Work Life Balance for parents especially mothers is a real daily challenge and the effect of working mums on their children is always a concern.
The question always lurks as to which children do better? Do children who have working parents suffer because their parents work outside the home? On the other hand do, children who have a stay at home parents get the best of having a parent at home?
Working mums feel quite guilty for not having enough time for their children, while stay at home mums sometimes struggle with not working and earning outside the home.
Three Ways To Bring Balance Into Your Life
Children of Working Mums Are As Happy As Stay At Home Mums
According to new research from Harvard Business School Professor Kathleen McGinn, a study found that the daughters of employed mothers often perform better in their eventual careers than the daughters of stay-at-home moms.
Now that the full study has been released, it brings even more good news for the children of working moms: They wind up just as happy in adulthood as the children of moms who stayed home.
What this research suggests is that “When women choose to work, it’s a financial and personal choice. Women should make that choice based on whether they want or need to work, not based on whether they are harming their children—because they are not.”
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Key Findings on Daughters of Working Mums
- Compared to women whose mothers stayed home full time, women raised by an employed mother are more likely to be employed.
- More likely to supervise others at work; and spend more time at jobs each week.
- They earn more money.
- Having an employed mom makes daughters think that employment is compatible with parenting. For these daughters. If they actually observe an employed mom managing a complex life and handling multiple demands—a job, a family, a household— they see that it can work.
- On the domestic front, daughters of employed mothers spend about an hour less on housework compared with the children of stay-at-home mothers.
Key Findings on Sons of Working Mums
- Sons may be influenced by their working mothers, as they appear to spend an extra 50 minutes each week caring for family members.
- The sons of employed mothers hold significantly more egalitarian gender attitudes—even more so than the daughters of stay-at-home moms.
- The study also shows that sons of employed moms also tend to choose wives who are employed.
On Happiness
Meanwhile, when both daughters and sons were asked about their overall life satisfaction, adult children of employed moms reported being just as happy as adult children of moms who didn’t work outside the home.
The hope from this study is to ease the guilt, if more working mothers know that their children aren’t suffering, then hopefully the guilt will go away.
Mums what do you think? Does this study and the results make you feel less guilty about being a working mum.
