Stay at home parents
Looking for an angle on this topic? - Have a look at the chapters in Stay-at-home-mothers: Dialogues and Debates. It's available through Sydney and Western Sydney Universities, or try googling the individual articles (in quotation marks) in case they're online somewhere.
By googling titles and authors, you might also be able to find abstracts from the papers given at this conference in July 2019: Beyond Mothering Myths
By googling titles and authors, you might also be able to find abstracts from the papers given at this conference in July 2019: Beyond Mothering Myths
Background information
Australia in relation to other (Western) countries -
Australian Institute of Family Studies - includes graph of male and female carer roles.
Parenting stats 2018 - not a reliable site but they're using good sources for stats.
Australian context: changing family structures
Working mums
Female household heads
Single parents
Feminism
Unemployment, difficulty of getting back into workplace
Overviews
- "The Mummy Curve" - Outlines key points affecting choice in Australia, especially differences between coupled and single/lone mums - it's more then 10 years old now so check statistics.
Reasons You Might Choose to Be a Stay-at-Home Parent
what's the point of the debate? - very simple outline of pros and cons that could be a good starting point
Why should you be a stay at home mum
One woman's reasons - may inspire ideas for interviews
Role of a stay at home Mum
"You would seriously struggle to hire one single person who would look after your children, clean your house, do your laundry, run all your errands, and plan, shop for and cook all your meals. And then get up to the baby umpteen times in the middle of the night.... Expecting a stay-at-home parent, whose full-time role is childcare, to also run the entire household, is a clear indication that we simply don’t recognise the work that childcare takes. It views traditionally feminised work as not really work at all. And it is a large part of why childcare professionals are so notoriously low paid." SMH
Definition:
MacMillan Dictionary
the Free dictionary - What is the difference between a homemaker and a stay at home mum?
Healthline parenthood -
Job skills for stay at home mum - job hunt,
See also working from home (more below) Will you includee or excluse them from your PIP definition?
Definition:
MacMillan Dictionary
the Free dictionary - What is the difference between a homemaker and a stay at home mum?
Healthline parenthood -
Job skills for stay at home mum - job hunt,
See also working from home (more below) Will you includee or excluse them from your PIP definition?
Impact on Wellbeing
(a) Socio-emotional
(b) Financial
Superannuation priotities - points out the major problem for mums happens much later in life (women live longer but have (much) less retirement income. If you want to know more about this , read Jane Caro's Accidental Feminism (NF 305.42)
parental leave issues - Us egs but good points (Except all egs are celebrities - what about ordinary people?)
(c) Cultural
(e) Educational
- 'As a new mum, I felt like I was failing and desperately alone'
- Psychological issues - readable overview by a clinical psychologist
(b) Financial
Superannuation priotities - points out the major problem for mums happens much later in life (women live longer but have (much) less retirement income. If you want to know more about this , read Jane Caro's Accidental Feminism (NF 305.42)
parental leave issues - Us egs but good points (Except all egs are celebrities - what about ordinary people?)
(c) Cultural
- (d) Religious
(e) Educational
Stay at home Dads
"In my experience, here’s the difference between a woman going home to be with her family and a man going home to be with his family: For men, it is assumed that work is the priority and they would have to prove themselves otherwise to raise any flags at the office. For women, it is assumed that family is the priority and they would have to prove themselves otherwise to continue rising up the ranks." [Mommy shorts: PREGNANCY NEEDS TO BE PART OF THE “WORKING PARENT” CONVERSATION]
- Stigma and Suspicion - outlines key issues for Dads - however study is only of upper middle class Dads (partner earns > $100 000/year). Does anyone research Dads at the other end of the spectrum - stay at home dads on unemployment benefits?
- Constructions of Primary Care-giving fathers - a PhD thesis that examines media representations of stay at home fathers. Read the abstract on ppviii-ix.
- Stay at home dads still struggle - Us, but points out gender pay gap as one reason for low numbers of stay at home Dads
- Stay at home fathers in Australia - Detailed report by Australian Institute of Family Studies
- Parents groups - points out that parents groups are actually mums' groups and not always welcoming to stay at home dads
- What's a Korean Man doing in the Kitchen? also identifies issues about abuse in day care centres
Social Stigma and the "Mommy Wars"
"But let's pause for a second and question whether that really matters. Sometimes we forget that motherhood is not a competition, and that no two women are the same. A SAHM has made a choice for herself and her family, weighing a number of factors, just as a working mum has. It doesn't mean one is a better mum than the other. There is no right and wrong beyond what is right and wrong for each woman." (More than just a stay at home mum)
Financial issues:
Financial issues:
Korean Parenting
" ...a significant proportion of Korean mothers' stories reveal a more pronounced gendered beliefs from their Korean husbands, while the impact of men from other ethnicities is less noticeable. As such, their strong motherhood identity and weak employment identity are the outcomes of intersection between multiple factors association with their pre-migration and post-migration factors." Narratives of stay-at-home mothers (case studies from England)
Tradition
Single mums
Difficulty of finding work
Tradition
- "Wise Mother, Good Wife": A Transcultural Discursive Construct in Modern Korea - argues that the gendered construction of motherhood is the result of (a) Confucian values and (b) C19th christian missionaries. She views this is partially liberating because it gives women power in the home that they don't have elsewhere in society.
- How the Asian mother is changing (Is this just in Western societies or does it reflect changes in china or Korea?)
- the value and meaning of the Korean family
Single mums
- The stigma of being a single mother
- Social stigma of being an unwed mother
- Single motherhood and shame
- A difficult and brave decision
Difficulty of finding work
- No place for a mother
- childcare burden derails women's careers
- Stress takes its toll on Korea’s working mothers includes reference to new laws
- 2004, 2007 statistics
- Baby boom or bust - includes work issues as reasons for delining birth rate statistics