Children Need Not Suffer When Mother Seeks Career, Study Says
Mothers in the work force who are highly committed to their jobs can also be terrific moms, as long as they bring the same zeal to their responsibilities at home, according to a study by two UC Irvine researchers.
“In light of the large numbers of young children whose mothers and fathers work--a trend that is expected to continue--it is encouraging to find little evidence that investment in work occurs at the expense of investment in children,” says the study, published in the most recent issue of the journal Developmental Psychology. The study’s findings appear to refute the idea that parents--particularly mothers--who commit themselves to their careers do so at the sake of their children.
The researchers, Ellen Greenberger and Wendy A. Goldberg, studied the impact of job commitment by both fathers and mothers in dual-career families on their styles as parents. The pair interviewed 104 fathers and 194 mothers of children in preschools in Southern California. Most parents in the study were Caucasian and employed in professional, managerial or white-collar jobs.
Greenberger and Goldberg could not be reached Tuesday for comment.
The study found that the parents most likely to be authoritative, the preferred parenting style, are highly committed to both work and parenting. This could be the result of what the study calls the “zest factor,” which “underlies both the ability to commit heavily to work and parenting and the ability to parent in the time-and-energy-consuming authoritative style.”
“Authoritative” parents demand mature behavior from their children but respond to them as individuals, according to the study. Authoritative parents pay attention to their children’s changing abilities and needs, try to make their children understand their rules, rather than elicit “unthinking obedience,” and are persistent in gaining the child’s compliance.
This parenting style requires the most effort from parents, but these mothers and fathers “have children with the most favorable outcomes: more independent, self-controlled, pro-social and content,” according to the study.
By contrast, “authoritarian” parents make high demands for mature behavior but are uncompromising and power-assertive. They “ ‘lay down the law’ rather than explain it,” the study states. They tend to rear discontented children, the girls being less independent and boys more aggressive, according to the study.
On the other end of the spectrum are permissive parents, who make too few demands on their children, fail to set expectations and indulge or neglect their children. Their children are the least self-reliant and self-controlled, the study says.
The study found that mothers highly committed to both work and family rated their children’s behavior most favorably.
It could be argued that mothers expect mature behavior from their children because they want to raise their children well, more than because the mothers’ absence from the home during the workday requires the children to grow up fast, according to the study.
