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Working mothers raise working daughters.

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Agree		62%	183 votes	Total: 296 votes
Disagree		38%	113 votes	Total: 296 votes

Agree

1 of 8

When I was a little girl, I used to tell my mother that I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to have a daughter of my own, but no husband because I wanted to raise her my own way. I looked up to her for doing what no other moms of my friends did, not understanding that being a single mom was not the ideal. She appreciated my viewing her through rose-colored glasses, but was also quick to tell me that raising me by herself was her choice because I'm better off without my father in my life. She stressed that it's incredibly hard to be a single mother and she would hope that I would fall in love with a man that would be a wonderful husband and father so that I wouldn't have to go it alone as she did.

Growing up, my mother worked 2 jobs for as long as I can remember. After school, I would walk to the insurance office where she worked 8 to 4 every day and would sit in the back room to do my homework in the time between my arrival and 4pm. At 4, we'd head home, she'd make my dinner and would then leave to go to her 2nd job from 6pm to 10pm. This was our schedule 5 days a week, every week. She typically spent the weekends sleeping straight through. I didn't realize it at the time (I thought she was just really tired), but in retrospect, she was most likely suffering from clinical depression.

The day after my 14th birthday, I went and got a work permit so I could get a job of my own in the hopes that I'd be able to make enough so my mom could quit her 2nd job. Because your hours are severly limited at 14, I had a difficult time finding jobs that would put me on the schedule for such a small amount of time. Finally I did find a job as a dishwasher in a local pizza place. It was a fairly short-lived position because I hated it and by law I couldn't work enough hours to put a dent in what my mom would need to quit her 2nd job. I continued my search and it wasn't long before I applied for a position as a cashier at a local drug store and was hired. I worked the maximum number of hours that I could every week and was thrilled when I turned 16 because my working hours increased. I began working 3pm to 10pm shifts on most week day nights and 7am to 3pm shifts on weekends. My mother might have been able to quit her 2nd job, but if she could, she didn't.

When I arrived at my junior year in high school, my mother started to become obsessed with my getting into college. I always knew that she wanted me to go to college since she never did, but I had no idea the intensity with which she would pursue this dream of hers. Like many teenagers, I resisted, complained and made excuses about wanting to be done with school sooner than later. Despite my protests, I did yield to her pressure and applied to several schools around the Boston area. I was accepted to Boston University and UMass Boston. As UMass Boston offered the better financial aid package, that's where I went.

The first year felt more like an extension of high school and I hated it. It was a commuter college with no campus life or dorms, which I wouldn't have been in any way since I lived just 15 minutes away. I made the bare minimum of effort in most of my classes simply because I hated that I had been forced into doing something I didn't want to do. It was a struggle, but I made it through the first year with average grades.

The second year began and sometime in October, I received a letter informing me that I would not receive the same financial aid package as I had the previous year because the University had run out of funding. Since we couldn't pay the bill, I was "administratively withdrawn". My job at the local drugstore had been my mainstay up until that point, so I approached my manager about working there full time now that I wouldn't be going back to school. Unfortunately there were no full time spots available, but I would be first on his list of people to call for any shifts that opened up. I appreciated it, but also began looking around for my first full time job. It never even occurred to me to just continue on with my piddly part time job now that I could work full time - the opportunity arose, so naturally I would put in the effort to increase my earning potential.

To make a long story short, I did eventually finish my degree and now that I've arrived at a place in my career where I'm comfortable enough financially for my husband to be able to stay at home with our son, I can say that I understand now why my going to college was so important to my mother. I see now that she didn't want me to have to work like she did and she knew one way to improve my chances of avoiing her fate was for me to finish college. She was right. I think the vast majority of the opportunities I've had have been the direct result of having a BA on my resume. Every experience I've had has brought me to the place I am now, none of it would have happened if she hadn't pushed me into finishing college.

Even if I had not been able to complete my studies, there isn't a shadow of a doubt in my mind that I would be a part of the work force. Barring marrying into money, a thought which honestly never even entered into my mind, I knew that I had to work if I wanted to survive. My mother had a cousin who spent her entire adult life on welfare, she often used that cousin as an example of what not to do and made it painfully obvious how disappointed she would be in me if I chose to be that lazy and ineffectual in my own life. As a result, not working was just not an option for me... the last thing I'd ever want to do would be to make my mother ashamed of me, not after everything she had sacrificed to make sure we had a roof over our heads and food on the table. It would have been a slap in the face.

Learn more about this author, Tina Kelleher.
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Disagree

1 of 4

by Carol Gioia

Working mothers raise working daughters is an inaccurate generalization of the behavior of women. The statement is presented often enough to classify as an erroneous myth propagated in attempted efforts to discern understanding of mothers and daughters.

Whether a daughter grows up and goes into the workforce or becomes a full time homemaker is not predetermined by the road her mother traveled. Life circumstances dictate a woman's decision to combine the roles of homemaker and working woman. Working mothers simply role model for their daughters that doing a good job of both is possbile.

Many daughters grow up watching the angst their mothers experience when not able to be in two places at once. These daughters often determine in their mind that when the time comes they will not put themselves in the position of being guilt ridden about not being there for their children. Because "life is what happens when we are making other plans," their dream of being a full time mom may be shattered by the reality of financial hardship. They will suddenly find themselves in their "mother's shoes."

The economic climate of the times is the ruling factor when a woman makes the choice to simultaneously take on the two major life roles of mother and working woman. For some women there is no debate involved in the decision; family financial well being leaves no room for personal choice.

All mothers strive to raise their daughters to be independent and self sufficient. They also attempt to instill a good work ethic through example. It is no secret that stay at home mothers work as hard, if not harder, than their working counterparts. The difference is the level of compensation, which for stay at home mothers is zero. Girls catch on to this irony of life at an early age.

Most girls nowadays experience their mothers in both roles at one time or another. Many women alternate working and staying home to correlate with their family's needs. What daughters learn from their mothers is that women will do whatever it takes to insure the health and well being of their family. Sometimes that means being on the homefront; other times it can mean working for that second paycheck.

Girls from single parent families see only one side of the coin, but they know the other side is potentially available to them, depending on their adult life circumstance. They learn from their mothers to be capable and willing to fulfill the roles of homemaker and breadwinner should the need arise.

Working women are often very successful in their careers. A driving force for their ambition is to justify the time spent away from their children. Like stay at home mothers, a working woman's pivotal focus is her family. She may not physically "be there" but she is always mentally present and daughters of these women assimilate the same dedication and apply it when necessary to their own situation. This reality should not be interpreted as "working mothers raising working daughters."

When my older daughters began to raise families they were adamant their children would have a stay at home mom. When economic reality set in, they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and did what they had to do, i.e. join the leagues of working mothers, as I had done when they were young. When finances allowed, they stayed home until their children were grown and independent. They had not been "raised" to work, but they had learned to be flexible and sensitive to the needs of their families.

My youngest daughter did not have the luxury of choice. She often lamented that she wished she could be home all the time for her children like I had been when she was a child. Her memory was somewhat flawed, for I worked all through her childhood and only stayed home with her the last years of high school. I felt exonerated from years of self imposed guilt for being a "working mother."

Whether mothers work outside the home, or work as homemakers, they have the same dreams for their daughters.

Being successful at raising independent, self sufficient, flexible daughters who will confidently follow their own path is every mother's goal.

Learn more about this author, Carol Gioia.
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