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British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
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Ultraprison!
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
What?!? Women who don't dedicate 100% of their entire lives to their kids? GET YER PITCHFORKS, EVERYONE!
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VioletBlue
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
Yes, men are parents, too, but most of the time never do quite the job that Mom does.
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greengrey
09/29/09

@VioletBlue: This idea is sexist bullshit and is damaging towards men AND women.
No points.
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jairip
09/29/09

@VioletBlue:
My husband is a way better parent than I am, thank you very much.

SuperDad is the new Black where I live.
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emilyanne
09/29/09

@jairip: Personally I like to think that my husband and I are both equally incompetent where parenting goes. Our children are raising themselves like feral beasts, you should all be very very scared.
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bess marvin, girl detective
09/29/09

@greengrey: she didn't say all the time, she said most of time.

i think we can all agree that women are generally the caretakers of the world. to ignore the number of fatherless homes versus motherless homes is just silly.
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rofling_medusa
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
Men are parents too men are parents too men are parents too men are parents too men are parents too.
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gangey
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
Didn't Petunia Dursley stay at home with her sweet ickle Diddykins? Just sayin'.
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sleepeatread
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
Guess I'd be healthier too if I had a personal chef 24/7
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BiteMeMitchell!
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
Hey look, yet another way to make working mothers feel guilty, even though for most families (especially in ridiculously high-cost-of-living Britain) both parents working is more or less essential.
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babyruthless
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
I have some training in statistical methods, and I think I can shed some light on the mom/dad/parent debate.

First, you will almost never see studies focus on dads' working habits. The reason isn't simple sexism, though. It's because virtually all men work. Thus, it is really hard to get a study together that's large enough to get enough non-working men to be statistically significant.

Then, because dads' working habits aren't that important (statistically, because there is so little variation), they tend not to be collected. I haven't read these studies because I can't seem to get to any of the BBC/Daily Mail/Guardian links above, and the synopsis provided here doesn't list the name of the study or its authors, so I can't do a Scholar search. However, from what I know about statistical surveys, the statisticians who run the numbers only very rarely write the survey themselves. They generally purchase or otherwise acquire government or privately collected data. Thus, even if they wanted to use data on men, it's probably not there. Don't blame the study's authors for that--if you're holding out for perfect data, you'll never get anything done.

Lastly, because such data on men's working habits isn't often collected, researchers can't even pool together moms+dads=parents working habits. They only have half the equation.

So what I'm saying is, cut the researchers some slack. I can't read the original article (if someone can find me the title and authors or a link, though I'll take a look) but I bet that they have pretty measured language. This seems like a classic case of the media grossly simplifying and abusing a scholarly article.
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SarahMC
09/29/09

@babyruthless: I completely understand what you're saying and you are right that science reporting is almost always the culprit when offensive articles like these are published.

I still question why they could not have used the word "parent" instead of gendering it by only using "mother."
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babyruthless
09/29/09

@SarahMC: Because they only were able to use data on women, for reasons postulated above. It would be shoddy science to refer to "parent" if all you were testing on was data on women. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a short discussion on the part of the researchers that they think that these result might extend to having one parent at home, blah, blah, but if they didn't do research using "parents working" as a variable, they can't report it as such.
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SarahMC
09/29/09

@babyruthless: They were only able to use data on women, which is why the results are skewed. Children of working moms may not be unhealthier if their dads are at home. This study isn't useful at all.
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GoldenRatioφ (aka -girl11)
09/29/09

@babyruthless: Good point. Unfortunately I"m in the sort of mood where the fact that they couldn't get enough data to do a study on dads is depressing enough.

Also- they could have done a combined study- "parent" that stayed home, throwing those few house-dads in with the house-moms. While it's entirely plausible they couldn't get enough data from dads-at-home alone, it seems that for the purposes of this study, they could have just used stay-at-home parents of either gender.
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babyruthless
09/29/09

@goldengirl11: They could have gotten data based on stay-at-home parents, but only if either:
1) they conducted the survey themselves (which I do not know whether or not they did) and asked that question
or
2) the data that they used happened to ask about fathers' working habits. If it did, then they can create a new variable, "parent at home" which would be a 1 if either mom or dad (or both, I suppose) stays at home, and 0 otherwise.

But, you need data on dads to do either of these things...if they collected the data themselves, then I think it was poor form not to collect from both parents. However, if they just received government data, then it is the case that the study authors are just doing their best with what they have.

Note to all:
Just because these authors aren't allowed to draw the conclusion "kids who have at least one parent stay home are healthier/have lower BMI" doesn't mean that you can't. Five bucks says that they wish they could have, but didn't have the data to make that conclusion--the best conclusion they could draw, based on their data was that "kids who have a stay-at-home mom are healthier/have lower BMI." In fact, if I were a science reporter, this is a conclusion that I would draw in my article. But I'm not, so I don't.
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GoldenRatioφ (aka -girl11)
09/29/09

@babyruthless: I didn't even consider the possibility they didn't get the data themselves. Naptime yet?
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LolaQuinn is full of beans
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
This study should have known better than to focus solely on moms. How ridiculous. They should have considered the schedules of both (or more) caregivers if more than one primary caregiver exists. I hope any follow-up studies account for that.
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Ms Meghan
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
I get what the article says. Unsupervised kids will eat whatever. When I was in middle school and rather depressed about the whole thing, I would come home and eat a bag of microwave popcorn and drink hot chocolate every day. If my mom was home, she would never have let me. But we didn't have a lot of healthy options either, and healthy eating habits weren't modeled when my parents were around.

