What effect does heading back to work have on your children
Heading back to work after having children can be a daunting decision. With the guilt that many mothers feel often being underlined by the logistical nightmare that comes with it! Without the support of family and friends many women may never make it back to the workplace at all. However, the hardest thing many mothers have to come to terms with is leaving their child alone, wondering what they’re up to and if all this time away from them is having a negative effect. As it turns out, it seems to be quite the contrary.
Based on a study from Harvard, it turns out that the daughters or working mothers are actually more likely to go and find success in their own careers. Based on their research, these said daughters are 4.5% more likely to go on to become employed by a company or business. While that may seem like a rather underwhelming statistic, it’s significant at the 99% level (in layman’s terms meaning that it’s only 1% likely that these statistics are due to chance)
Where it begins to get more interesting however, is not just the likelihood of these girls becoming employed that's effected, it’s how they’re employed. Stay-at-home mothers are only likely to find their daughters reaching supervisory or higher roles 25% of the time, while daughters of working mothers would see that increase to 33%!
When it came to the sons of these women, they observed a statically significant increase in the amount of time they spent caring for family members and doing day-to-day chores when compared to that of stay-at-home mothers.
What they took away from these studies is that seeing the mother go to work helped change the children’s views on gender roles. It teaches them that women can go out to work and achieve while teaching the boys that it wouldn’t kill you to pick up a dust-pan and brush every now and then!
Unfortunately, we do still live in a world where gender biases are a problem; that’s something that won’t change overnight. What we now have proof of though, is that by teaching our kids that gender shouldn’t define your career and how to contribute at home, we’re helping them build a better, more gender equal society for the future.
Now this isn’t to take anything away from stay-at-home mums, far from it. You work hard and you do what you need to do for your family. Sometimes, no matter how much you want to get back to work, it’s just not possible. And that’s fine. But if you can get back to work, not only are you helping your own career, you may well be helping that of your children.
Need help getting back to work? Want to pursue a career but can only afford to work part time? Maybe it’s time to consider job sharing? Sign up with a free account and see what options are available for you.