Working mums are bad mums

Welcome to this week's first cautionary tale.

Headlines are blazing upon the announcement of data from a UK study declaring "Working mothers' children unfit". What do they mean? Oh well, that apparently women who work more than 20 hours per week end up with fat, lonely and basically maladjusted 5 year olds.

And they didn't even bother to look at the male partners because they decided that the women's working hours fluctuated more. Professor Catherine Law, who led the study, is careful to state that this study does not mean that women should not work, rather parents need to be better supported. But seriously. This is the same research group that found that children are more likely to be overweight by the age of 3 if their mothers work. These results will inevitably be used against women in some form or another.

Sally Russell, a spokesman for Netmums, said: "The stress and guilt associated with being a working mum is something we are all too well aware of. This report adds to that guilt.

"With many more mums having no choice but to work these days and with government policy actively encouraging it, it is difficult to know how mums can do better. "

We should be applauding mothers for returning to work and managing their households and not 1) not punishing them for working out of desire or necessity or 2) pitting women who work and women who do not work in paid employment against one another. This research, whether it was intented or not, only fuels already entrenched debates about motherhood and who is a 'good' mum and who is a 'bad' mum.

Mums penalised in the workplace

It's no secret that being a mum is hard work. According to new research from Cornell University, being a mum is literally hard when it comes the paid workforce. A survey of women shows that the wage gap between mothers and childless women is actually larger than the wage gap between women and men...and it's a big one: $11,000

Using fake resumes for two equally qualified candidates–one childless, one a mum—the researchers found that the mother was 100% less likely to be hired when she applied for a position. Mothers were consistently ranked as less competent and less committed than childless women.

On the other hand, fathers got higher ratings than childless men. The researchers used more fake resumes to apply for 638 jobs over 18-months. Childless women got 2.1 times as many interview requests as mothers with similar credentials. There was no difference among fathers and childless men, however.

Researcher Shelley Correll is not surprised by the findings:

"I was not surprised to find that mothers were discriminated against, but I was very surprised by the magnitude of the discrimination. With gender or race, we often talk about the subtle ways that stereotypes are disadvantaging. With mothers, the effects were huge, such as being about 100% less likely to be recommended for hire than childless women and being offered much lower starting salaries."

What do you think? Have you experienced such discrimination?

breastfeeding still a big no-no

'Workplaces 'not breastfeeding-friendly' http://au.news.yahoo.com/070507/2/13dgp.html:

'Australian mothers are forced to wean their babies off breast milk too early because workplaces are not "breastfeeding-friendly", a public inquiry has been told'.

Ya think? As if this is really a surprise to anyone but the Howard government.....