To ask if people judge single mums for not working?

[PigsCanSoar]

I have a 11 m/o, and am a 22 year old single mum. I have handed in my notice to work now, as I don't feel he is ready to be left yet. He has always been very clingy, he will happily go off and play with anyone if I am there, but as soon as I leave the room he will just cry and cry.
He is also still breastfeeding every 2-3 hours, and ideally I would like to let him self wean up until 2.

I have no doubts about this being best for DS, and am planning to stay with him until 2 then look for a job again, but I just feel a bit anxious about actually telling people this, as since he was born it seems to have been constant "so when are you going back to work then" off everyone.

I am very lucky to be back living with my mum, so money isn't much of an issue as this will just postpone moving out for a bit.
So there's no necessity to leave him before he's ready, but I just feel like I'll look "lazy" for not going back yet.

whats talking from experience here. Watching my mum work on NMW did contribute to my work mindset now. I believe the experience just makes ou more determined. Also the reason I waited ttc. Ahhh ignore me...

PS we are all bitter about something or other... .

Morethan - do you think before typing? The link was to wikip but the reference was a social science journal. so do you have any references to back up what what you say?

Faster no doubt there is a correlation between household income and child welfare, but this is:

1. A correlation of measurable aspects, so not the full picture
2. A correlation at a certain age. Meaning I doubt they are looking at a 2 year old and the affect parental income before that age affects life until 18.

3.A correlation: which is just that, not conclusive to say all children with a low income do badly in life, or all children with a high income do well. There are many outliers in anything of this type.

1. I am assuming savings have an affect as well as current income, and I have a fairly high amount, after working from 16-21 and saving the majority of that income until renting for a while at nearly 21.
2. I am not in a situation where household income affects accommodation, area we are living in or heating so on, as my mum lives in a fairly well off area in a 4 bed house with a garden.... So that is hardly going to have a negative affect on him.

Sorry Faster8 I thought*, it was a wiki article. I stand corrected.

Do you mean references that wiki articles, suggestions etc are not acceptable?
No, just that they are not accepted at any college my dc attended, institutions I attended, and the college where I worked.

more than...I do wonder if you are for real.

I linked to Wikipedia, that referenced a social science journal see footnote 12 on the Wikip page. if I wanted to use that 'for a college reference' I would quote the journal, not Wikipedia. for MN, a wiki page that is backed up by the journal, ca suffit!

Faster

Totally lost, you asked me a question and I believe I gave you an answer. I also stated before the answer, see previous post, I had wrongly assumed you were relating to a wiki article, which you clearly weren't.

I don't see how that is so difficult to understand.....

Good old taxpayers eh? Good old gran? Yeah why not, take it easy.

OTOH, OP may be freeing up paid work for someone who is currently unemployed and on benefits. If she went back to work, unless she was well paid, she would be entitled to in-work benefits, so the effect to the taxpayer may be completely neutral.

I know many sahp's both single and married on benefits or their dh having WTC where if the sahp worked they would receive more benefit.
Myself included, as personally at the present I receive no benefit at all. If I was to work I would receive WTC at a cost to tax payers.

lowflying you are of course right.

And indeed I was not suggesting that household income was the only factor, or the deciding factor. There will always be cases where a child's outcomes fly in the face of prediction based on income.

I am such a child. I grew up in a very low income family (though not workless), yet my outcomes have been highly positive; good physical and mental health, sustained long term partnership, well educated, successful career yadda yadda.

However, the fact stands that if we're citing evidence then we can't fail to mention the income factor. It does seem to over ride most other factors in the outcomes I mention. Except the educational standard of the mother, which seems to be the main indicator of predicted educational success of the child, irrespective of income (though also irrespective of whether she works of stays home interestingly. )

As a country we are shockingly socailly immobile. It is one of the things we should be ashamed of.

So then word, is there not more of a correlation between less educated mothers meaning less educated children (as a big generalisation here) and less educated mothers (again a big generalisation) being more likely to have a lower income?
So it is irrelevant if or where the mum is working, as it is more to do with her academic intelligence?

lowfly - see
www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2431/9/53

The social determinants of child health: variations across health outcomes ? a population-based cross-sectional analysis

"Conclusion: There appears to be evidence of an income gradient for certain child health outcomes, even after controlling for other traditional measures of socioeconomic status."

income still relates to child health outcome after controlling mothers educational level.

