Homemaker or Career Woman: Life Course Factors and Racial
Influences among Middle Class Americans
Janet ZoUinger Giele*
INTRODUCTION
Today, the principal theory of marriage and its relationship to gender equality is that women's
status has improved and inequality between husbands and wives has declined. The
explanation is that marriage in traditional society was patriarchal. The husband was the
principal authority and chief provider, and the wife was second in authority as manager of
child care and household provision (Parsons and Bales, 1955; Goode, 1963). Changes in the
modem economy, however, undermined the traditional system that gave males greater
privilege. Employment of men in the extractive and manufacturing sectors fell while service
jobs that employ women expanded. At present, women constitute the majority of university
students around the world, and their participation in national economies is correlated with
economic growth {Economist, "AGuide to Womenomics," April 15,2006).
Cross-national evidence supports the thesis that marital relationships have become more
egalitarian and that women want to join men in the provider role. Among 15 European
countries surveyed by Bielenski and Wagner (2004) in 1998, actual male employment rates
were 73% but the preferred rate was 81 %, a gap of 8%. The gap between actual and preferred
rates for women (54%and 67%) was, however, an even higher 13%. Employment rates during
the 1950s from the Luxembourg Income Study for married and cohabiting mothers and fathers
also suggest that the dual earner-carer family is becoming the norm, in which wives and
husbands are both workers and parents (Gomick and Myers, 2003). Fathers' employment
rates in the 1990s varied from 82% to 95%. But employment rates for mothers ranged from a
low of 40% in Luxembourg and 53% in Germany, to more than 65% in the U.K., Canada, and
the U.S., and more than 75% in the Scandinavian countries (Gomick and Myers, 2003:60).
However, this picture of increasing gender crossover within egalitarian marriage has recently
been challenged by reports for the last two decades on women's domestic roles in American
and British family life. Arlie Hochschild (1990) in The Second Shift portrayed Joey's mother
as resentful of her disengaged husband and his abandonment of all the household drudgery
and child care responsibility to her. Catherine Hakim (2004) contended that the majority of
British and Spanish women preferred part-time to full-time work. In addition, recent books
and popular magazines in the U.S. have addressed the unexpected number of economically
successful and well-educated mothers who have left their careers for full-time homemaking
and motherhood (Belkin, 2003; Wamer, 2005). At the same time official statistics show a
* Brandeis University, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Waltham, MA, 02254, U.S.A.
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Joumal of Comparative Family Studies
slight decline in the rates of married women with preschoolers who are employed, down from
64% in 1998 to 60% in 2007 (Cohany and Sok, 2007). Taken together, the implicit message is
that the feminist revolution in the U.S. has stalled, and that there may be a setback in
progress toward gender equality in maniage.
This paper offers an initial assessment of these conflicting narratives on women's changing
status by addressing three aspects of the question. The first is theory and evidence of a
long-term trend toward gender equality in marriage. Second is evidence on persistence
versus reversal of gender equality in maniage. A third source is my own research on careeroriented and homemaker mothers which helps to reconcile these conflicting accounts. My
ultimate goal is to understand the bases of gender role differentiation and crossover within
marriage and their relation to the egalitarian ideal. This requires an examination both of
societal changes and the various life course pattems of individuals.
This research draws supporting evidence primarily from middle-class college educated women,
both black and white, in the United States. The basic issues, however, appear to be present
in all the developed nations, although they are addressed somewhat differently (Giele, 2006).
It may therefore be possible to generalize this analysis of the basic social and individual
dynamics of changing marriage and gender norms to other cases beyond the United States.
THE SOaOLOGICAL BASIS FOR GROWING EQUALITY IN MARRIAGE
Structural changes in the economy have created a new division of labor between paid work
and reproductive work in the family, and the consequences are especially felt in the marital
relationship. The new life experience of women (more education, fewer children, and longer
participation in the paid labor force) has changed the power balance between husbands and
wives as well as their goals and values. The upshot is that the traditional marriage norm,
where the husband is provider and ultimate authority, is being challenged by a new type of
marital regime and a new ethic of gender equality. Structural changes in the economy and in
women's and men's lives are undermining gender inequality and creating a more egalitarian
mind-set among maniage panners. Power relations between the sexes have become more
nearly level, and this is true in marriage as well. Each of the four principal factors that explain
this trend-historical, cultural, economic, and political-is the result of societal modernization.