All that being said, I think if healthy options are available, and kids are taught healthy eating habits then it doesn't matter if the mom works or not.
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greengrey
09/29/09

@Ms Meghan: Working parents =/= unsupervised.
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LolaQuinn is full of beans
09/29/09

@Ms Meghan: Bag of popcorn and half a box of cookies with milk. But I would have done it anyway even if my mom was home. Oh, but I guess my mom should have stayed home and sacrificed the paycheck...because THAT always helps with purchasing expensive healthy foods.
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linnyt is a walking cliché
09/29/09

@Ms Meghan: cheese on a plate, melted in the microwave. sometimes i would use a tortillia too.
i think my mom was home though. she was just going through school and forgot we existed for a while.
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jeccat
09/29/09

@Ms Meghan: Wonder bread, fried in margarine, with a chaser of "Diff'rent Strokes" episodes. I blame my working mom for making me into the unhealthy wreck I am today! I probably would have gotten a second PhD and would have biked more than a measly 80 miles this weekend if my mom had stayed home.
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quickqueenof
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
Any mom, stay at home or working, can prevent her kids from eating "crisps and sweets" by NOT BUYING THEM. My mom (who worked) did that and guess what? WE DIDN'T EAT THAT GARBAGE. Duh.
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keldo
09/29/09

@quickqueenof: Yes, I've been a stay at home AND a working mom. I never bought soda or chips for my kid in either case. It's quite simple - until they have buying power they eat what's in the fridge.
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Snowbunny
09/29/09

@quickqueenof: I know that's what prevents adult me from coming home and guzzling sweets. "I really want some sour cream and onion potato chips...but there are none...and the store is like a two minute drive away...plus there's that tricky intersection...bahhh apple it is."
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HidingInCanada
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
If my mother had NOT worked, she would have been depressed. No matter how much more time she would have had to devote to me, an unhappy mother probably would have fucked me up more. She has always told me that a separate "life of the mind" was necessary for her -- that she would have gone mad long ago if she had given up writing and simply taken care of dad, the house, and myself. (This is just her experience - I know some incredible, inspirational stay at home moms, including some neighborhood "den mothers" who not only took care of their own kids, but the entire block as well, and who loved doing it.)

I think I probably would have come out super damaged if my mother had been unhappy and resentful of my presence during my childhood. And I thank her every day for setting such a strong example for me to follow now.

But hey, my mum worked from home. I still had the "fresh meals" and exercise that this study is talking about, even though I would get into boatloads of trouble if I disturbed her study.
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JZee
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
Dunno, that kid in the picture seems to be about to eat an entire tray of lovingly home-baked gingerbread. I'm not convinced that's so healthy.
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Anna N.
09/29/09

@JZee: Yeah, I was wondering why she didn't whip up a batch of carrots or something.
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BlondeGrlz
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
This all comes down to time. EVERYONE eats healthier and gets more exercise when they don't have to be at work 40+ hours a week.
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morninggloria
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
Dear Women:

Marry a rich guy.

Love,
This story
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greengrey
09/29/09

@morninggloria: I think my mom writes for the Daily Mail.
Marry a rich guy!
Have babies!
Work is HARD!
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Snowbunny
09/29/09

@greengrey: MATH is hard!
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BiteMeMitchell!
09/29/09

@morninggloria: Seriously, I'm beginning to think the media in general is trying to subliminally tell us that only people with an income of over £100k a year should breed.
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greengrey
09/29/09

@BiteMeMitchell!: $200k a year is the new $100k a year.
In a lot of areas, $100k (or £100k :P) isn't enough to support a spouse and a child.
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morninggloria
09/29/09

@greengrey: Definitely not here, unless you move to a shoddy townhouse in the exurbs and hubby takes a 90 minute train ride to work each way.
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Grim Reaper of the Forest
09/29/09

@greengrey: Well, since our combined income is less than $100K, I guess my husband and I are screwed.
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BiteMeMitchell!
09/29/09

@morninggloria: I have friends (a couple) who live in London and earn around £90k between them a year. They had their first child this year, and even though they have what most people would consider fairly good incomes, she tells me that if it weren't for the Working Tax Credit bump they got for having a child, they would probably be really struggling. As it is they live in a fairly shitty area of East London in a house that they've more or less outgrown what with having the baby and all. I seriously don't know how families with lower incomes manage, and I'm sure the last thing they need is a lecture on their bad parenting from the Guardian or the Daily Fail.
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emilyanne
09/29/09

@BiteMeMitchell!: seriously. That would be my scenario had my husband not been sent to new york where our standard of life has improved tenfold. London is increasingly impossible to live in - we would have been screwed if we'd stayed, as it is if we go back then some obscure part of the country beckons as we certainly can't buy and rentings getting increasingly pricey.
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MissFiFi
09/29/09

In reply to British Researchers: Kids Healthier When Moms Don't Work
Damned if we do and damned if we don't. I swear the older I get, the more pressure there is on women to be everything to everyone.
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Penny
09/29/09

@MissFiFi: More choices mean more opinions about each choice. But, you know what they say about opinions.
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