Working Mothers Are Harming the Family

Posted: October 17th, 2013

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Working Mothers Are Harming the Family

Introduction

It is a common perception that working mothers are slowly killing their relationship with their children. This is because these children are left in day care centers instead of being raised by the love and care of their mothers. Such kids develop unacceptable behavior like aggressiveness and fighting due to lack of maternal love and attention in their growing lives. Research has also shown that, mothers who spend their time at home raising children instead of working develop lasting bonds with these children and in turn, their children learn to appreciate others and grow up to be well-mannered young adults.

Thesis statement: As much as having two earners in a family is financially beneficial to the family, mothers should not work because it is their role to raise children, to avoid feeling guilty, and to avoid family breakups and be happy.

Body

First, mothers are traditionally expected to stay at home and look after children. Working mothers are in fact breaching their roles as caregivers. It is not acceptable to have someone else raise your child for you because of money. It is reported, “American employers now offer lactation support rooms and lactation consultants to help mother solve breast feeding problems” (Robertson, 98). As much as these organizations provide facilities for mothers to be able to see their children and spend time with them, this allocated time is never enough, as infants need constant and round the clock attention from their mothers.

Second, many working mothers, if given a choice, would leave their workstations to go back home and look after their children. This is because they experience some sort of guilt every time they drop their children off at day care centers. This guilt comes about because they know that their rightful place is at home with their children and not in offices working. It is believed that “it is a parent’s responsibility to curb children’s natural fantasy that they are the center of the universe” (Chira, 54). The working mothers do not have time to perform this responsibility, as they do not spend any time with their children.

Third, the working mothers are the cause of many family break-ups and divorces. These women think that by working and helping with family provision, they will not be abandoned by their partners, when on the contrary; this leads to their marriages dissolving because the man and children feel neglected. This is usually a problem when the woman earns more than the man does. We are told, “substantial empirical evidence links higher female earnings to both divorce and extramarital childbearing” (Fukuyama, 310). Most men feel that their children’s well-being is taken care of when the mother is not working.

Conclusion

There are women who argue that they need to achieve their career goals and that is why they choose to work. Such women are said to “have been twice as successful in achieving a career as the women with children” (Crittenden, 97). These women are only able to achieve their careers because they have chosen not to have children as their roles dictate. This choice is not easy as it comes with consequences; there are those who are divorced by their partners for not bearing children and there are those, even with career success, still find they are unhappy.

Work cited

Chira, Susan. A Mother’s Place: Choosing Work and Family Without Guilt or Blame. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999. Print.

Crittenden, Ann. The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001. Print.

Fukuyama, Francis. The Great Disruption. London: Profile, 1999. Print.

Robertson, Brian C. There’s No Place Like Work: How Business, Government, and Our Obsession with Work Have Driven Parents from Home. Dallas, TX: Spence Pub. Co, 2000. Print.