The historical account focuses on worldwide modernization of markets, kinship, and political
systems and documents the growth of egalitarian ideas over time. In his monumental World
Revolution and Family Pattems, W.J. Goode (1963) described the growth of egalitarian
beliefs about proper relations in the family between older and younger people and between
women and men. He described many changes that included increasing freedom to choose a
mate, rising age at maniage, and more egalitarian relations between husbands and wives. His
review covered major cultures in the world: the West, Arabic Islam, sub-Saharan Africa,
India, China, and Japan.
The cultural account of growing gender equality focuses on the diffusion of egalitarian and
democratic values throughout the world. Inglehart and Norris (2003), based on their World
Values Survey of 74 societies, report that postindustrial states (those with greater life
expectancy and higher levels of energy consumption) are much more likely to favor equality
Homemaker or Career Woman
395
in their gender beliefs. Younger generations in every country are more egalitarian than the
older people. There is less of a gap in beliefs about gender equality between women and men
in any given society than between societies at different stages of development.
The economic explanation for a trend to egalitarian beliefs is that mutual respect and trust is
necessary for the smooth functioning of any highly complex society. The ideal of equality
serves as an integrative force to unite people with diverse interests as they pursue
. technological advancement and economic growth. Thus Durkheim ([1893] 1964) in The
Division of Labor in Society observed that more complex societies had greater functional
integration and organic solidarity. Parsons (1966) elaborated these ideas in his interpretation
of modernization as an evolutionary process in which individuals were freed from the ascriptive
hierarchies of kinship, age, and gender to attain full rights of citizenship. Kingsley Davis
(1984) made the most explicit connection between economic modernization and egalitarian
consequences for the family. The breadwinner system that had given greater privilege to
males for their provider status and a subordinate place to women for care of household and
children was being called into question. In a more advanced economy women were also
breadwinners, and they could use labor-saving devices to replace much oftheir unpaid labor
at home. Greater interdependence and trust between men and women are thus more likely to
develop in modem marriage when they are fostered by similar obligations ofthe two sexes in
both workplace and home.
Work by feminists and other political advocates, and growth of public policies tO integrate
work and family, is a fourth impetus for greater gender equality in marriage. Okin (1989) was
one ofthe first feminist scholars to call for "gender justice" in the family. Numerous studies
have documented the widespread growth of working-time policies, family leave, and services
such as child care in the developed world (Ruggie, 1984; Hemes, 1987; Orloff, 1996; O'Connor,
Orioff and Shaver, 1999; Lewis, 1998). Woman-friendly and family-friendly policies help
couples to integrate their productive and reproductive roles and at the same time realize a
mutual expectation of fairness (Giele, 2006).
Taken together, these themes in current scholarship point to a trend toward gender equality
that is evident not only in the workforce but in the family. The combination of societal
modernization, diffusion of egalitarian values, women's rising employment, and expanding
availability of child care services helps to account for the change. The resulting transformation
seems unlikely to be reversed.
CONFLICTING AMERICAN REPORTS ON EQUALITY IN MARRIAGE
Against the background of almost universal belief that women's status has improved relative
to men, a stream of skeptical reports has recently emerged in the United States that describe
an "opt-out revolution" among educated and economically successful women who have left
careers for full-time homemaking. Lisa Belkin (2003) coined the term to describe a group of
upper-middle-class mothers with young children who decided that long hours and devotion
to career success were not worth the sacrifices required of their children. Judith Warner
(2005) and Leslie Morgan Steiner (2006) elaborated this picture with vignettes of women who
made similar decisions and who are now either satisfied, defensive in justifying their decisions,
or angry about the lack of respect accorded to full-time mothers.
