Stay at Home Moms Are On the Rise

By: Hailey Wallschlaeger

            Many women in America have chosen to be stay-at-home mom’s. Chosen to watch their children grow up while their husbands maintain a steady job. However, today they are staying at home because they cannot find jobs that benefit their family enough to be willing to give up time with their children. These moms also agree that staying home with the children is a better decision; even if it means living on one income and cutting their spending, the benefit that children receive from being raised solely from their parents is easily worth it. An article from the Washington Post states, “20% of all married mothers with children under 18 stay home-half what it was in 1970. One in five children in the US today lives with a stay-at-home mother married to a working husband. While in 1970, 41% of children did.”

           

According to D’Vera Cohn of pewsocialtrends.org, “a growing share of stay-at-home mothers (6% in 2012 compared to 1% in 2000) say they are home with their children because they cannot find a job.” The amount of women in the workforce is also declining causing a lack of jobs for women with children. Women think that the opportunity cost of staying home with their children is much greater than working for a job that won’t even make a financial difference for their family. This decline in women in the workforce is very discouraging for future women wanting to get a job. Seeing this trend of a rise in stay at home moms is causing women to lose hope of finding a job and they may not push themselves to get an education knowing that it is so difficult.

According to Carol Morello of the Washington Post, “the shift is most noticeable among women who are immigrants and who do not have college educations.” This data shows that a college education is much more valuable now than it was in the past. The competition for jobs is much higher today and forces students to push their education as far as they can to have better chances of getting a successful job in the future.

Many women were interviewed in Lynchburg, VA to explain why they chose to stay at home than to get a job. A woman named Bethany Gail said, “For newborn care you are looking at an average of $800-1000 a month. That is somewhere around $12,000 a year. The average price for a three-year old to be in preschool ranged between $500-800 a month on average, so that’s around $7,000 a year. That didn’t factor in the cost of breakfast, lunch, or after-hours care. That’s why I chose to stay home rather than to send all my paychecks to a child-care provider.” Women like Bethany have some opportunities to get jobs but they know the money they make won’t be benefiting their family for the long run so they choose to abstain from working.

Works Cited

Kurtz, Annalyn. "Stay-at-home moms on the rise." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 8 Apr. 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2014. <http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/08/news/economy/stay-at-home-moms/index.html?iid=SF_E_River>.

Morello, Carol. "More moms stay at home, new research says." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 9 Apr. 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/more-moms-stay-at-home/2014/04/07/feb1f8bc-be91-11e3-b195-dd0c1174052c_story.html>.

"Stay-At-Home Mom Rates On The Rise." - WSET.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. <http://www.wset.com/story/25301458/stay-at-home-mom-rates-on-the-rise>.

"Stay-at-Home Mothers on the Rise." Pew Research Centers Social Demographic Trends Project RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. <http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/04/08/after-decades-of-decline-a-rise-in-stay-at-home-mothers/>.

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