Archive for the ‘Socioeconomic status’ Category

Saw a post today while surfing the blogosphere that pointed to this article -

Kids of Privileged Working Moms Fare Worse

and it ticked me off. My mom was a single mom and worked outside the home. An important note – I was not as a child, nor am I now, anywhere near the priveleged or high status or upper socioeconomic level as discussed in the article.

Even when my parents were still married my dad was the one who stayed home (he was on disability for a back injury) and my mom worked.

And it’s not the work or don’t work issue. It’s the socioeconomic divide issue. According to the article -

On Thursday, the University of North Carolina, Greenboro, economist published a study showing that kids from high-socioeconomic-status families take a long-term hit when their moms work outside the home—at ages 10 and 11, they perform more poorly on cognitive tests and are also more likely to be overweight than those whose high-status mothers leave the workforce. Children from low-status families, on the other hand, don’t seem to suffer as much when their moms work. In fact, many of them do better on the same tests, and they’re more fit, than similarly disadvantaged kids with stay-at-home moms.

I guess I don’t get it. Isn’t a working mom just a working mom? Does socioeconomic status really matter that much? And what does it say about the kids if it does? Why the disparity?

There is some information missing from the study statistics – like whose taking care of the kids while the mom’s at work?

For me and my sister, my dad did. He helped us learn how to read, write and spell before we started school. My sister was the first in her class to know how to cursive (in kindergarten) and they wanted to put her in a “special” class when she wrote that way (cursive) instead of printing. She and I, consistently tested higher and read on a higher grade level then what was the average. I thank my dad (and mom) for that.

They stressed the importance of an education in our household. College wasn’t a choice in our house it was a definite. I can thank both my parents for my love of reading and subsequent love of writing, and supporting my chosen career choice.

Being a working mom is difficult, I don’t have kids but I see my friends, family and co-workers struggle with this. This article is just another chink in the armor, something else to make the working moms of the world feel guilty.

Can it be done? Yes. Thousands of women (and men too – there are single dad’s raising their kids too without a spouse/wife/mom around) do it everyday. They work, provide for their family and love and support their kids.

Though I am glad Newsweek took some time and analyzed the study.

Two more quotes from the article -

The study is one in a long line; other surveys have found positive effects, negative effects and no effects when moms work. It’s hard to trust any one set of results, says Thomas Cottle, a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s School of Education.

and

The statistics he analyzed didn’t provide much information on who was taking care of the kids while their mothers worked: whether there were stay-at-home dads or other family caregivers around, whether the household employed a nanny, whether the child went to day care and, if so, how good that day care was. “The overall quality of the care, as indicated using national standards, is the key factor affecting child outcomes in terms of learning and social behavior,” says Vivian Carlson, a professor of family studies at Saint Joseph College in Connecticut. “The major flaw here is that the study doesn’t look at the type or the quality of the care, so I would find these results rather meaningless.”

If nothing else, it was an interesting read. The study makes one think about one key element – balance.

How do you balance work and family? Kids and career? Family responsibilities, real life and personal life? How do you juggle it all? Balance it all?