1st essay in 13 years. Disadvantages that working mothers give to their children

Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. I'm out of practice and could use the help!
Diana

Persuasive Essay.
1,000-1,500 words.

Disadvantages that working mothers give to their children: It's not about money!

The negative impacts of working mothers on their children; what are they? Is it really that big of a deal? Can a child turn out worse if his or her mother is working to provide for him or her rather than sitting home and devoting every moment to nurturing and ensuring the emotional and physical happiness of her children? Are mothers doing more harm than good by joining the workforce? Although some believe there to be hundreds, and some believe there to be none, I will point out three major negative impacts that I see that a mothers working has on her child (ren). Extensive research and data collection points to an agreement that a child's behavior, a child's learning capabilities, and a child's development and fostering of peer relationships are all negatively affected by his or her mother's working outside of the home.

A child's behavior is no doubt impacted by a mother working outside of the home. Being there both physically and emotionally for a child is what it takes in order for him or her to obtain and maintain a good outlook on life in general. Maternal bonds are a very important deciding factor when it comes to the achievement and outlook of a child. For example, when a mother works outside of the home she has added stressors placed on her by the aggressive and rushed emotions that the working world produces. Stressors at work may cause a mother to become more passive and less nurturing simply out of pure exhaustion. It is agreed upon that passive parenting leads to more aggressive children. Parents who are exposed to chronically high levels of job stress appear to be less involved and more controlling with their children (Daniels and Moos, 1988; Grossman, Pollack, and Golding, 1988; Piotrkowski and Katz, 1983; Repetti, 1987). In Baumrind's (1971) terminology, these parents', who are authoritative, children tend to be self-confident, independent, and socially responsible. On the other hand those children who have authoritarian mothers are more likely to rebel due to a feeling of not being understood, being talked at and not talked to, or just simply not having a strong bond with his/her mother and not feeling a part of a family "unit".

A child's learning capabilities are affected when the mother returns to work after giving birth. Most teachers will tell you that the majority of children of stay-at-home mothers not only turn in their homework, but score higher and understand concepts better than students where the mother works outside of the house. This can be due to a lack of time for working mothers to sit and complete homework assignments with their children while they have housework and cooking still to complete, or a mother's lack of energy after completing all of her immediate duties that she no longer has the energy required to complete the not so immediate situations. Studies show that the sooner a mother goes to work after giving birth the greater the likelihood of those children not doing as well in school-readiness testing when they are 3 years old. "In fact, children whose mother didn't return to work until after the first year of birth did much better than their counterparts." Reported Jeanne Brooks-Gun of Columbia's Teacher's College. Also in other studies, it's been proven that those negative effects of early full time maternal employment persist among children who are 7 or 8 years old (Lewin, T). No one will do the job of nurturing and upbringing with the same level of commitment and investment as one's own mother.

The effects of a working mother on a child's peer relationships are also very vast. Peer relationships are probably the most important relationship to children second only to family relationships. Peers have a deep reaching influence on each other that may impact their attitudes, opinions and behaviors. Dressing alike and fixing their hair alike are just a couple examples of peer influences. A child whose mother works most likely doesn't spend much "quality" conversation time with the mother, and it is therefore concluded that "children are described as oriented toward parents or peers; children who are more influenced by parents are assumed to be less influenced by peers ,Hayes, C.D. and Kamerman, S.B , (1983). So, if you are not your child's biggest influence, someone else is. Sure, your child's friends may seem quiet and polite when they are around you, but how long are they really around you? Maybe 10 or 20 minutes, if that? You can never really be sure of the type of influences that are surrounding your child if you are not a key influence. The old saying of "monkey see monkey do" still rings true today.

Though most people agree that mother's working outside of the home is a wrong choice, for some it is the only choice. We are just now beginning to gather enough data and evidence to show the long term ramifications that a mother working outside of the home has on her children. As a mother myself I've chosen to write about this topic because after 10 years of being a stay at home mother I have now been back in the workforce for 10 months and I see each and every one of these negative impacts in my own children. A mother's place is in the home providing for the minds and soul's of her family is a phrase you would expect to hear in the "old days". Maybe they weren't so backward thinking after all.

References:

Baumrind (1971), Psychometric Support for a New Measure of Authoritative, Authoritarian, and Permissive Parenting Practices; Cross-Cultural Connections.

Hayes, C.D. and Kamerman, S.B. (1983), Children of Working Parents. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.

Lewin, T, Study Links Working Mothers to Slower Learning. New York Times.

The negative impacts of working mothers on their children, what are they?

That fix cleans up the punctuation, but the lead is still weak.


Hmm... How is data collection different than research? Also, I think that statement's not quite true. Scanning your references, I see one 26 year old book, one newspaper article, and one 38 year old scholarly study of a measure -- a research tool -- that doesn't even directly address your thesis. This hardly adds up to sufficient support for such a strong statement.

