Kids of working moms

When her two daughters were born, Lynn Roussell would have given anything to be able to stay at home and watch them grow.

She lived in the Bay Area, however, and the high cost of living forced her to return to work only a few months after each birth.

"And I did exactly what I found out other mothers in the same situation were doing," noted Roussell, now living in Medford. "I cried all the way to work. Not just the first day or two, but for weeks."

Today, though, Roussell considers her 7- and 8½ -year-old daughters well-adjusted, intelligent and happy. And a new study says many kids of working moms are just that despite the worries of their parents.

The research, conducted by University of Texas professor Aletha Huston as part of a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study, indicates children of working mothers are on a par with those of stay-at-home moms in the areas of communication, intelligence and relationships.

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The study looked at 1,053 infants and their mothers, 580 of them working and 473 not.

The researchers read mothers’ 24-hour diaries, watched videotaped interactions between mothers and children and visited homes, assessing the children’s development at 15 months old, 2 years and 3 years.

They concluded that mothers’ personalities, beliefs and circumstances influenced the quality of parenting, overshadowing the influence of amount of time spent with their children. Infants bonded equally well with mothers who spent a lot of time and those who spent relatively little time with them, the study said.

"The amount of time (a mother spends with a child) isn’t as important as what she brings to the relationship," said Huston. The results were published in the March/April issue of Child Development. "The mother is an important source of care then, but she doesn’t have to be there 24 hours a day to build a strong relationship with her child."

Still, parents like Roussell, 44, a pediatric occupational therapist, find themselves doing what they can to make the most of time they do have. Roussell cut her work schedule back to part time to spend more time with her daughters.

"I think moms who work are more motivated to spend that quality time," she said.

Medford mother of two Wendy Rich, a grants manager who works with families for the social service agency Community Works, said most kids are likely to do just fine in cognitive abilities and social behavior when left with a quality caregiver. But bonding time with both parents is important for healthy family relationships.

"Working in the field I work in, kids we see who need the most help are kids whose parents don’t have time," Rich said.

"I definitely think that quality is really important. … I wouldn’t say, intellectually, kids would suffer being away from their parents part of the day so long as parents find that quality kind of time to spend with their kids."

It is about the kind of time parents find, agreed Michelle Jensen, who conducts parenting workshops as director of the Rogue Valley’s Parent Resource Center.

"There are a lot of good parents who work and lots of bad parents who stay home with the kids all day," Jensen said. "I don’t think you could say, because you stay home all day, your kids will or will not be well adjusted."

No matter how much time she devotes to her own children, Roussell surmised that most mothers would opt to spend less time at work and more time enjoying their children if they could.

Unfortunately, not all have that choice.

"Had I won a million dollars when I had my babies I would have taken a lot of years off. One of the reasons we moved to the Medford area rather than the Bay Area was so my children were not in child care as many hours," said Roussell.

"But to always assume that being home all day is the most nurturing and stimulating place to be isn’t always true. ... And I don’t think society as a whole feels that way. I think certain strong voices put that out there for us to fret about, but I don’t think every single person feels that way. Families do what they have to do not only to survive but to thrive."

Buffy Pollock is a free-lance writer living in Medford.E-mail her at buffypollock@juno.com.