Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – one side

Free translation of a report published in Época magazine, nº 474, on July 18^th 2007 – Globo (Brazil)

 Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children

Celso Masson, Martha Mendonça e Solange Azevedo

Advantages of having a job, according to the report:

For the mother	For the family	Considerations about the labor market
She has professional satisfaction	The mother who has a job doesn’t throw onto her kids the frustrations for interrupting her career	Women are conquering space in the labor market
The woman doesn’t feel isolated or bored (feelings that could cause depression)	The mother’s income keeps the standard of living for the kids	Interrupting a career temporarily, in order to take care of children, affects the professional future
The woman isn’t seen as “unoccupied”	The mother who is self-sufficient economically assures a better quality of life for her kids	Women who stop working are outdated and not able anymore
She doesn’t suffer prejudice at home	The mother who has a job contributes to her family security, if her husband is fired	Employers look for consistent curriculums
As she has financial independence, she doesn’t become vulnerable	The mother who has a job contributes to her family security, if her husband dies	Women are more productive than men
She has emancipation	The husband can help at home (in some countries, maternity leave is a couple’s right)	Women can be creative and look for compensative activities, on the financial and professional satisfaction points of view
Professional ascent is an essential condition for the conquest of equal rights	The father is not only required to take responsibilities at home, but also makes a point of assuming this role
When children grow up, the mother will not feel worthless
If she leaves her job, she can feel as an intruder at home, of which she no longer has control.
The work at home is not paid.

You can also see:

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – another side

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Analysis

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: Por que as mães querem deixar o emprego para ficar com os filhos – um lado

 

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – another side

Free translation of a report published in Época magazine, nº 474, on July 18^th 2007 – Globo (Brazil)

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children

Celso Masson, Martha Mendonça e Solange Azevedo

Advantages of staying home, according to the report:

For the mother	For the family	Considerations about the labor market
She doesn’t feel guilt	There is more dedication to the family	More than half of women want to leave their jobs (Brazilian Survey – Ibope 2006)
The mother who stays home takes care of the children; the mother who has a job doesn’t look after both work and children	More time with kids leads to a true connection between them and the mother; it takes down the “quality time” concept once and for all	5,6 million of American women left their jobs in 2005
Staying home is a symbol of status	Mothers who don’t pick the children up at school and don’t meet the kids’ friends are cruel	Mothers have the option to work at home, without a strict schedule
She doesn’t sacrifice her personal life	Children are not “outsourced”	Even if the work at home isn’t paid, it corresponds to 60% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the USA
She doesn’t suffer with competition	The mother is always at home; she doesn’t arrive after “the children are sleeping”	Women that have a job earn 30% less than men
She doesn’t suffer from work-related stress		The informality of the female labor is bigger
There is intelligent life among “entrance-school-mothers”		The female work is depreciated, because the employers think that mothers concentrate less and produce less
She has more time		Women that carry on with their careers find they are imprisoned inside a management system built for men
		Working women in part-time jobs are not taken seriously and lose opportunities

Advantages for the husband were not listed.

_________________________

You can also see:

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – one side

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Analysis

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: Por que as mães estão deixando o emprego para ficar com os filhos – outro lado

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Analysis

The report text is very complete, plentiful with as many arguments against mothers who have a job as in favor of them. They present few statistic data and (still) a lot of prejudice, on both sides.

But, whereas the text forwards to impartiality, the images reveal only the good side of staying home (the mothers with their children).

And, at the same time, the bad side of keeping a job. Both the cover of Epoca magazine and on the first page of the report show an unmoving mother seen from a child perspective, from the waistline down, without a face (and, possibly, with much guilt).

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children

Época Magazine

This image is recurrent when the matter refers to “mothers who have a job”. According to the Discourse Analysis studies, there is a natural tendency to maintain everything in the same way during the discourse: i.e. a typical paraphrase. In the Interdiscourse (Discursive Memory), a discourse is always related to another one, and it’s easy to see this feedback:

You can also see:

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – one side

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – another side

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: Por que as mães querem deixar o emprego para ficar com os filhos – análise

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Marusia speaks

In the photographs of reports like “Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children”, it seems like the mothers have (literally) lost their heads. These mothers don’t have hearts, too. So, even if a text values the mother who carries on with her professional career, the images say the opposite, feeding the guilt, tagging the situation as if it was an abandonment.

I have even a guess about who took the photos for those reports:

The Red Queen, of Alice in Wonderland: “Off with their heads!”

I’d rather be:

• A full-time professional when I am at work (and my children at school); and
• A full-time mother when I am with my kids.
• But, above all, I prefer keeping my identity: being Marusia (with a head and a heart), full-time, all the time.

______________________

You can also see:

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – one side

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – another side

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Analysis

This post in Portuguese: Por que as mães querem deixar o emprego para ficar com os filhos – Marusia fala