It looks like the best gift we could give moms in the U.S. this year is a little respect and appreciation.
Mothers across the country like being mothers, but they also tend to feel underappreciated and less valued by society, according to a study on motherhood being released Monday.
Those sentiments may not have changed much for moms through the decades, but these findings come at a time when women who work outside the home and stay-at-home moms are both stressed from parenting pressures and the need to better balance their lives. The research conducted in January and February by the University of Connecticut and the University of Minnesota, found that 81% are "very" satisfied with life as a mother. But of the 2,000 mothers surveyed (41% employed full time and 21% part-time), 33% said their ideal work situation would be working part-time; 30% said working for pay from home; and 21% said not working at all.
Nearly one in five (19%) also said they felt less valued by society since becoming a mother.
Ouch.
Last month, two close friends had babies. One is US-born and another Brazilian-born, though both live in the US now. How my US-born girlfriend has responded to her newly found motherhood, especially in contrast to my Brazilian girlfriend's repsonse, has been haunting me. My US-born friend seems totally at sea, is having trouble even after a month sorting out how to identify herself and how she is identified. A writing teacher now on indefinite leave, she's already having trouble with the fact that she's seen as "just a mom," a fact which my Brazilian-born girlfriend, herself a free-lance cinematographer, finds crazy. "Of course I'm working as a mom now," she says. "It's so American to have that be such a bad thing. We should be worshipped." Well, yeah. But we're not.
Obviously, this is hardly a random sample. They're merely two, obviously very different woman. And yet. I keep thinking about how little anything associated with the feminine is still ghettoized. Depressing.
The thing is that there are so many different subcultures in America. There are some social groups where children are the center of the universe and motherhood is highly revered (the downside of that is that some women may feel like outcasts if they don't want kids). In other circles, children are seen as a burden and motherhood is not valued because it doesn't generate an income.