Karrie Cooper
Miss. Nelson
English 1301
21 September 2016
Mothers Raising Children
Should mothers stay at home to raise their own children or should mothers go out and tackle the corporate world? There are so many views on this topic for mothers; it’s definitely a choice that must fit right for her and her family, making the wrong choice could definitely lead to unnecessary risks that one shouldn’t have to take. So how should we base our society on mothers that stay at home to raise their own children and mothers that decide to better themselves and their family and go to work in the corporate world? We shall see what the outcome is…
“Barker, Olivia. "Modern Moms Ditch Frumpy for Fit, Tired for Trendy." USA TODAY. Jan. 27 2005: n.p. SIRS
…show more content…
Teenage girls for instance, that have children by the age of 15 and are still in school with no one to turn to. On the other hand you have women that get pregnant in college and don’t know who the father is. Also you have the ones that no matter how they were raised, they just can’t get it right, but they end up just like their own mother, and let’s face it, that might not be a good thing or vice versa. On the other side, you do have some women that become mothers after college. They get married and have the perfect little family or so it seems. Every situation on how someone becomes a mother is different. It may not have been the best way for them, and yet again it might have been the perfect well planned experience that they will ever make. For example, let’s take Susan, aka Teri Hatcher, off the television show Desperate Housewives. Teri is definitely the best stay at home mommy I’ve seen and has the overall appearance of a well defined women. Her very slim figure of curves and her natural beauty make her appear even more dazzling. The way she parents her teenage child by herself and hosts gatherings with wine in her home with her neighbors is just breath-taking. However back in reality, many stay at home mothers don’t look quite like or act like her character on the
Read, Katy. "Regrets of a stay-at-home mom." Real Families. Salon, 05 Jan 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2014.
With the advent of neoliberalism, the practice of mothering in Western society arguably shifted from a manner that simply ensures the growth of a child into one that maximizes the child’s growth (O’Reilly: Intensive Mothering, Oct 16). One representation of this shift is identified by Sharon Hays as intensive mothering in which the mother prioritizes the rearing of her child over the advancement of her professional career by investing most of her energy, time, and financial resources into her child (Hays 414). The novel I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson can be analyzed through the perspective of intensive mothering. The protagonist, Kate Reddy, is a successful employee of a top investment managing firm in London who spends her
One of the many challenges that working women face is the strain between how to become successful in the workplace as well as being a great mother and wife at home. Hochschild examines the revolution of the american women and their changing role in the workforce. She states that over the past 30 years more and more women are beginning to work outside of the household. She notices how although there have been changes in the way that women are seen inside the workforce, the thought still remains that the woman's place is in the home. Although number of women joining the workforce have doubled over the years, the stigma of being a housewife and taking care of the home is still placed on women today. Hochschild does what no one else has cared to do and that is give working mothers a voice and choosing to tell their story. By doing this she has defied the odds that are placed against working women and speak up for the injustices against working mothers. She chooses to go deeper as she looks at the politics of what makes up a family home and proposes a solution to better fit their needs. She proposes that corporations and companies incorporate more family friendly policies for women with
Single moms are the most affected and providing childcare on campus is very beneficial to them. More than 4 million women attend two-year public institutions or community colleges, and more than 1 million of them are mothers. Many student mothers struggle to stay enrolled all the way through graduation. Most of them are more likely to drop out of school, and the reason is because most often there is no affordable or available childcare and the students have limited financial resources. The average daycare center cost for an infant is higher than a year’s tuition and fees at a public college. It makes affordable on-campus child care a necessary provision for students. Childcare on campus helps to contribute to the learning
In today’s society, many people look at stay-at-home moms as being lazy or irresponsible, but in the article, “Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Mom,” Ashley Nelson states many different reasons why being a stay-at-home mother isn’t so bad. Staying at home with children makes families closer together and they get along more. People in society argue that mothers need to work instead of spending time with their children. In “Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Mom,” Nelson claims that being a mother is stressful, that mothers are being discriminated against and treated differently, and that they are given too many extra hours at work. I agree with Nelson that being a mother is hard, they are discriminated against, and that they are given too many hours at work because having children and a job is tough, many people believe mothers can’t have a job and a child at the same time, and having a child means they need more hours at home to bond and take care of their children.
