An interesting tidbit from an American Sociological Association meeting session:
In a study of women's work/family arrangements, a number of women described themselves as 'stay-at-home moms' even though they worked 30 or 40 hours per week. When pressed, they said that they thought of themselves as stay-at-home moms if they were there when their children were awake.
Naturally, these women did not get much sleep themselves.
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This is something I have been saying for a long time (anyhow to my family and friends).
Whether or not a mother defines herself as an at-home mom depends on how she sees herself and what she considers her job to be (child raising or earning money).
Women who do 40 hours of paid work per week and call themselves at-home moms are probably rare. What is more common, at least in my experience, are mothers who work on the weekend or part-time or sell things and still consider themselves at-home moms. Moms who run paid child care centers in their homes also often see themselves as staying home with their kids.
Conversely, there are mothers who identify with "working mother" although they work less than 40 hours/week.
Some of the controversy between groups of moms misses the commonalities.
Bureau of Labor statistics miss this reality.
As always, I would add that at-home moms are working moms, just moms who work at child care!
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