NEW JERSEY HERALD NEWS

Survey says stay-at-home mothers are happier

By ANDREA GURWITT
Monday, June 27, 2005

ClubMom, a Web site claiming to have more than 2 million members, recently released the results of its "State of Mom Report Card," which asked mothers to grade themselves on a variety of subjects, ranging from their family's financial planning skills to their values.

One of the results the organization highlighted from the 1,000-person survey was that more stay-at-home mothers than working mothers gave themselves an A for satisfaction with their lives, their "job as mom," their health and their marriages.

This is notable because, according to experts, it runs counter to data collected over the past 15 years, which has shown working mothers generally have higher self-esteem and a higher sense of satisfaction than stay-at-home mothers.

The results of any volunteer survey may be skewed, since those who agree to participate in a random telephone survey may not be representative of the whole population. Or, those who grade themselves may claim they are happier or more satisfied than they really are to make themselves feel better.

However, given ClubMom's findings, it seemed like a good time to check in with psychologists, authors, mothers and Web site directors to see where we are in the perennial stay-at-home vs. working-mother debate.

The country is in a period of transition, perhaps, but certainly one of discussion about values and family, economic hardship and vast wealth. This is a time in which many mothers do not have the luxury to decide whether to stay home with their children because, without two incomes, many, if not the majority of, families can't stay financially afloat.

But this is also a time in which motherhood is all the rage in Hollywood, and the art of raising children perfectly has become a new status symbol. In which guilt about what kind of mother you are hasn't lessened, but in which workplace flexibility and paid sick leave haven't become common enough or expansive enough to make much of a dent.

What seems to have happened in the last two decades is that women who decide to stay home with their kids have gained a new respect. And women who remain at work have come to terms with the fact that they need help - in the form of flexible hours, paid sick leave or longer hours of child care.

Twenty years ago, when flextime was only the remotest of possibilities, many women who stayed home with their children felt like second-class citizens. The work was unglamorous and not even really considered work.

Women had finally broken free from the velveteen ropes of inequality that society had wrapped around them and were making their way in substantial numbers into colleges and graduate schools, up corporate and political ladders, becoming a presence and not merely a token.

Mothers who stayed home saw their counterparts who earned a salary admired by the world at large for doing it all and having it all, while they, at-home mothers, watched people's eyes glaze over at parties when they said what they did. Some of the women who opted out of the hard-won career track felt guilty for their decision.

In 1986, Anne Palumbo, author of "The Stay-At-Home Mom's Survival Guide," decided she wouldn't return to work after her child was born. She had asked her bosses for a flexible schedule and her request had been denied, she says. So she pushed aside her worry that she was letting down her peers and resigned from her job as an advertising executive.

She noticed the most frequent question people asked her was, "When are you going back to work?" not, "What wallpaper did you pick out for your baby's room?"

"If I saw people from work I would turn on my heels because I did get that question, 'What do you do all day, you big lummox?'" she says, half joking.

Palumbo says in the intervening years the situation for mothers who stay home has changed for the better. Others agree.

"The pendulum has swung," says Cheryl Gochnauer, an at-home mother in Missouri and founder of the Christian-affiliated Web site homebodies.org. "Here's a quote for you: 'Deciding to become an at-home parent is as valued a career choice as any other. This is a job. A 24/7 job. And lots of people love it.'"

"It's no longer viewed as 'Yuck, that's traditional and boring,'" says Matti Gershenfeld, a Pennsylvania-based psychologist who specializes in marriage and family issues. "I think now it's viewed as, 'Isn't she lucky?'"

Nearly 70 percent of married mothers and 72 percent of single mothers with kids under 18 worked last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to the Census Bureau's 2003 Current Population Survey, 26 percent, or 6 million, married women with children under 15 stayed home to care for their family the year before.

You cannot compare the two numbers since they are from different years and the maximum ages for the children are not the same, but they give you a general sense of the motherhood landscape. Working mothers are roughly three times as common as mothers who stay home.

And yet, among mothers, working women these days feel they are looked down upon by women who stay home, says Cara Gardenswartz, a psychologist in Los Angeles who specializes in working and stay-at-home mothers, even though, she adds, society as a whole still looks more favorably on working mothers.

Research shows that women who choose to stay home and can afford help with child rearing and housework retain their self-esteem and happiness, according to Gardenswartz.

Gochnauer says, "You become so much more happy when you're doing what you and your mate and your children want to do."

But take away that choice, or the financial freedom to hire someone, and the scales tip. In that case, women who stay home have higher depression rates and lower self-esteem than working women, Gardenswartz says.

Also, experts have found even though stay-at-home mothers spend more time with their children, the time working mothers spend with their kids is of a better quality because they give children their full attention. At-home mothers may tend to juggle kids, errands and chores.

Even so, working mothers still frequently feel guilty for the time they spend away from their children.

But then, women who stay home with their children face isolation, boredom, loss of financial independence and a paucity of positive feedback, according to Jill Savage, the founder of Hearts At Home, an Illinois-based Christian ministry and Web site for stay-at-home mothers.

"No matter what, moms are conflicted," Gardenswartz says.

"The myth of motherhood is that it's all-fulfilling, day in, day out, 24/7," says Wendy Sachs, a South Orange resident who just published a book called "How She Really Does It: Secrets of Successful Stay-at-Work Moms."

But the women Sachs interviewed who chose to stay home told her they felt as though they had lost a piece of themselves when they gave up their careers. And the mothers she interviewed who liked their jobs were not the exhausted, strung-out women portrayed in movies and on television, but rather were happy with their choice.

"We elevate and devalue motherhood at the same time," Sachs says. "There's so much pressure to be Supermom today. It's a full-time job to turn out superchildren. We're not helping mothers who want to stay at work."

"What's changed is not the pleasures of feeling you're using both parts of yourself, but that extremes of work and parenting are so extreme," says Joan Peters, author of "When Mothers Work: Loving Our Children Without Sacrificing Ourselves." "Most people are not just working, but they're overworked."

Peters suggests a two-pronged remedy. For the long term, she advocates pushing lawmakers to fund easily accessible and widespread before- and after-school programs, subsidized child care and neighborhood associations with recreational programs for children. "Programs that recognize two parents are working," she says.

For the short term: "Women really have to negotiate with their partners to take over far more responsibility for child care and housework, even if the husband takes a hit at work."

Women are afraid to ask their husbands to cut down on their workload because men's work is still a "sacred cow," Peters says. But "until women negotiate at home for equitable and balanced child care, then it will never change at work, because men will always be available to work until they drop."

Reach Andrea Gurwitt at (973) 569-7159 or gurwitt@northjersey.com.