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Journal of Comparative Family Studies
Mary Blair-Loy (2003) documents a similar pattern among women who abandon highly
successful financial careers to devote their time to motherhood and homemaking. About half
are satisfied and half resentful. She attributes their decisions to the iron grip of a career
schema in the financial world that brooks no compromise with family needs. The worker is
expected to be fully devoted to career obligations in order to reach the top. Long working
hours and unexpected demands require the worker to delegate responsibility for family life to
someone else (a "wife"). Highly successful women (accountants, lawyers, brokers, and
bankers) have so internalized this ethic, and the workplace is so hostile to any compromise,
that when they choose to have a family, they are forced to choose between devotion to
career and to family. Many feel they have no other altemative than to lower their career
aspirations or give them up altogether. Blair-Loy believes that the dominant cultural schema
(of being either a full-time worker or full-time mother) is so entrenched in the American
workplace that the objective of work-family policy to increase fiexibility and accommodation
between job and home is more or less doomed from the start.
A new study by Pamela Stone (2007), of highly successful business and professional women
who left their careers for full-time motherhood, elaborates the topic of Blair-Loy's analysis. In
her book Opting Out? Stone questions the interpretation by mainstream media that such
outstanding women left their careers by choice. She recounts the many attempts her subjects
made to stay in their jobs by asking for more flexible schedules, fewer hours, or less travel.
But they were rebuffed at every tum. Once they decided to quit, however, they were
congratulated on their decisions.
The work-vs.-family schema may be what partly accounts for survey findings from 5000
American couples reported by Wilcox and Nock (2006). Not only did they find that women
still perform most ofthe housework while men devote more time to the job. The women who
worked outside the home also reported less satisfaction with their husbands and their
marriages than the stay-at-home wives. Among the employed wives, the happiest were those
whose husbands provided two-thirds ofthe household income. According to Tiemey (2006),
who interpreted these findings for his column in the New York Times, these wives were
egalitarians in theory, "but in their own lives they preferred more traditional arrangements."
How should we understand what appears to be such a discrepant picture of gender /«equality
alongside growing equality? Economist Claudia Goldin (2006) contends that the opt-out
women are a tiny minority and that their importance is being exaggerated relative to the
reality. Citing a longitudinal study of women college alumnae conducted fifteen years after
graduation, she notes that 79 percent were still married, and that the 69 percent with at least
one child had spent only 2.1 years on average out ofthe labor force. Fully 50 percent of those
with children had never had a non-employment (or non-educational) spell lasting more than
six months. A University of Chicago study by Schneider and Waite (2005) of 500 professional
and executive families with two working parents paints a picture that is compatible with the
Goldin account. The most satisfied of these couples were agreed on roles and decisionmaking whereas the less satisfied appeared to be held together by their sense of obligation
as parents or their common religious values. Husbands felt more positive at home than at
work or in public, whereas wives show marked positive feelings about their public roles. The
fact that men found time with family more satisfying, and that women were more engaged and
Homemaker or Career Woman
397
happy when at work or in public settings, could be a sign that positive feelings are associated
with being in a setting that women and men "choose" rather than in one that imposes
traditional gender obligations on them (Schneider and Waite, 2005).
CHANGING MARRIAGE NORMS IN THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS
To reconcile the "opt-out" picture of continuing gender inequality with the long term trend
toward greater similarity in men's and women's labor force participation, it is necessary to
reframe the central question. Rather than ask which scenario is truer to fact, the real question
is why some subgroups within the educated middle and upper-middle class choose the fulltime homemaker solution while others choose the dual earner-carer pattern. To answer that
question, one must observe what is distinctive about the people who choose different kinds
of marital partnerships. Of particular interest are the distinguishing features of their background,
intervening life course experience, and present social location.
As one observes closely the characteristics of the employed and stay-at-home mothers, it
becomes evident that they inhabit different worlds and come from somewhat different (albeit
still middle-class) backgrounds. The strict moral code described by Blair-Loy that pits devotion
to motherhood against devotion to career is characteristic of the world of high finance and
corporate law. The women who held these occupations deeply subscribed to its cultural
schema, and when they experienced the rewards and joys of motherhood they were confronted
with a virtually unsolvable conflict. Similarly in the accounts by Wamer (2005), Steiner
(2006), and Stone (2007), women who left lucrative careers for motherhood in a number of
cases grieved at their loss and resented the resulting incessant demands of home and family.
