Staying at Home or Working for Pay? Attachment to Modern Mothering Identities

Abstract

In a context where the pressures of intensive mothering are all-consuming, mothers who work for pay, or mother-workers, face difficult challenges as they attempt to execute the tasks of both parenthood and employment in effective ways. In contrast, stay-at-home mothers, or mother-caregivers, receive reinforcing messages from intensive mothering ideology that they should remain solely focused on meeting their children's everyday needs. Using random sample survey data collected from 3,327 women in mothers’ organizations, I find that while only 18.5% of all mothers have such beliefs regarding whether working for pay is best for children or not, no single mothering identity (mother-worker or mother-caregiver) had a statistically significant relationship with holding such beliefs. However, among the small set of women expressing such beliefs on the value of maternal employment, full-time mother-workers were less likely than mother-caregivers to be able to align their current employment statuses with their preferred paid work preferences.

Notes

¹While these scholars have described these two distinct mothering identities, the labels “mother-caregiver” and “mother-worker” are the author's own.

²Of course, smaller, local groups exist with similar purposes, but it would be extremely challenging to determine the population of such groups across the country as well as collect membership data from them.

³In this context, “survey-eligible” does not equal each group's total membership for a variety of reasons. In order to be included in the random sampling procedure, the analysis removed duplicate, inadequate, and corrupt records first. Next, all members who did not qualify as part of the main focus of inquiry were excluded. Therefore, any member who lacked a chapter affiliation, was not female, was not living in the United States, or had left the group before the survey was executed was excluded.

⁴As the groups only offered their members’ names and e-mail addresses, the study was unable to determine the extent of nonresponse bias.

⁵These other groups are small and sometimes, informal. By definition, therefore, they exclude the five main groups in this study.

⁶Race variables such as black could not be incorporated in this analysis due to its high correlation with being a member of Mocha Moms.

Note. N = 3,327.

Note. N = 3,327.

*p < .05;.

**p < .01.

⁷In this discussion, when presented, the odds ratios are in parentheses.

Note. N = 614.

Note. Column percentages in parentheses.

Note. Column percentages in parentheses.

⁸There were very few blacks in the other groups who expressed a belief an ideal arrangement, so it is difficult to make a comparison between them and Mocha Moms members. Interestingly, however, none of the small number of black members in these other organizations were able to align their current employment statuses with their preferred arrangements. These included two women in MomsRising, three in Mothers & More, and two in MOPS.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jocelyn Elise Crowley

Jocelyn Elise Crowley is a Professor of Public Policy at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her research focus is on American social policy. In addition to numerous peer-reviewed journal publications, her books include The Politics of Child Support in America, Defiant Dads: Fathers’ Rights Activists in America, and Mothers Unite! Organizing for Workplace Flexibility and the Transformation of Family Life.