professor

of Sociology

California State University

Los Angeles

As much as I didn’t like my mother working when I was a child I realize now that my forced early independence from her gave me the ability to take care of myself as an adult. After all, we are children for such a short time and being a self-confident, secure adult does not come easily.

I am now a working mother myself and my own children are both learning how to do and care for themselves. Of course it isn’t always easy being away from them, but it does have its rewards. As young teen-age women they know how to take care of themselves. I feel they are confident and secure in who they are and they have grown up well in spite of their mother working.

JANE STURMAN

Sherman Oaks

I’d like to tell Thomas that it’s the children who pay for the fathers who work. The absent-father syndrome I know of refers to men who are so obsessed with money and success that they work Saturdays and sometimes Sundays, nights and sometimes holidays.

Their kids, especially their sons, become depressed and often act out in negative ways. Worse, these boys see only a male who works and neglects his family and a female whose life is subservient to her husband’s ambition. These are the “successful” Americans, the “traditional” families where the woman doesn’t have to work because he brings home a six-figure paycheck.

These traditional husbands are the entertainers, politicians, executives, attorneys, and physicians that we exhort our children to someday become. As a member of a Christian religious organization, Thomas should be less obsessed with the roles of women and men. He should speak to their souls and the religious imperative that no human being should exercise mastery over the needs and potential of another. Some women take pleasure in and are gifted for the homemaker vocation. Others were meant to be psychologists, scientists, writers, etc. No matter what a parent’s life work is, it should not be pursued with an obsessive sense of purpose.

JEAN ROSENFELD

Tarzana