Empowering Working Mums Raise Happy Successful Kids
Originally Published on 5th June 2019
The “mum guilt” usually felt by working mums like me is something we all can’t avoid even if we try. Every time I am separated from my kids every day for work, I couldn’t help but think about how it might affect them and wondered if they are suffering from it.
Just to make things clear, my kids are well taken-care of. I am truly grateful for having a hands-on husband and my fabulous Aupairs who have been a fantastic support and big sisters to my little ones and a wonderful help around the house.
What I am really concerned about is my mother-children relationship with them – am I making my kids happy? Am I spending enough time with them? Am I raising them right and helping them become successful adults in the future?
It’s easy to reach out to family and friends for advice, but I already know what they will say – all positive and encouraging words of course. Love them to bits! But I really wanted to look into more in-depth research regarding the impact of working mums on their children just to make sure I’m seeing things from different perspectives.
Working Mums Raise Mentally Healthy Children
I have found so many pieces of research on how our careers positively impact our children’s lives but the first research that caught my attention is from Harvard Business Review which was published November of last year.
Jeff Greenhaus and Stewart D. Friedman teamed up in conducting this research and stated that children tend to be mentally healthier when their mothers have authority and discretion at work. This means, if a mother has control over what they are doing at work, their children benefit from it as well.
It was also found that mothers who are able to relax and give themselves time for self-care and spend less on housework were associated with positive outcomes for children. Mothers who are more engaged in housework on the other hand more likely to result in behavior problems among their children. The research suggests that it’s not just a matter of mothers being at home versus at work, it’s the quality time they spend with their kids when they’re not working.
Working Mums Raise Happy and High Achiever Adults
In another study conducted by Kathleen McGinn and her colleagues, it was discovered that adult kids of working mums are not only high achievers at work but are happy adults too. McGinn, the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School says their findings eliminate people’s belief that when moms are employed, it affects their kids’ happiness in adulthood. I also love how Professor McGinn supports the right of women to have the choice whether they want or need to work and not based on whether this can do harm to their children or not, and clearly, her studies show being a working mum does not do any harm to the kids.
The Importance of Quality Time in Child Cognitive Development
Amy Hsin from the Queens College-City University of New York and Christina Felfe of the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland conducted a study on working mums who spend less time with their children and whether it affects their cognitive development. The research found that mums working full-time do spend less time with their little ones but they tend to trade the quantity of time for a better quality time. Mothers who work full-time spend 3.2 fewer hours each week with their kids to do activities that don’t necessarily need the children and parents to be actively engaged and speak to one another.
I brought up these studies not to discredit mothers who don’t have a paying job and have chosen to spend all the time they have taking care of their babies. I may have a full-time, 40-hour-a-week job and have a little business called 99aupairs, but at the end of the day, I am, just like you, a mum to my kids 24/7.
What I want is for the world to hear that working mums are just as awesome as any mother is. This research should be enough to prove to the society that we, working mums, are not negatively affecting our families, especially on how we raise our kids contrary to popular belief. What matters is that we spend quality time with them when we’re at home.
I do, however, recognize the fact that most working mums (including stay-at-home mums) just do not get enough support in juggling motherhood and their career. So many families end up going through a stressful and long recruitment process in finding an Aupair or are forced to pay expensive childcare fees just to be able to work to support the needs of the family. What’s even worse, other mums had to give up pursuing their career to stay home and watch after the little ones – which I think by the way is great (love being with my kids) – it is not being able to have the choice that sucks. I know what it feels like having no choice between taking care of my child and work or being a mum having to push twice as hard to get projects that would give me the right exposure for career progression after mentioning that I’m a mum.
I created 99aupairs because I want to reduce the juggle and stress many families are going through today. It is a platform where families can find Aupairs and Demi Pairs as flexible in-home childcare support. Aupairs have tremendously helped me not only to become a better mother to my children but also to lessen the burden that every mum faces in their workplace. I have also learned to chill out more and focus on what really counts – the connection between all of us (not the never-ending mount-wash-me).
If you want to know more about 99aupairs and the Aupair program, feel free to visit our website @99aupairs.au or send us an e-mail at support@99aupairs.com or simply drop me a line on Instagram.