Working mother

“ The baby should be nourished by his own mother—if she is healthy—and nothing can excuse her from the loving cares of parentage. But just as an ordinary unskilled working woman loves and cares for her child—and yet does ten hours of housework, to which no one objects; or just as an ordinary rich woman loves and cares for her child—and yet does ten or twelve hours of dancing, dining, riding, golfing, and bridge playing (to which no one objects!) —so could a skilled working woman spend six or eight hours at an appropriate trade, and still love and care for her child. ”

“ Moreover, the very existence of children whom the married pair have called into being is but an argument, on the one hand, for the father taking a larger share in their care, and on the other, for the lightening of the mother's multifarious burden by the better organization of all household work, as well as everything that belongs to child culture and care.
The poor working conditions she suffers under, and the uncertainty of her position, reduce many a woman's share in the married partnership to that of an employé in a sweated trade. ”

“ No, for to-day the social and economic evolution calls the working-woman to take her place among wage-earners, and takes away from her by force those duties which would be most dear to her! The mother must, in any event, leave her child, and often with the pain of knowing him to be abandoned. ”

“ It is a vital loss if a girl’s mother is away from home all day, leaving her after school hours to associates of whom the mother knows nothing and who may be most questionable in their influence on her developing character. In 145 instances, or in 22.4 percent of the total number of cases studied, the mother worked outside the home. Table VII gives a list of the occupations of working mothers, with the [Pg 171] number in each group. It will be seen that the women who went out for day’s work are much the largest group. ”

“ The working power of the mother has always been a prominent factor in human life. She is the worker par excellence, but her work is not such as to affect her economic status. Her living, all that she gets,—food, clothing, ornaments, amusements, luxuries,—these bear no relation to her power to produce wealth, to her services in the house, or to her motherhood. These things bear relation only to the man she marries, the man she depends on,—to how much he has and how much he is willing to give her. ”

“ The well-to-do mother is commonly able to devote herself to her infant and have assistance in this duty; the working class mother is single-handed, and has also to perform, unaided, all the duties of her household, including the washing and cooking for her husband and herself and possibly for several children. ”

“ If her children take the second place, she is worth nothing as a mother; if they take the first place, she is worth little as an outside worker. But in later life the two occupations need not clash. But although the elderly married woman may prove a valuable industrial organiser in the hotel, the residential chambers company, the hospital, the orphanage, or the college, it will only be by having served her apprenticeship, and taken honours as a house mistress and mother. ”

“ But if the mother is not prudent in all ways, what sort of an ensample is she, alas, to the daughters? And for those who have no children, certes it is not unworthy of any noble lady, after she has had care for her household, to betake her to some work, in order to avoid idleness, either working fine linen or silken apparel with rare broidery, or other things of the which she can make fitting use, and such occupations are wise, and prevent idle thoughts. ”

“ Practically all adult women were married, and the character of the productive work which an economic organisation allots to married women and the conditions of their labour decide very largely the position of the mother in society, and therefore, ultimately, the fate of her children. The fragmentary evidence which has been examined shows that, while the system of family industry lasted, it was so usual in the skilled and semi-skilled trades for women to share in the business life of their husbands that they were regarded as partners. ”

“ Mother mends my clothes, and teaches me herself, and works very hard in other ways, but she is quite bed-ridden, and we have scarcely anything but the trifle I make by working in the fields. It is very difficult to get a job at all sometimes, and if you could put me in the way of earning that money, Sir, it would make mother very happy. ”

“ But even assuming five hours to be the time every woman will have to give to her trade or profession, six days out of seven, the fact still remains that no mother will have to be separated from her children any longer than we are separated from our children to-day while they are at school. In present-day society mothers of the working class are often separated from their babies for nine and ten hours daily, and no social provision is made to care for their babies during their absence. ”

“ This devotion, much more than the hours immediately given to one's children, is the absorbing thing; the occupation which makes an earnest mother always go to any external activity with divided soul and dissipated energy. Therefore the mother, if she gives her children the share they need, can devote to social activities only her occasional attention. And for the same reason she should be entirely free from working to earn her living during the most critical years of the children's training. ”

“ Millions of American women today pursue full-time careers in addition to carrying out their duties as parents, balancing family, job, and community responsibilities. Whether they stay home with their children or become working mothers, mothers today care for their families and meet the new demands of our complex society with strength, courage, and quiet selflessness. ”

“ Year by year, day by day, there is a silently working but determined tendency for the sphere of women's domestic labors to contract itself." Even the training of her child is taken away from the mother by the "mighty and inexorable demands of modern civilization." ”

“ But in this case a mother must reckon that her children will occupy about ten years of her life, if she will herself give them the nursing and care which will make them fully efficient. And during these years—if her contribution in either direction is to have its full value—she must neither divide her powers by working for a living nor by constant public activity. ”

“ The new mother may be considerably over thirty-five, bordering on fifty perhaps, but she neither feels aged nor looks it, and is rather inclined to look beyond her home for full scope for her powers when thus set free from maternal cares. ”

