Maternal Employment Affects Child Development

Maternal Employment Affects Child Development

It has been said that in the early years of child development, the child’s mind is like a sponge. The child grows at an extraordinary pace that is unparalleled in any other phase of life during the first five years. It is amid these years that the brain experiences its most remarkable growth: language blooms, basic motor skills advance, thinking becomes more complex, and socio-emotional development enables the child to start to understand their feelings and those of others (NYU Child Study Center, n.d.). Parents play a key role in their child’s development because they are their child’s first and most influential teachers. What children learn from parents in the first few years of their lives will

However, several researches have shown that when mothers return to work shortly after giving birth, it had deleterious impact on the children’s development (Clark, 2010). According to Hoffman (as cited by Ruhm, 2004), the stress of maternal employment may result in lesser and lower quality interactions between mother and child. Although maternal employment may give the child a better life in the future, once the prime period of a child’s development is over, it will not return again. To put it simply: money can always be earned again, but time can never be reversed. In addition, Clark (2010) also highlighted that recent research suggests that children can benefit if mothers postpone a return to work for at least a full year. With these in mind, we can conclude that during infancy, maternal investments are far more important than the financial boost a mother can give the child as it plays a significant role in advancing child

The nurturance and stimulation from mothers influence and shape early development in children (Thompson, as cited in Lee, 2007). Mothers have the most contact with the child if they stay at home, and children are mostly influenced by close family relationships in the early years. This means mothers are in a unique position to help shape how their children learn, think and develop. Mothers can help encourage their children’s intellectual abilities by helping their children make sense of the world around them. When an infant shows interest in an object, mothers can help the child touch and explore the item, as well as saying what the object is. For example, when an infant looks intently at a toy rattle, the parent might pick up the item and place it in the infants hand saying: “Does Lizzie want the rattle?” and then shaking the rattle to demonstrate what it does. This is just one example of how a mother can encourage cognitive development. In addition to this, according to a study done by Ruhm (2004), maternal employment in the first three years is strongly negatively related to lower cognitive skills in young children tested by high quality assessments. This substantiates our point on how mothers are a catalyst in stimulating cognitive development in their