It should be remarked, however, that it is only a small and very special comer of American
society that sees motherhood as so incompatible with career. The forced choice between
devotion to career and devotion to motherhood began to erode shortly after World War II
when labor shortages undermined requirements that a woman leave her job when she married
or had a baby (Oppenheimer, 1970). The great majority of dual-eamer and dual-career couples
are drawn from the ranks of working-class and middle income families where the husband is
a mid-level professional, white-collar, or skilled worker, and the wife is in office work, retail
sales, allied health professions, or teaching.
Among black educated women, there is a more explicit expectation—almost what is felt to be
a moral imperative—that a woman will use her education in an occupation outside the home
for the good ofthe family and community. The most frequent time-honored profession used
to be teaching, and since the civil rights revolution, the law profession has gained particular
prominence. A comparison ofthe black graduates of Spelman College ofthe 1930s and 1940s
with those of Wellesley and Oberlin for the same period showed a noticeably higher proportion
of Spelman graduates entering the professions than was true of the predominantly white
graduates of the other two colleges (Giele and Gilfus, 1990).
Fundamental changes have also taken place in the stmcture of the normal life course of
women that facilitate coordination of their work and family roles. My reanalysis of Wellesley
College alumnae data from graduates of 1911 to 1960 showed that a multiple role pattem
began to take root in the classes ofthe 1930s. They were the first group who at the time ofthe
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alumnae census in 1962 had combined marriage, motherhood, employment, and some
postgraduate education over their life course. In a 1982 study of alumnae from three colleges
who graduated between 1934 and 1979, the proportion with multiple roles at age 35 rose from
6% in the class of 1934 to 36% among graduates of the late 1960s. A parallel investigation
using the German Socio-economic Panel revealed a similar rise in public-private roles in both
East and West Germany during the same time period (Giele, 1998).
Given this broad demographic and institutional foundation for the modemization of women's
roles and the marriage contract, it is necessary to look to individual differences to explain
variation within the educated middle class. The educational preparation and occupational
location of both husband and wife are key factors in the cultural schémas that dominate any
given couple's choice between breadwinner-homemaker and dual-career status. In addition,
some occupations are simply more inflexible iind hostile to family demands than others.
Along with a particular occupational niche, a specific geographical location also has a lot to
do with whether a couple chooses a highly differentiated male-female role pattem or a
division of labor that encourages gender crossover and role-sharing. A long commute or a
great deal of travel on the part of one partner is likely to generate a home-based pattem on
the part of the other. Region of the country and metropolitan or small-city location also affect
commuting distances, availability of child care, and household services (Shea, 2006). By
contrast, farming, animal husbandry, or small business in rural communities tends to generate
a culture that normalizes the presence of both men and women in productive and nurturing
roles. Such models can thereby legitimate the two-earner pattem as a natural and even
timewom routine rather than something new and as yet untried.
A LIFE COURSE APPROACH TO VARIATION IN GENDER ROLES
Aside from these locational factors, however, the most powerful influences on a woman's
career pattem and the form of her marriage come from her past experience and that of her
partner. The emergent fleld of life course research has shown the powerful delayed effects of
differences in early experience on later life pattems (Giele and Elder, 1998). Elder (1974), for
example, showed that girls growing up in deprived middle-class families in the 1930s, who
had to do the housework in place of their mothers who went out to work, were more likely to
choose a housewife role when they reached adulthood in the 1950s. The girls who came from
less deprived families, however, and whose mothers were at home, were able to pursue
outside interests and further education and later were more likely to combine marriage and
employment in adulthood.
A life course perspective suggests that women who are in many ways similar in terms of age,
education, economic position, and race may have different values or attitudes or personal
characteristics that make them more likely either to seek a career or become a homemaker. If
one doesn't know ahead of time what these factors might be, the most promising method is
a qualitative approach that elicits as rich a stoi^ of a woman's life as possible in a one to twohour interview.
From 2001-2006,1 interviewed white and African-American college-educated women who are
mothers, some of whom have combined motherhood with career, others of whom have
chosen to be at home full-time (Giele, 2004). Unlike Blair-Loy's, Stone's, or many of Steiner's
Homemaker or Career Woman
399
informants who were near the top of their fields, the women in my sample are similar only in
that they graduated from selective colleges and were in their mid-30s or mid-40s when
interviewed. In both groups there were individuals whose role choice seemed somewhat
tenuous and open to renegotiation. It may be that some of the career women have since left
their jobs to become homemakers. Or that some homemakers may have returned to work as
their children have grown. My purpose was not to trace an overall trajectory for each woman's
entire life but to capture the distinguishing features that had led to their becoming a homemaker
with children or a mother with a career.