“ A large percentage of them worked because of the necessity to supplement the family income rather than through choice; nevertheless, the fact that they do work outside the home has altered the pattern of family life and the relationships of family members. Working mothers must leave their young children in state-operated nurseries or with relatives and thereby relinquish much of their influence in molding the children into adults. ”

“ The duties of the young person have altered. Formerly at the age of eighteen, in the young person’s fiction, she was expected to relieve her invalid mother of household cares and brighten her aged father’s declining years. But mothers in 1899 refuse to become decrepit and take to the sofa merely because their daughters are [Pg 112] grown up, and fathers only require to be amused occasionally in the evening. ”

“ If the husband, on his farm, or in his factory, or store, has extra or increasing work, he forthwith hires more help; but as child after child add to the responsibilities and labors of the home, the mother struggles on unassisted, until at last she becomes a hopeless invalid, or sinks at middle age under her burdens, leaving her husband with his accumulated means to marry a younger woman, who sits in the parlor, hires plenty of servants—now considered quite necessary—and has a good time generally, on the savings of her predecessor. ”

“ Golden mourned him, now, missed his gossipy presence—and at the same time she was alive to the distinction it added to her slim gracefulness to wear black and look wan. She sobbed on Una’s shoulder; she said that she was lonely; and Una sturdily comforted her and looked for work.
One of the most familiar human combinations in the world is that of unemployed daughter and widowed mother. A thousand times you have seen the jobless daughter devoting all of her curiosity, all of her youth, to a widowed mother of small pleasantries, a small income, and a shabby security. ”

“ This shows at once that such service is no integral part of motherhood, or even of marriage; but is supposed to be the proper industrial position of women, as such.
Why is this so? Why, on the face of it, given a daughter and a son, should a form of service be expected of the one, which would be considered ignominious by the other?
The underlying reason is this. Industry, at its base, is a feminine function. The surplus energy of the mother does not manifest itself in noise, or combat, or display, but in productive industry. ”

“ At the same time the increase in the industrial employment of married women, with the consequent difficulty of proper care of young children by the mother in the home, has somewhat shifted the ground from a purely educational to a social and physical aspect. While it is agreed that the ideal place for a young child is the home under the supervision of its mother, the present industrial conditions often compel a mother to go out to work, and leave her children either shut up alone, or free to play about the streets, or in the care of a neighbour or professional “minder.” ”

“ When we have solved this question, we shall have solved a great human problem.
Mother-work includes the bearing and the rearing of children, the conduct of a home, and the placing of that home in the right social atmosphere and relations. It includes manual, intellectual, and spiritual labors. The one who lives and works, as God meant her to live and work, will never feel over-fatigue. Why do mothers often look so tired? It is because they too often do not have what every mother ought to have: education, rest, change, a Sabbath-day, individual income, intellectual interests, society. ”

“ Therefore, when she lives at home, what a special obligation is there to be her mother's comfort and dependence! Even though she acquire greater skill in household affairs, she should still resign herself to the subordinate place of assistant.
The thought that she is becoming useless is the chief dread of a woman who has been a managing worker all her life, and her daughter should carefully avoid bringing this to her mind, indeed, should so act that the ageing mother retains the management of the house, even though her labors diminish. ”

“ A daughter may be ever so thoroughly instructed in all womanly employments, yet if her mother retains the entire charge of every portion of the household labor,—the child simply following as she is bid,—there can be little opportunity for the development and exercise of her individual judgment. She naturally prefers to lean on one ever ready to relieve her from distasteful duties. ”

“ WE have all of us seen, with pity and regret, a sickly mother, burdened with the cares of her household. She has felt that there were employments, which no one could discharge as well as herself, modifications of duty, in which the interest of her husband, the welfare of her children, the comfort of the family, were concerned, which could not be deputed to another, without loss. ”

“ I find my clients amongst the mothers worn out with over-frequent child-bearing, and with two or three little ones around too young to guard themselves, while they have no time to guard them. It is enough for a woman at home to have the care, the clothing, the training of a large family of young children to look to; but it is a harder task when oftentimes the mother, who should be at home with her little ones, has to go out and work in the fields for wage to feed them when her presence is needed in the house. ”

“ She knew from observation that the married woman who attempts to do public work must neglect either it or home duties, and that the advent of children necessarily must compel the mother to withdraw practically from outside occupation. ”

“ What the food supply is in the hands of the housemaid we have seen. What the child is in the hands of the nursemaid, we may see anywhere. The parasitic woman by no means uses the time free of housework to devote herself to her children. A mother is essentially a worker. When a woman does not work it dries the very springs of motherhood. The idler she is, the less she does for her children. The rich man's children are as often an anxiety and disappointment to him as the poor man's.
The expense of the place is a thing of progressive dimensions. ”

“ Day after day I meet with poorly-clad and badly-fed but plucky mothers, who, though working very hard, make a much better job of home-life and look much better after their children than many mothers who have stalwart husbands living with them and working for them. ”

“ The daughters of workingmen, according to this writer, are good enough as fleshly stop-gaps, to be flung aside when a sufficient income makes the true wife possible—an honorable proceeding indeed! to say nothing of the children of such a temporary union, to whom the father can perform no duty, and leave no inheritance, save the inestimable one of a mother with a tainted name. ”