We Need to Change the Conversation About Moms and Work to Include Other Perspectives
To read most of what the Internet has to offer on the subject of working moms, one would think that staying at home with kids is all drudgery, financial hardship and career suicide
By Laura Hanby Hudgens
There seems to be no shortage recently of articles and posts calling for affordable child care and paid maternity leave. Rightly so. Women are nearly 47 percent of the U.S. civilian workforce . Of the 74.6 million women in the workforce, more than 70 percent are mothers of children under 18 years of age, and the productivity of women accounts for nearly a quarter of the GDP . Families and children deserve better options, and the U.S. economy would benefit from more family-friendly policies.
Yet, with 43 percent of highly qualified women with children leaving their jobs , perhaps how and why to keep women in the workforce isn’t the only pertinent discussion. While no doubt some mothers leave their jobs because of a lack of viable working options, many choose to stay at home because of the innumerable joys and benefits of being a stay-at-home parent.
