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Stay at home moms are economically vulnerable
A few months after her controversial Salon article, Regrets Of A Stay At Home Mom, was published, Katy Read hasn’t changed her tune. She was on NPR today telling Robin Young of Here & Now that she’d warn any young woman contemplating becoming a stay-at-home mom to rethink her position.
Katy’s reasoning is primarily financial. She quotes Ann Crittenden saying that having a child costs the average college-educated woman a million dollars in lifetime income. Those tender afternoons at the playground may seem priceless, but is staying home with your kid really worth a million dollars?
About 5 million moms (and 150,000 dads) have decided that being a stay-at-home parent is worth the costs. But do they know what those costs really are? Katy says no, and I think she’s right.
This dad is adding years to his life.
Do you ever get the feeling that there are too many studies out there? I do. And on any other day, the results from a recent one conducted by PruHealth would have solidified my opinion. The United Kingdom-based insurer has found that working parents feel older than parents who stay at home.
I mean, that’s a no-brainer, right? Surely it’s harder to parent when you have less time to do it. And things that are harder are more stressful than things that are easier. And stress robs us of our energy and vitality which makes us feel older. So in that regard, the results shouldn’t be all that surprising, right?
Wrong. Because as any stay-at-home parent will tell you, keeping the kids all day is anything but easy.
And I was reminded of that fact yesterday when my wife took my daughters to see the Nutcracker. She claims they went for fun, but I think Caroline had to be there. You know, being the understudy to the title role and all. (Kidding honey!) So I was left in charge of my two 3 year-old boys. And just like each and every time I’m alone with some or all of my kids, yesterday was hard. Continue reading »
With the economic crunch pinching families everywhere, a lot of stay at home parents have taken the plunge back into paying work. The road from baby meet-ups to board meetings is especially challenging for stay-at-home dads, the Wall Street Journal reports.
In the annals of “yes, we actually still need feminism,” Jezebel reports on a new study today that shows women tend to quit their jobs if their husbands work 60 or more hours per week.
Women with husbands who work long hours are 42% more likely to leave the workforce than others. If they have kids and husbands who work that much, they are 112% more likely to leave their own jobs. The effect is strongest in households where the man works in a professional or managerial position.
Most of us reading this have been hearing the phrase “mommy track” at least since beginning our careers, if not longer. As a refresher, the term refers, somewhat derisively, to the idea that employees, especially female ones, could follow the typical workaholic American track if that was their desire, and women who want a little more work-life balance could have flextime, job sharing, part-time work, and so on. The idea was posited by Felice Schwartz in a 1999 article in Harvard Business Review, which was prompted by the idea that companies were losing talented women because of their inflexibility.
This article in Slate notes that the “mommy track” turns 21 this year. Angie Kim, a Harvard Law graduate and hugely successful person, writes about feeling like the only person in her law school class who has stepped off the go-go-go success track, Continue reading »
The New York Times gave all you working moms out there a gift this weekend: a juicy article detailing research that shows women who work are more likely to stay married. They’re also happier in their marriages than those who don’t.
Looking at research from many sources, the Times reports that the more education and economic independence a woman gains, the more likely she is to stay happily married. The reason: without the weight of economic pressure to choose a mate, women are able to marry men they genuinely like. They can select for traits like “will wash dishes without complaining” and “is happy to get up at 2 a.m. with a sick baby”.
According to a survey taken by the Pew Research Center, almost two-thirds of working mothers would rather work part-time than full-time. Fathers, on the other hand, overwhelmingly — almost four out of five — prefer to work full time. Even putting the Monday morning “I-don’-wanna-go-work” feeling aside, these statistics surprise me in that I would expect far more parents would want to cut back on their work schedule in favor of spending time with their kids.
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