As the field of life course research has evolved, four dimensions of experience have repeatedly
been identified as having significant effects on the direction of a life path: historical and
cultural location, social networks and linked lives, agency, and timing of events. These
dimensions are consistent with the theoretical framework developed by Talcott Parsons
(1966; Parsons and Bales, 1955) to characterize the four functional requisites of Uving systems,
whether they be individuals, social groups, or whole societies.' I have combined systems
theory with the life course approach developed by Glen Elder (1994,1998) to identify four
factors that seem critical in shaping individuals' adult gender roles, namely, (1) sense of
identity, (2) type of marital relationship, (3) personal drive and motivation, and (4) adaptive
style in management of time and resources (Giele, 2002). These factors that shape the life
course are shown in Table 1 in relation to their theoretical origins in systems theory and life
course research.
Table 1.
Four Factors That Shape the Life Course
Systems Theory
(Parsons, 1955,1966)
Life Course Framework
(Elder, 1994,1998)
Life Stories & Gender Role
(Giele, 2002)
Latent Pattern Maintenance
(L)
Historical and Cultural
Location
Identity (being different
vs. conventional)
Integration
(I)
Linked Lives
Relationship style
(egalitarian vs. deferent)
Goal-Attainment
(G)
Agency
Motivation
(achievement vs. nurturance)
Adaptation
(A)
Timing
Adaptive style
(innovative vs. traditional)
METHOD: THE LIFE STORY INTERVIEW
While no one can get a grasp of a whole life history in a single interview, it is possible to elicit
a story about key events and turning points that conveys a whole social context as well as
distinctive themes in an individual's life. These themes reveal what is special about an
individual's biography and can be used in a comparative way to suggest which precursors
lead to which outcomes.
The life story method that evolved during this research began with questions posed to six
focus groups (three white and three black) who finished college in the late 1940s, 1960s, and
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Journal of Comparative Family Studies
early 1990s. The groups met for an hour and a half and answered questions on four periods
in their lives: early adulthood, childhood and adolescence, their current life, and future plans.
The method of the four questions was carried over into the qualitative interviews with
individuals. Since the most interesting and varied material came from the mid-hfe groups, the
subsequent interview sample was focused on two age groups, roughly ages 35 and 45.
Research Design and Sample Characteristics
The subjects were recruited from alumnae lists of several selective colleges and from an
organization of African-American homemakers (Mothers of Color at Home-MOCAH Moms).
This report is based on interviews from a total of 48 women, of whom 31 had families and
careers and 17 were currently at home, as shown in Table 2.
Table 2.
Sample for the Life Pattern Interviews
MOTHERS & CAREERS
AGE
MOTHERS AT HOME
Black
White
Black
White
Under age 40
N=26, average age=35
8
7
7
4
Over age 40
N=22, average age=45
TOTAL 48
7
9
16
2
4
15
9
8
By limiting the sample to persons very similar in age, race, and socioeconomic status, it was
possible to set aside the most obvious demographic and economic explanations for women's
role choice and thereby to highlight individual life course differences. While it is well known
that women's work outside the home has been encouraged by the feminist movement, increased
labor demand, and higher levels of education, this research focused on individual differences
in background and life experience. These women, because of their similar age, were all
exposed to the same broad influences-the increased presence of women in American public
life, the rising demand for their paid labor, and the variety of options open to middle class
educated women. By examining both white and African-American women in both homemaker
and career roles, one can push beyond the simplistic formulas that have so often been used
as explanations-that white middle class homemakers are so well off that "they don't have to
work" or that black mothers in the labor force are there because they can't afford not to work,
while those who are at home have little other choice due to a lack of education or motivation.