I'm relatively certain that the overall trend of the research is against your thesis but some small subset of the research supports your thesis. When arguing a position supported by only a small subset of the relative research, it's unwise and possibly unethical to suggest that a vast body of research supports you. Better to frame your argument very carefully, stating exactly and only what you can prove.

Even better would be to acknowledge that yours is the minority position and explain why you believe the larger and more recent body of research ought be ignored in favor of your viewpoint. Are the outdated studies you cite stronger methodologically than more recent studies with opposite findings?

First, best of luck with your return to the academic world. Don't take any criticism I offer here personally . . . I am just giving my impressions.

You start off with an awful lot of questions. I thought that it was the prompt I was reading at first. When you begin with so many questions, you are allowing the reader to come up with their own answers. With a persuasive essay, you don't want the reader forming opinions before you have even started. Tell the reader what you think, support your opinion, offer up what the opposition says, refute or deflate the opposition's position, then reiterate your own opinion. Bring the reader to your side. Persuade the reader.


This sentence is awkward. Generally speaking, you won't use the first or second person in an essay. Think about the way you see newspaper and magazine articles . . . the writers don't use the word "I" or "we" (unless it is a humor or editorial piece). The "child (ren)" is awkward as well. It would be best to reword a sentence like that so that you didn't need to include any oddly-formatted words. "A mothers working" should have an apostrophe, but I am not going to get too nitty gritty on the grammar when some rewriting is in order.


I know that Simone has already commented on this sentence, but I wanted to point something else out to you that has more to do with style than content. The use of "a child's" gets repetitive here and adds unnecessary words. This sentence could be rewritten to something like: Research indicates that children's behavior, learning capabilities, development, and fostering of peer relationships are negatively affected by mothers working outside of the home.

Your second paragraph starts out pretty weak. Remember that you want to persuade people to your side . . . not offend them if they are a working mother, have a working mother, or are married to a working mother. There's a big difference between being an involved and attentive parent and a disinterested parent, but whether or not a mother works isn't necessarily a indication of her level of involvement with her children. A parent who stays home and parks a kid in front of Barney all day can spend less time engaged with a child than a working mom who is home by 3:30 (I made my mom in this scenario a teacher for argument's sake) and then spends the next five hours before bedtime actively engaged with her child. Many people do see work as stressing, but others find enjoyment in their chosen occupation. My mom is a professional photographer and is happiest when she is on a shoot. Instead of enervating her, my mom's work invigorates her. Honestly, I don't think she would be the same person or have the same vitality if she were just a domestic servant with my brother and me in charge. Perhaps if you softened the blow by acknowledging that working is not a black and white decision, you would be able to put your reader off of the defensive and keep them reading along.


Are these sources that you haven't yet included in your bibliography? I am confused.


I have noticed some issues with apostrophes in your writing. There are times when you need one and don't use it and other times when there are there without serving a purpose. Here are a couple of links to help you refresh apostrophe use:

grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp
owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/621/01/


The punctuation goes inside quotation marks.


They aren't completing the situations . . . to contend with not-so-immediate situations.

Studies show that the sooner a mother goes to work after giving birth[,] the greater the likelihood of those children not doing as well in school-readiness testing when they are three years old. I am still not crazy about this sentence, but I am not sure how to fix it.

their counterparts[,] " r eported Jeanne Brooks-Gun


Other studies show that negative effects of early, full-time maternal employment persist among seven and eight-year old children.


No one? What about the dad? The grandmother? What if the mother is addicted meth? This is a broad statement. As a reader, I found myself trying to conjure exceptions instead of being persuaded.

I am going to stop there. You have probably had enough of me by now anyway. I will either wait for a rewrite or let someone else pick up the last couple of paragraphs.

I'm going to sort of disagree here, in that, while I have no idea of how the studies add up pro and con for your position, I am positive that there are an awful lot of studies out there that do support your position, enough for you to make the claim you do. You do have to track those studies down, though. And then you should evaluate their methodology, and read opposing studies, and evaluate their's, as you should do when researching for any persuasive essay.

To that end, try doing a Google search for "working mothers effect on children." You won't find too many studies directly, but you will find several articles that reference studies, which you can then track down. For instance:

Ones that agree with you

lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/jul/02071807.html

guardian.co.uk/money/2003/nov/14/workandcareers

independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/working-mo thers-affect-exams-690254.html

sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W MC-4SNWW1X-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_do canchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=940469039&_rerunOrigin=google&_ acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2fc3 2e844af552da5b1e741fdd2b8751

Ones that disagree with you

jiskha.com/social_studies/psychology/working_moms.html

parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Hoffman/Hoffman.html

news-medical.net/news/2005/03/29/8777.aspx

One of the advantages of doing this sort of research is that it makes you aware of nuances to the debate. For instance, a working mother who flips burgers at McDonalds and a working mother who is a supreme court justice possibly have enough differences that the effects of their being at work on their children are different too. Likewise, a working single mother is clearly not in the same situation as a married working mother who can (hopefully) rely on her husband to cover at least some of the child rearing responsibilities.

