cindym (01/27/83)
I don't normally flame but the article claiming that all working mothers are selfish, etc., has me so angry that I can hardly type. I do not have any children so I am also speaking as an "impartial" observer. Several of my working (both fulltime and parttime) friends have clean, happy, completely normal children. Yes, some children of working parents are neglected, but so are some children whose parents are home all day but ignore the kids. Working mothers frequently feel guilt because society has taught them that they are fully responsible for their kids. What about the fathers? Why are you blaming the mothers for the neglect and let the fathers off without even a slap on the hand? Please also consider women who work because they would not eat otherwise -- single parents, women who are married to someone who has been laid off for a year, or families that can not get by on only one salary? I think that parents who hold down a job outside the home should be given any help that society can give them, like good daycare centers with staff that are trained to work with children, rather than be ragged at by people who want to heap the guilt on thicker. Cindy McMeekin tektronix!tekmdp!cindym Tektronix
roberta (01/27/83)
One hardly knows where to begin to respond to the article on "Working (selfish) mothers". I must admit to some prejudice in the matter, since I am a working mother. I am divorced and have the responsibility for raising three teenagers. I've been raising them alone since 1975, with regular financial help from their father to the tune of 00 a month. We can't live on that, so I work. How, pray, could I stay home and "take care" of them? Most marriages in this country end in divorce, which means that, in most cases, women with children will find themselves raising children alone. Most of those women don't have the advantage I have of regular child support. Most of those women don't have the advantage I have of a good education in a field that pays women almost as well as it pays men. I don't know how those women manage because the pressures of working and raising children are almost overwhelming to me in my relatively "easy" situation. What about the two-parent families whose economic life is dependent on women working? It's not "pin money" any more, it's milk and mortgage and medical bills money that the wife's income provides. With the unemployment what it is, many families have only the wife working. Shall she quit? And what about the responsibility of the father for the children? Shouldn't the father stay home and take care of the children, or does his responsibility end with conception? The "truth" hurts, simpers the author of the original article. What hurts is having too much responsibility, too few resources, and the limitations of being human. Many women live for years with that combination, and for that man to look down from the height of his self-righteous pomposity and give them the added burden of being the direct cause of teen-age pregnancy, drug use, and the increase in crime shows just the kind of hypocrisy Jesus condemned in the scribes and pharisees. "Their words are bold, but their deeds are few. They bind up heavy loads, hard to carry, to lay on other men's (women's) shoulders, while they themselves will not lift a finger to budge them." Matthew 23:4, New American Bible translation, my amendment. It is people like the author of the "Working (selfish) mothers" article who make an impossible situation even worse. It doesn't really matter that his "facts" are the baseless opinions of an intellectually careless man who can't tell causality from proximity. He brays out his ideas, and the sheer volume seems to give them legitimacy. The only hope, I think, is that eventually voices of compassion, of encouragement, of constructive change will prevail.
guzy (01/27/83)
In reply to the person who talked about neglected children while their mothers are "at work doing their thing": Tell me, what glamorous exciting jobs do these women have that take them from their babies? How much money can they spend on quality child care? It is sad indeed that good quality child care is so expensive and that the mothers are in such poor-paying traditional women's jobs. What will it take for you to realize they are working because THEY NEED MONEY!!! As for the rights of unborn over born, who will take care of the unwanted children? Who will see that they are not abused? Who will tend their needs? Will you? Women and children!!! In my opinion, a woman who does not want a child will not be a good parent. You cannot force a person to be a good parent.
gary (01/28/83)
One thing that stuck with me from adolescent Psych at Cornell was that
research had shown that the amount of time parents spent with their kids
per day didn't matter as much as the Quality of that time. That is, kids
whose parents were loving and supportive with them for some minimum time
(like an hour or two) were usually well-adjusted happy kids. I don't have
any experience with this, but it seems to work with my dog!
gary cottrellwm (01/28/83)
Besides, don't you know that ALL children are dirty, affection starved, and only looking for sex, drugs, and the amerikan way? Wm Leler - UNC Chapel Hill
phyllis (02/05/83)
I am a working Mother. I have two daugthers aged 10 and 7 who bathe regularly, eat three VERY healthy meals a day, wear clean clothes daily, are not loved starved, who do above-average work in school, and, I think, feel more loved and cared for than some other children I know whose Mothers stay at home. I am a daily netnews reader, and in the almost two years that I have been following the discussions on the net, I have contributed only a few articles. This time, however, I feel compelled to submit this article since I am furious at the generalizations that are being hurled out by many unknowing, tradition-entrenched people. So there are seven dirty, love-starved children--does that necessarily imply that all children of working Mothers are that way? Of course not. What sort of environment have these children been brought-up in; what are their parents like? All of these influences count as much, if not more, than the fact that their Mothers work. For the most part of the first four years of my "Motherhood", I was at home. I taught six hours a week at the University of Toronto--the hours I used to call "my sanity time". I felt very little fulfillment staying at home, cleaning the house, shopping, etc., although I did enjoy many of the hours I spent with my children. Once I went to work full-time, I found that I was a better parent (I know it sounds like a pat answer, but I really think that in my case it is true), and that my relationship with my children improved. Before I started to answer this, I asked my children what they thought about me working. They looked at me as if I were nuts, and asked me "Why, what's wrong with working. We are fine". We discussed it for a few minutes, but nothing negative came out of our chat. My children are well taken care of during the day. They call me at lunchtime and after school. Like most computer people, I sometimes work later at night, and they understand that as well. I was away at Unicom and haven't read all of the recent articles in net.women, but most of the negative discussion appears to be from men. Are there any other working Mothers out there who are pleased with the way their children are turning-out, and who prefer working to staying at home? Are the men who are partaking in the discussion Fathers? If they are, and their wives/mates are at home, do these women find it fulfilling to be there? I don't condemn women who are stay-at-home Mothers. It should be realized, however, as others have stated, that for many, it is necessary to have two incomes, or for the woman to work due to other factors, e.g. being a single parent. I definitely do NOT believe that a parent should sacrifice his/her existence (I am not talking about life-death situations) for children. If a woman likes to work, needs to work, and her children are well-looked after, great. Perhaps someday better daycare/babysitting facilities will be available at cheaper rates so that more women will have better options. Before condemnations are generalized to over 2K people, they should be examined carefully, and experience should be a high mark in this examination. Entrenchment in out-dated ideas holds individuals and society back. Phyllis Eve Bregman decvax!utzoo!utcsrgv!phyllis
illeman (03/30/83)
Quoting from Erma Bombeck: "The term working mother is redundant."