The Semi-Structured Interview
The taped interviews generally lasted between one and two hours. Except for one telephone
interview, they were conducted in person, and were then transcribed. After collecting basic
background information (age, number of children, husband's and parents' education and
occupations), the interviewer asked four general questions, here edited for brevity and
slightly reworded:
Homemaker or Career Woman
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401
Question #1. [Early adulthood]
About the period in your life immediately after college or...your early twenties. What was
your major, name of your college, and year of graduation? What did you think you would
like to become in terms of occupation and type of lifestyle or family life. ...What were you
thinking then and how did things actually tum out.
Question #2, [Childhood and adolescence]
Thinking ofthe period in your life before college and the goals that you and your family held
for you, what was your family's attitude toward women's education and your going to
college and what you would become? What was the effect of your parents' education,
presence of brothers, family finances, family expectations? How was your education different
from or similar to that of your parents and brothers and sisters.
Question #3, [Adulthood-current]
Since college, what kinds of achievement and frustration have you experienced? What has
happened that you didn't expect-in employment, family, further education? Has there been
job discrimination, a separation or divorce, health problems of yourself or a family member?
What about moves, membership in the community, housing problems, racial integration, job
loss? And feelings about yourself? Have there been good things such as particular rewards,
satisfaction, or recognition.
Question #4. [Adulthood-future]
Looking back at your life from this vantage point, and ahead to the future, what are your main
concems at the moment? What are your goals for the next few years? What problems do you
hope to solve? Looking further out, where do you hope to be a few years from now with
respect to work or in graduate school, in family, community, health, finances, etc.?
The questions elicited rich and varied replies that resulted in 30-40 page transcripts. Because
they were keyed to four stages of life that everyone could respond to, there was comparability
across subjects. Yet the topics could vary immensely according to the themes that seemed
most salient and meaningful to the respondent. The retrospective nature of the interview
made it an efficient way of eliciting the high and low points in a woman's entire life up to that
time, a result that would not be possible in a longitudinal panel study of repeated surveys
(Scott and Alwin, 1998).
Thematic Anatyses of Transcripts
From such broad questions a variety of themes emerged that could have been analyzed in
many possible ways. The analysis reported here was theoretically driven by an interest in
the four life course dimensions derived from action theory and life course research: namely,
identity, relational style, level and type of motivation, and adaptive style. Two coders (myself
and a student assistant) read through the interviews and identified passages that pertained
to each of these dimensions. We used the following guidelines:
Identity: How does R see herself? Who does she identify with as being like herself? Does
she mention her race, ethnicity, social class, or how she is different or similar to her family?
What qualities does she mention that distinguish her-intelligence, being quiet, likable,
innovative, outstanding, a good mother, lawyer, wife, etc.?
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Journal of Comparçitive Family Studies
Relational style: What is R's typical way of relating to others? As a leader, follower, negotiator,
equal colleague? Taking charge? Is she independent, very reliant on others for company and
support, has a lot of friends, is lonely? Nature of the relationship with her husband?
Drive and motivation: Need for achievement, affiliation, power. Is R ambitious and driven or
relaxed and easy going? Is she concemed to make a name for herself? Focused more on
helping her husband and children than on her own needs (nurturance vs. personal
achievement)? Mentions enjoying life and wanting to have time for other things besides
work. Enjoys being with children, doing volunteer work, seeing friends. A desire to be in
control of her own schedule, to be in charge rather than to take orders.
Adaptive style: What is her energy level? Is R an innovator and a risk taker or
conventional and uncomfortable with change and new experience? Does R like to manage
change, think of new ways of doing things? Is she self-confident or cautious? Used to a
slow or fast pace, to routine and having plenty of time, or to doing several things at once
Once the transcripts were coded, they were assembled for each subgroup of the sample to
create a composite profile ofthe themes that characterized the homemakers with children and
the mothers with careers. Within each of these groups similarities and differences by race
were also noted. The summary of findings below elaborates the main themes characteristic of
each group. The quotations were selected to be emblematic ofthe major themes and differences
between the comparison groups.
MOTHERS WHO STAY AT HOME
Among homemakers, the overall profile that emerges is of women who see their roles in life
asfirstand foremost being a mother. For example, Sophie Kruger [all names are pseudonyms],
a white 1989 graduate of a selective woman's college with a law degree, said, "I always
thought if I had children, I would stay home; my mother was home." In contrast, a number of
the African American homemakers had not particularly expected to be married or have children,
but when they did, they found the responsibility and rewards so compelling that they
downshifted their standard of living in order to make staying at home a workable arrangement.
