Feminism and the Fight for Women's Rights: Are Our Children Suffering in the Process? 
by Crystal Dupay

Everything I had ever heard or read about motherhood was based on "balancing work and family." I had never seen an article that encouraged a mother to give up a career to stay at home with her children. In fact, it was quite to the contrary. Everybody and everything seemed to be saying that in order for your life to be worthwhile, you needed to have a career in addition to motherhood.

I was a "bra-burning" feminist before I was old enough to wear a bra. I grew up listening to songs like Helen Reddy’s "I Am Woman" and watching commercials that sang "I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan...," you know the rest. The idea of being a stay-at-home mother never entered my mind. I assumed that since women were no longer "oppressed" that I could do anything that I wanted to do, and letting a man support me while I wasted my brain raising children was just not an option. I’m giving you this background so that you will understand how unprepared I was for the feelings that I would have after my daughter was born. The thought of leaving her everyday to go to a job and let someone else raise her was heart-wrenching. I was shocked by my feelings and I didn’t know where to turn. Everything I had ever heard or read about motherhood was based on "balancing work and family." I had never seen an article that encouraged a mother to give up a career to stay at home with her children. In fact, it was quite to the contrary. Everybody and everything seemed to be saying that in order for your life to be worthwhile, you needed to have a career in addition to motherhood. I felt totally betrayed by my culture and also by the women who blazed the trail for women’s rights. It seems that the very women whom I cheered on as they fought for my rights had all but stripped me of my right to be an at-home mother with pride and dignity for my chosen profession.

A different perspective
I felt the need to write this article to give the mother who chooses to work a different perspective on her choice than she is given on a daily basis from television and magazines that always down play the necessity for mothers to be the primary care-givers of their children. I also wanted to remind mothers at home of the importance of their role and that it is O.K.to be proud of what you are doing for your children.

Most stay-at-home moms feel that if they talk about the benefits of staying at home that they are some how offending working mothers. I wish that a stay-at-home mother would have risked offending me and told me why being with my child was more important than any accomplishment I could achieve in my career.

Many of us stay-at-home moms sugar coat our views by saying that staying at home is the right choice for us but not for all mothers. Are we saying then, that our own children need the loving care of their mother on a daily basis but everyone’s children do not? The attitude that this is a purely personal choice and that what other mothers choose to do doesn’t affect you and yours is simply not true.

Consider these facts:

The labor force participation rate of married women with children under 6 years old has gone from 30% to 60% in the years between 1970 and 1991.

Nearly 75% of married women with children between the ages of 6 and 17 years were either employed or actively seeking employment in 1991.

The proportion of married, working mothers in two-parent families with children rose from 41% in 1975 to 64% in 1991. The predominant pattern in 1992 was for both parents to work outside the home

With these statistics in mind, consider these additional facts:

The number of arrests per 1,000 of 14 to 17 year olds who have committed a serious crime such as murder or rape, have risen from 34.4 in 1969 to 49.2 in 1990.

Larceny and theft per 1,000 of 14 to 17 year olds has gone from 17.4 in 1969 to 28.0 in 1990

(Statistics taken from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in United States, 1969,1979, and 1990.)

Youth are at greatest risk of violence after the regular school day. Youth between 12 and 17 are most at-risk of committing violent acts or being victims between 2:00 and 6:00PM (Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, 1997), a time when they are not in school and lack adult supervision. And experts estimate that nearly 5 million school-aged children spend time as latchkey kids without adult supervision during a typical week. This is an excellent argument for having at least one parent at home when the children get home from school.

What about our babies?
But what about our young children? Current reports from the U.S. Bureau of the Census and L.M. Casper Who’s Minding Our Preschoolers? indicate that 51% of preschoolers are in day care centers or in non-relative child care on a regular basis and that 45% of children under the age of 1 were in child care regularly. Recent research has proven that the first year is critical in the development of children. "Recent brain research suggests that warm, responsive child care is not only comforting for an infant; it is critical to healthy development."-Rethinking the Brain: New Insights into Early Development -Families and Work Institute (1997)

Now, you may respond that children can receive warm and responsive child care in a day care setting. But please consider this:

A four-state study of quality in child care centers found only 14% to be rated as good quality. Cost ,Quality and Child Outcomes in Child Care Centers, (Executive Summary) University of Colorado at Denver (1995)

13% of regulated and 50% on nonregulated family child care providers offer care that is inadequate. The Study of Children in Family Child Care and Relative Care, Families and Work Institute (1994)

"The quality of services provided by most centers was rated as barely adequate". The National Child Care Staffing Study (Executive Summary), National Center for the Early Childhood Workforce (1989)

Ultimately, it's our own choice
Do we really want to trust our child’s early brain and emotional development to centers and sitters that are rated as substandard? Knowing how critical those first years are in a child’s development, doesn’t it make sense that the role of a mother at home is not only important to her own children but to the next generation of our society? In another study cited in the book Home By Choice by Brenda Hunter, Ph.D., Carolee Howes, a psychologist at UCLA conducted a study of eighty children. She concluded that toddlers who had entered day care in their first year of life were more influenced by caregivers/teachers than their families. Dr. Hunter writes concerning this study, "As we give our very young children to others to rear, what’s at issue is not only their attachment to us, but also our power to influence them later on. That’s a lot to put at risk for any reason."

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