Evidence of Advantages for Children of Working Mothers

I never understood the idea that having mom (or dad) at home is the best thing for kids. When our daughter is at daycare, she's in a very stimulating environment staffed by energetic 22-year olds on 6 hour shifts. When she's at home with me my instinct is to bribe her with some ice cream and park her in front of her iPad. My wife has slightly more desire to engage with the kid, but no more energy for it--she's pretty spent after 2-3 hours.

For basically the entirety of my childhood. Both my parents were working. I can honestly say I am a better person for it. And not just because of the material benefits it afforded me (better education, got to travel a lot).<p>Through out my childhood both parents had jobs with varying amounts of time requirements, with both having periods of stay a home spouse (I believe my father found this particularly eye opening) and both periods of 9-7 working time.<p>They always took the time to explain to me and my sister about why they were doing the things they were and ensuring that we were comfortable with their decisions. Now it may be that it was this honesty that had the greatest benefit. However I do think I have a much greater appreciation for the importance of a purposeful work life balance.<p>Mind you, not necessarily a highly even balance, just ensure that if you are working 50 hours a week, there should be a goal in mind. In fact every decision about lifestyle should be carefully thought about.

The article does not mention it but where are the kids when the mother is at work? More than likely this is in day-care rather than in the home of another family member (most likely the grandparents). The likelihood is that the kids are in a richer environment, materially and socially. When you mix in the added benefit of parents not having spent all day dealing with the childens&#x27; needs then it&#x27;s no surprise that generally they are able to devote more attention to them.<p>None of this is the direct benefit of a parent being at work. You would probably see all these advantages if one of the parents simply stayed at home, while the kids were in day-care. But where is the money going to come from for that.

“Was it really her mother working who did this, or was it her mother getting an education?”<p>I&#x27;d personally wager on the latter. We have plenty of studies on the topic of &quot;being educated increases the average education level of your children.&quot;

Would be quite interesting to have a Hacker news poll to see the distrubution of hners whose mother went to work!<p>I dont seem to have enough karma to create one unfortunately. Can someone else do it please ?

It just says daughters of working mothers are more likely to become working mothers themselves. They consider working moms to be a good thing, and prove it by showing that working moms have working daughters, which is in their opinion a good thing.<p>A bit circular. I am not against working mothers, just saying one should be clear about one&#x27;s judgement. For me it is not a given that working is a good thing. At least not in general (not for any kind of work).

&quot;it is difficult to know whether a mother who worked caused her daughter to work, or whether other factors were more influential&quot; - reminds me of the &quot;An Eleanor is 100 times more likely to go to Oxford than a Jade&quot; study from last year, i.e. the names themselves might not cause the difference but rather other factors which the names represent.

Take this personal anecdote for what it is worth. My office used to be next door to a childcare centre looking after around 40 children. I was able to watch what happened throughout the day and what the staff and children did. After a few months I swore no matter what the financial cost I would not let my children ever end up in childcare.

Are there any studies on working father&#x27;s impact on children? (A quick google returns a few studies on father&#x27;s impact but not working ones specifically.)<p>Damned if you do, damned if you don&#x27;t. If you work, you&#x27;re a neglectful parent. If you don&#x27;t, you&#x27;re sucking off the state. (UK stereotypes)<p>I have done the 3 main variants of parent-work balance (staying at home, working at home, working out of the home) with my 2 children and I&#x27;m not convinced that any one is better than the other, personally. But what does one little anecdote mean in the grand scheme of things...

I was quite delighted that my mother worked - she was the part time librarian of our village library. So from about 10 or so she would let me take the key of the library and get books as often as I wanted - providing I stuck to the limits of the number of books I borrowed at one time and kept record of what books I had borrowed in the same way as everyone else.

perhaps some are spending more quality time with their kids because the are not home and feel more obligated to do so. throw in the idea that children learn from the actions of their parent and so success is more likely from seeing parents already in the workplace the outcome becomes expected

And yet, and yet... Female happiness marches relentlessly downward.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nber.org&#x2F;papers&#x2F;w14969" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nber.org&#x2F;papers&#x2F;w14969</a>

&quot;In a new study of 50,000 adults in 25 countries, daughters of working mothers completed more years of education, were more likely to be employed and in supervisory roles and earned higher incomes&quot; - TLDR, children will imitate what you do, not what you tell them to do. This is good for certain values of good (depending on how you define a &#x27;good&#x27; adult).<p>The title of the article (Mounting Evidence of Advantages for Children of Working Mothers) seems to define having a career as an advantage, but is it really?