Logically, I would think a SAHM would actually find it easier to keep children healthier, as she would have more time to cook rather than eating out/buying processed snacks or quick food if too rushed, easier to breastfeed until natural term, which has health benefits such as reduced ear infections mentioned in that article, and better mental health from solid early attachments, which can be disrupted in some children if not ready for childcare.

It still seems to me to be more an issue of parenting/awareness/education that happens to correlate with earning level. Money doesn't make you a good parent, or make your children healthy past a certain point. Once you have enough to afford a clean heated house and food then the rest is down to parenting.

lowflying

I suspect it is a slippery mixture of the two. That would be my gut feeling anyway.
Educational attainment clearly is affected by family income, but not as much as the mother's educational attainment. Or perhaps a way of looking at it might be that the mother's high educational attainment can overcome the usual impact of income. That said, well educated mothers do tend to be in higher socio groupings.

Interestingly, the mother's educational attainment doesn't appear to be able to overcome the other impacts income has. Which is odd.

Sorry cross posts.

You would think so lowflying but the evidence just doesn't support it.

There is no evidence that having a SAHP affects long term outcomes. Vis a vis health, here is a huge correlation to income. Whilst of course breastfeeding may have some benfits, the real adverse indicators are to do with poverty.

There is a very good recent study (I will dig it out when I get home for you). Well, when I say good, it's actually quite depressing.

But it tries to dissect in the particular why social mobility is so static. It points to all the things that a wealthy person can access, that a poorer person cannot. No matter how intelligent or attentive the parent.

It talks about cycles of advantage and disadvantage, that become unbreakable after a very early age. Quite disheartening.

society appears to encourage women to make particular choices for 'the sake of their DCs' but these choices do not appear to be grounded in evidence.

The thing to remember though, is that a correlation doesn't make it true, or even more likely for any one specific family. It depends on their individual situation. Across the UK that is the "graph shape" if you plot attainment, but within individual families rather than looking at millions averaged out, it can have very different affects.

For example earlier there was a few posters talking about living in very poor situations as children, and this making them turn into very determined educated adults with good jobs to avoid this for themselves. Whereas someone who "has it all" as a child may feel no need to try hard in life as everything has just been given to them up until adulthood.

That's why personally I don't think averages and correlations are much use when looking at any individual case, rather than society as a whole.

Word, the problem here is the line between poverty having an affect (which undoubtedly it will in most cases), and a lower income having an affect, which has no reason to based on that alone, so suggests there are other factors involved.

lowflying of course the wider studies will not tell us if someone will buck the trend.

But they will tell us how likely it is.

I think we all like to comfort ourselves that they're not set in stone. But we ignore them at our peril. Or we just give each successive administration an excuse not to act. An excuse to blame the poor for being poor.

While all the time the gap between rich and poor widens. The middle disappears, having far more in common with the poor in terms of social mobility than they wish to accept.

I can't see how anyone from my background could cross the gulf today. Much harder than when I were a lass...

lowfly the document I linked to had removed other socio economic factors - using control groups so it was just looking at income....

.... but I agree with you 100% on this: For example earlier there was a few posters talking about living in very poor situations as children, and this making them turn into very determined educated adults with good jobs to avoid this for themselves. Whereas someone who "has it all" as a child may feel no need to try hard in life as everything has just been given to them up until adulthood.

lowflying current studies show that income appears to be growing in its influence, not lessening. Out stripping all other factors on children's outcomes (except the mother's educational attainment, which affects in turn the child's).

I know it's unpaletable. And the middle classes certainly don't want to accept it. But the reality is there....

It still seems to me to be more an issue of parenting/awareness/education that happens to correlate with earning level. Money doesn't make you a good parent, or make your children healthy past a certain point. Once you have enough to afford a clean heated house and food then the rest is down to parenting.

To me that is self-evident. If you have enough money to do the things to keep your children healthy, and you spend it wisely, how can having more disposable income make your children any healthier. Of course it can't! Of course many low income families don't spend what little they have optimally, but that hardly effects those that do.

this would make sense if the link were only talking about the lower end of the income scale - but it is talking about all incomes.

all word said I know it's unpalatable. And the middle classes certainly don't want to accept it. But the reality is there....

If the issue is awareness and parenting, then are we really saying that richer parents are more aware and better parents? Really?

Because it is the DC to rich parents that have the best outcomes.

And if it is a matter of awareness and education then why is social mobility more static than the 50s? Surely we are a better educated society? Surely the internet ahs to some extent democratised information?

The sad but unpalatable fact is that income is the main indicator of a child's longterm outcomes.