Got mom-guilt while being a working mom with either a home business or a job? Feel judged by other moms who have the luxury of the exclusive home-maker life? Not certain if you can effectively raise your children and contribute financially using your natural or learned skill sets in a job or business? Relax, Mom, you are right where you need to be for yourself and especially for your children. Believe it or not, your children do benefit from having a working mom.
Research from by Kathleen McGinn and colleagues discovered that women whose moms worked outside of the home were more likely to hold a supervisory-type position at those jobs. These moms also earned higher wages than women whose mothers stayed home full time. Let’s not forget about the boys raised by these working mothers. How much more beneficial would it be for our future boys, who grow up to be fathers and husbands, to skillfully contribute to the household chores and care for other family members?
“There are very few things, that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother,” says Kathleen L. McGinn, the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.
The key points of this research pointed out the fact that the direct effects are significant across the globe: Sons of working mothers also share in the workload at home – it’s not just limited to the women doing all the work.
It was also noted that women spent the same amount of time caring for family members whether they worked in the home or not. Women who were raised by a working mom actually spent more time with their kids; which also includes those women who became working mothers themselves.
“It didn’t matter to us if she worked for a few months, one year, or worked 60 hours per week during your whole childhood,” McGinn says. “We weren’t interested in whether your mom was an intense professional, but rather whether you had a role model who showed you that women work both inside and outside the home. We wanted to see how that played out.”
Sure, some of us moms go through periods of “mom-guilt” for wanting more outside of our “roles” of just being a homemaker and raising the kids. It seems unorthodox in this day and age where single mothers are it for kids. They have to provide the necessary resources for living. It’s clearly impossible for women to be “expected” to live up to these societal expectations if their counterparts don’t live up to theirs.
Key Benefits:
- Women are more likely to hold a supervisory-type position.
- Their sons also share the workload at home, not just the girls.
- Spend more time with kids.
- Women are a valuable role model to work both in and out of the home for their children.
- Women are empowering themselves on an emotional and professional level.
The research determined that when women go into a job they love – they are not only contributing financially to the household, they are empowering themselves on an emotional and professional level. This is the turnkey that unlocks the potential in your children – that their future contributions to their own families at work and home are just as valuable, for boys and girls.
Be the example by doing what you love, or in some cases, what is necessary to provide the basic necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter, transportation). Your kids will learn from you while (subconsciously) giving themselves permission to pursue their own passions and pursuits in life that isn’t limited to “traditional” gender roles. You’re doing a great “job” mom in so many ways, give yourself LOTS of credit!
Photo Credits: AndiL.