Lily Baxter, a 1979 graduate of a northeastern coed university, with an MBA and outstanding
success as a professional recruiter, exclaimed: "Did not think I'd have children ever!" But
when her second child was bom, "I felt that, well not completely lost, but just kind of, 'gee,
now I really am a mom." Suddenly she no longer felt like "playing the game" at work and
decided to give up her job.
Every aspect of the homemaker mother's being-her relationships, her goals, her adaptive
mode for getting things done-is shaped by her overall commitment to the mother role.
Identity
Almost all the women, whether homemaker mothers or career mothers, think of themselves as
intelligent and good students. Many of them have graduate or professional degrees. The
most striking feature ofthe homemaker interviews, however, is their focus on the home and
their activities with their children where they seem to be the orchestrators of all that goes on
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403
there. Their days are taken up with child-focused activities. In their roles as the most important
person in their children's lives, they are above all teachers. But their concems run also to
giving all their children a good start in life, so that they feel secure, eat properly, participate
in sports and music, have friends, and do well in school. To accomplish these goals the
mothers also have to be managers, work as volunteers in the community, and be a visible
presence in the audience for the school play. Often imphed in this identity is that only a
mother can truly fulfill these functions, not another family member, such as a father, or a
family helper. As one mother put it, "my husband is wonderful and a great partner-but is not
a mother, is not a woman."
Relational Style
The homemaker mother takes for granted that she is the manager of the home and of her
children, and to some extent, the way her husband relates to the children. The relationship
of the parents to each other and to their children tends to be segmented, with hers being the
domain of cooking and laundry, making arrangements for playgroups, and dealing with the
schools, and his being the domain of paid work, and some evening play and supervision of
homework. One mother confided, however, that it annoyed her when the "tickle monster"
(the children's father) arrived at 7:15 p.m. and disturbed the quiet mood needed to get the
children into bed on time. These mothers saw themselves as almost solely responsible for
parenting. They lacked confidence in altemative arrangements and were reluctant to rely on
others to help them.
In relation to the larger community, the modem well-educated homemaker mother tends to be
an outstanding networker. She helps to organize and participate in groups of mothers who
enjoy a moming outside their home to discuss common interests while their children play.
One homemaker, who is a dedicated home school advocate and home schools her children,
organizes field trips, finds other home school mothers in nearby towns, and in various other
ways tries to assure that her children have friends and are not isolated just because they
don't attend a public or private school.
Goals, Motivation, and Drive
The primary goal of the homemaker mother is to see that her children thrive. These mothers
enjoy being with their children—to play, to take a walk in the park, to watch the birds, to
enjoy the very fact of their growth and development while they take in all the wonderful
things that are to be leamed. Their ambitions are not so much for themselves and their own
achievements as for their children.
The motivation of homemaker mothers appears to be similar to what David McClelland ( 1955)
referred to as the need for affiliation (as distinct from the need for achievement). Or what
Lipman-Blumen (1970) characterized as a need for "vicarious" (as distinct from "direct")
achievement, the kind that is realized through others.
With their strong focus on meeting the needs of others, it is not surprising that some
homemaker mothers express a sense of being stymied in meeting their own needs for intellectual
stimulation and accomplishment. Sophie Kruger spoke of feeling "intellectually stymied."
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Journal of Comparative Family Studies
Sabrina Collier reflected, "The hard part over the years is that I have very little time for myself
.... And that wears me down." Perhaps this is the reason that several seemed slightly depressed.
They were meeting their need to mother but not to pursue their own interests. The
psychoanalyst Jean Baker Miller (1976) considered that combination a risk factor for
depression.
Adaptive Mode
A number of homemakers innovate by channeling their resourcefulness and creativity into
what they consider new and better ways to be a mother. Stephanie, one ofthe home school
mothers, reported having bome all her children at home with midwives instead of in the
hospital. She also nursed all three of her children until they were three or four years old. Jaime
Spencer, a top student who had dropped out of graduate school when she married, dealt with
her infertility by winning the trust of a poor family who gave her two of their children for
adoption. On the other hand, a somewhat more timid mother ("a quiet mouse") was
apprehensive about looking for a job as her children got older, even though she had a law
degree and had worked a number of years as a technical editor. Her mode of adaptation was
cautious and routinized-something she could try out one morning a week-"one for the
shopping, one for cleaning, one for the laundry," and then one for her job search.