Stone (2007) conducted “extensive, in depth interviews with 54 women in a variety of professions-law, medicine, business, publishing, management consulting, nonprofit administration, and the like- living in major metropolitan areas across the country, half of them in their 30’s, half in their 40’s” (p. 15). Keep in mind these women Stone (2007) focuses on are “highly educated, affluent, mostly white, married women with children who had previously worked as professionals or managers whose husbands could support their being at home” (p. 14). Her findings revealed women are strongly influenced by two factors: workplace push and motherhood pull. “Many workplaces claimed to be “family friendly” and offered a variety of supports. But for women who could take advantage of them, flexible work schedules (which usually meant working part time) carried significant penalties” (Stone, 2007, p. 16). This quote represents the workplace push, where women are feeling encouraged to continue their rigorous careers with little to no family flexibility being offered from workplaces. The motherhood pull is a term used to describe the way mothers feel when they face the pressure of staying home to raise their children while still expected to maintain a steady job. “Motherhood influenced women 's decision to quit as they came to see the rhythms and
You just had a baby and now you are faced with a difficult decision. Do you head back into the workforce, leave your baby at daycare and have half of the society view you as the driven, hard-working, ambitious woman you are while the other half says that you should take care of the child you chose to bring into this world? Do you stay at home and figure out creative ways to stretch a dollar since you will be a single income family and could be deemed lazy, noncontributing members of society? (Morse)
“The logic of intensive mothering, particularly as it applies to middle- and upper-middle-class mothers, therefore seems to be the greatest barrier to solving the problems detailed in this book….Nearly all mothers, for instance, feel they ought to be at home with their children, ought to want to be at home with their children, and ought to be their children’s primary parent.” Pg. 201 This quote from Untangling the Mother-Nanny Knot emphasizes on the fact that these working mothers need to let go a of that temperament that they must keep the nanny, their spouse and anyone else away from their child at any cost. Because they are not able to be there for their kids they can rest their mind knowing that the person with their child when they are not present is someone that will love them and care for them no matter what, and all the working mother must do is let go just a
Women have persistently been challenged with issues regarding what it means to be a ‘good mother’. Although times continue to change, issues confronting 21st century mothers, remain similar to the ones addressed in past generations. An abundance of mothers in the 21st century are still faced with the complex issue regarding the ‘stay-at-home mom’ stereotype, in spite of the fact that the feminist movement has provided women with more rights in the present-day, then ever before. However, while strides have been made, these changes have had an affect on society’s notion of motherhood. The portrayal of motherhood is determined by countless expectations in which society has established. Such expectancies have expanded, which now effect how motherhood is depicted in different cultures. As a whole the feminist movement has strongly influenced Western Society, which has resulted in women’s suffrage, the right to make individual decisions, and has also led to wide-ranging employment for women at more equivalent wages. However, the emergence of female employment has created a war between ‘stay-at-home’ and ‘working’ mothers, which is often referred to as ‘Mommy Wars’. In addition, female employment provides men with the opportunity to stay at home and become the primary caregiver, which has ultimately had a large impact on societies notion of motherhood, treating them differently than primary caregivers of the opposite gender. This paper will examine how the feminist movement has altered societies notion of motherhood in the 21st century in comparison to past generations as a result of working mothers and stay at home fathers.
To gain insight on the role of being a working mother I interviewed my mother, Jane Smith. Smith currently works forty, or more, hours a week as an office manager for a family business. Her job requires her to be at work from eight in the morning until five or six in the evening Monday through Friday. In addition to her role as an employee, she is currently married and is a mother of four daughters. These daughters are between the ages of thirteen and twenty-one; of these four daughters, three live at home with the family while the other is currently completing a study-abroad year in Germany. Smith has been a working mother for the past seven years, before which she worked as a stay-at-home parent. Her job requires her ...
Is it fair to have to take a course and pass a test to become a parent?
Women are blessed with what I consider is the biggest gift in the universe and that is to give life to what once was part of them. At some point in our lives we ask ourselves……. What is a good mother? Although there can be endless definitions, my definition of a good mother is based on what I consider to be morally right. A good mother always thinks about her children first, a good mother is always willing to give her life for her children, a good mother is soft and gentle with her children, but a good mother becomes aggressive and protective when her children are exposed to potential threats and a good mother will always want the best for her children.
Poverty is “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions” (Merriam-Webster dictionary, 2015); in other words, struggling to provide a comfortable living style. It is the cause of family stress and many other problems, especially for the children. Millions of people around the world are struggling with poverty; families suffering to provide enough food seem to be growing in numbers. According to the United States Census Bureau, the poverty rate was highest in the 1960s and decreased greatly in the 1970s. However, it is now slowly starting to increase again. Recently released census data by the Bureau showed that one in five people are living in poverty (Census Bureau, 2014). Poverty is even
Many individuals are taking the process of process of parental licensing into their own hands, despite their contributions being made up in mind only, however, it is thought that counts. One respective person believes that a restriction on having children should begin at the earliest stage of one’s life: birth. As soon as a child is born, doctors should “go in and turn off their spickets” (McRedmond). In the later stages of life, this would prevent several cases of teen pregnancies, seeing as though it would be an impossibility for women to get pregnant. Then, when a women eventually becomes ready enough to think about having children, they should go through a testing process, perhaps similar to Sherman’s ideas of interviews, writing, and demonstrations of capability. If they pass, they “get their spickets turned
One of the issues that parents are dealing with is money. They believe that they can’t have a stay at home parent, because they wouldn’t be able to live off of one parent’s salary. However what many people don’t know that the value of a stay a home parent is a lot more than one would imagine. According to Barbara Sefton, “The stay-at-home mother is on duty an average of 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. She provides a service with a market value of approximately $36,000 annually.” This is more than some individual salaries. Most do not realize how much work a stay a stay at home mom does, from c...