Still, I'd say you are arguing the easier side, here, as most people instinctively believe that mothers are important, and that their presence in a child's life is a positive for the child's development.

Googling popular press articles is not going to resolve the question, as cultural and political factors strongly influence which studies are reported. You'll have to query an academic database, such as PsychNet, or find a recent book (published by a reputable scholarly press, such as SAGE) that includes a review of relevant literature. Why recent? Because times change. Studies done before the widespread availability of high-quality daycare and after school programs, for example, will tend to differ from those done when working mothers had to rely exclusively on neighbors and family or just give their children a latch-key!

This seems like a non-sequitur. Cultural and political factors influence the studies themselves, from the research question to the methodology chosen to try to answer it. They also affect the likelihood of academic journals being willing to publish any given study, or of literature reviews being willing to refer to it. If one wishes to overcome such biases, it is best to cast a wide net, as by searching the entire Internet, rather than relying on a single literature review. In any event, the studies reported online are both academic and contemporary, which is what the author needs, and so will form a solid starting point for her research. Also, you will note that each of the seven articles refers to a different study, so it is not that one outlier study is receiving more attention than mainstream ones. In fact, given that this is meant as a persuasive essay, presumably for a writing course (I don't know of any other type of course that assigns "persuasive essays" rather than specific topics) and not a research paper, a quick Internet search seems fairly appropriate.


This is also a good idea, no disagreement there. The more perspectives and sources the better. Google can be useful even here, though, as both Google Scholar and Google Books can be used to find the sort of sources you mention.

Thank you all for all of those great pointers. I am lost at writing and hoping to gain some knowledge soon, and I have thanks to you all.

Remember that you want to persuade people to your side . . . not offend them if they are a working mother, have a working mother, or are married to a working mother. There's a big difference between being an involved and attentive parent and a disinterested parent, but whether or not a mother works isn't necessarily a indication of her level of involvement with her children. A parent who stays home and parks a kid in front of Barney all day can spend less time engaged with a child than a working mom who is home by 3:30 (I made my mom in this scenario a teacher for argument's sake) and then spends the next five hours before bedtime actively engaged with her child.

I am a mother to 3 children. This past schoolyear was my first year working in 10 years. I work in a school the same hours as my children attend school, and even though I love what I do and am furthering my education so that I can attain title of Lead Teacher, I am exhausted when we get home at 4:00. Dinner and homework are about all we do before showers and bed @ 8:00. Anyway, I guess what I was trying to do was persuade, not offend.

Thank you all again, so much. I'm going to print out everyones comments.

Diana

wow, first in 13years. But you essay seems good

Your essay wasn't offensive per se. It was, however written on a topic that was likely to provoke strong responses from people who were ideologically inclined to disagree with your conclusion. Persuasive pieces are argumentative pieces aimed at those who do not already have hardened opinions on the subject matter. As such, they often will offend those who for whatever reason are emotionally invested in believing the opposing view. You can soften the negative responses by including the sort of caveats you mentioned in your last post in the body of your essay, but you have to accept that when writing on very controversial topics, there will be some people who fall outside of your intended audience by virtue of not being open to any form of persuasion.

The problem is that this is a politically fraught topic, and one that has been deployed in hurtful ways. In the past, and still, unfounded assertions that working outside the home hurts children have been used to emotionally terrorize mothers into staying out of the public sphere and, therefore, under the control of the men on whom they must necessarily depend for economic support. (Anybody who's ever worked at a domestic violence shelter or hotline knows how often "you're hurting the kids" is used by batterers to keep their victims under control.) In my view, the knowledge that such arguments have been and are still deployed oppressively means that one is ethically obliged to be especially careful when arguing that working outside the home has hurtful effects on children. One must be sure that the facts really do support the argument and also take care to acknowledge any ambiguity in findings that seem to support the argument. For example, if one study shows one negative effect on one group of children, and it turns out that the mothers in question didn't have access to daycare, then it would be important not to generalize that to a blanket statement that children are disadvantaged when their mothers work outside the home.

This discussion I would say shows very clearly how a reader's level of emotional investment in a topic will affect his or her response to it. You recognized in your essay that some women had no choice but to work, but you also realized that this didn't automatically mean that doing so would not have negative impacts on their kids. The only question you really asked yourself was "Is it true that children may be adversely impacted by not having their mothers around?" You quite reasonably concluded that the answer was probably yes (and in a different context, the assertion wouldn't have provoked anywhere near as strong a response, I imagine). For someone coming from a strongly feminist perspective, though, the question is different -- it becomes something more like "can we allow this to be true?" The first question is objective, the second subjective, and a person for whom the answer to the second question is "no" will never, ever agree that the answer to the first question is "yes," howsoever well-argued your paper is.

I wasn't offended by your essay. I was trying to point out that it is not a black and white issue. When you want to persuade people sometimes the best way is to lead them gently. It is an emotional issue. You have seen both sides of the stay-at-home/working-mom debate and I imagine that even your feelings on the subject are mixed. Wishing you the best and hoping that you find your balance with work and home life.