Gender Roles in Parenting: Motherhood Series

 

Are women expected to enter the “mother” category?

What do we know about traditional gender roles in parenting? Given biological differences, societal traditions, and cultural stigma, women are often deferred into categories, and their multifaceted personhoods are reduced to a singular, gendered characteristic. These categories take many forms depending on the environment (e.g., boys are more often called on in class, even by female teachers), but they surround similar, albeit dehumanizing, qualities. Common categories include the virgin-whore binary whereby the woman is either pure yet prudish or is slut shamed, with no in-between options. At a certain age, though, women are expected to enter the “mother” category. This box assumes it is every woman’s duty and utmost desire to childbear and childrear—because of their gender, they must step into this role. Again, there is little wiggle room allowed by society if an individual were to choose a different role. Historically, much was expected of women in the private sphere of homemaking. While this has changed over time because of capitalist production capacity, women’s employment took a major step back during the pandemic. This suggests that women may once again enter the home and no longer have ample choice to leave. 

Gender roles in parenting: Staying home with children

It is important to consider that not all individuals have the same power to choose whether or not to enter the workforce in the first place. When looking at gender roles in parenting, factors such as childcare availability and affordability, family support, immigration status, and language barriers all contribute to a parent’s decision to stay home with their children. On the other hand, factors including financial hardship, unexpected emergencies, single parenting, and age may force parents to enter the workforce while also parenting. In this way, the term “decision” negates its own meaning, as women no longer have the freedom to choose their own personal work-life balance. The combination of societal expectations, financial necessities, and limited resources put mothers in positions where the choice may already have been made for them. Neither option (or non-option) is ideal, but the differing societal attitudes towards stay-at-home mothers and working mothers can create wildly different impacts on familial well-being. 

Gender norms are deeply engrained in our culture

Attitudes towards gender roles in parenting and stay-at-home mothers rely on the previous assumptions that stay-at-home mothers have actively chosen to do so and have no desire to do anything else. For this reason, vignette analyses have revealed that stay-at-home mothers who seem satisfied with their roles are perceived more highly than those who seem dissatisfied. Furthermore, stay-at-home fathers are rated similarly to stay-at-home mothers, with no significant gendered differences in relation to parenting styles or successes. This suggests that more research is needed into the relationship between stay-at-home parents and their social or community lifestyles outside of the home. Interestingly, children raised by stay-at-home mothers rate their emotional connection with their primary caretaking parent as higher than children raised by stay-at-home fathers. In this way, prejudice against stay-at-home fathers for their gender-role-breaking existence is common, but so is the stay-at-home fathers’ resilience to said stigmatization. Across these gendered lines, religious devoutness is consistently cited as the most common and indicative factor associated with upholding normative gender roles in the nuclear family. For this reason, it is clear that gender norms are deeply engrained in our culture and the values associated with “good” motherhood tie into morality and other subjective rulings enforced through societal stigma or standards. 

Working fathers are rated higher than working mothers?

Alternatively, attitudes towards working mothers are generally more positive when the mother feels negative about her role outside the family. For example, vignette analyses suggest that working mothers are regarded more highly when they are dissatisfied than when they are satisfied with their lifestyle. This idea points to the notion that there is or should be some type of shame when a woman takes up too much space. Embodying multiple categories is simply off the table as soon as children are brought into the mix. Moreover, even when both parents perform the same household duties, working fathers are rated higher than working mothers, suggesting that men may be praised for engaging with the family in the same way that women are expected to. In turning the tables, working mothers themselves report having more work-family conflict when they or their spouses believe in traditional gender roles. This creates a schism in the family and in the mother’s own perception of herself. These negative outcomes can be flipped, though, as adult men who were raised by working mothers are less likely to abide by traditional gender roles in their romantic relationships, and they are less likely to believe in the negative effects of working motherhood.

Gender roles in parenting play out for generations

Thus, the impacts of both stay-at-home motherhood and working motherhood play out in real life for generations to come. Being a working mother seems to have no major effects on marital relations or child development. While this is good news, this measurement criteria focuses on the people around the mother, not the mother herself. Refocusing this conversation to center the mother is crucial for accurate descriptions of the problem and for plausible solutions which would affect those surrounding the mother. By this, working mothers tend to be more stressed than stay-at-home mothers, although they may have better mental health in general. The lack of social lives for stay-at-home mothers affects their ability to invest in several parts of themselves, limiting their coping mechanisms, healing opportunities, and self-efficacy. Additionally, working mothers tend to have better well-being wherever there is a smaller Global Gender Gap Index rating, which measures the gender equality of areas. In other words, having high rates of gender equality in a nation will allow women to feel less pressure in their dual roles as laborers and mothers. 

Make childcare affordable and accessible

Ultimately, to support the free and full decision to be or not to be a working mother, policymakers must consider making childcare affordable and accessible, as well as implementing holistic paid family leave measures. Studies show that these actions support early childhood development and educational attainment, increase the ability of parents to find and maintain employment, and increase mothers’ work-life satisfaction. While there are still unaccounted-for products of these proposed solutions, prioritizing public education and research into these areas will ensure mothers are given the opportunity to be whomever they want. 

By Emily Carriere

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