Racial Differences
Even with a small sample of black and white educated homemakers, the racial differences are
quite noticeable. Educated black women are expected by their families and mentors to focus
on their careers. In addition, many African-American mothers come from families where it
was routine for a mother to work. Some actually get criticized for staying at home. One former
attorney said her mother teased her for trying to do the "white woman thing" by staying at
home. White women, on the other hand, are following in the footsteps of their mothers and
the majority ofthe white middle class of their mothers' generation. Not surprisingly, the black
women sound much more eager and ready to retum to the labor force. They are also more
likely to "keep a hand in" in part-time work or related activity so that their reentry will be a
smooth one.
One also gets the impression that the African-American homemakers are a little happier.
Because they have taken the initiative to make a conscious choice, they seem inoculated
against some ofthe depression that threatens the white homemakers. Also they see themselves
as deliberately supporting their men folk by making them the main breadwinner and putting
themselves into a secondary role in generating income. They want to give their husbands
the respect and authority as provider and head ofthe family that will reaffirm their worth as
African-American males despite decades of humiliation. African-American homemakers feel
they are on a new mission fueled by a combination of religious fervor, self confidence, and
inner strength that has no counterpart among the white homemakers. Lily, the successful
black recruiter who never expected to get married or have children, summed up her choice by
explaining that "God did not bless me with these children to have someone else raise them."
Homemaker or Career Woman
405
MOTHERS WHO COMBINE CAREER AM) MOTHERHOOD
In stark contrast to the homemaker mothers, the mothers who have careers outside the home
organize their life stories with work as the central theme and their families as the necessary
added ingredient to their enjoyment of a full life. Rather than defining their primary role in life
as that of "Mom," they see themselves as a lawyer, manager, teacher, or doctor who has a
rounded out private life as wife and mother. This orientation permeates their identity, their
relationships to others, their goals and motivation, and their mode of adapting to challenge
or change.
Identity
A number of the career women say they never planned to get married or have children. Those
who did expect motherhood in their future somehow never defined it as an all-or-nothing
choice between work and staying at home. Whether because their mothers worked, or one
was expected to work if one had a college education, many never seem to have questioned
the assumption that it is possible both to have a career and be a good mother. As Stephanie
Banks-Gable, a successful African-American management consultant put it, "I was fortunate
because I come from woriien who don't make these decisions family versus career. You can
have family and career. You can't have lots of both, but you can have some of both at the
same time."
Another striking feature of the career women's interviews was their almost universal sense
of being leaders, of being the smartest, the best in the class, or the one among their siblings
who was expected to go furthest and accomplish the most. This self-image was part of a more
general pattem in which these women all for one reason or another/e/i different from their
peers, and the difference was one that set them apart in a very positive way.
Relational Style
The world of the career women is one where there is less separation between the spheres of
men and women than is tme for the homemakers. At home the husband is generally more
involved with child-rearing. A top woman executive in an engineering firm, for example,
described how her husband, a high school teacher, was able to use his more flexible schedule
to pick up their child at day care and spend summer hours with him. A lawyer in her 40s
similarly described how her husband, a college professor, had more flexibility than she for
looking after the children and being present in an emergency. In a number of cases, the
woman professional was married to a man who made less money, had less education, or was
in a less prestigious occupation. The marketing executive recounted marrying her husband,
a chef (who later became a stay-at-home dad), because he was steady and dependable; she
knew he would make a good father.
This relational style was closely allied with the way these women saw their identity. Rather
than their special place in the world being defined in terms of male-female differences and
their unique role as a mother, the career women defined themselves in terms of another kind
of difference. The smart black women's main stmggle was against racial discrimination. The
goal of an outstanding student from the white working class was to move into the middle
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Journal of Comparative Family Studies
class. A few very able women wanted to escape from the confines of home that had limited
their own mothers' ambitions or happiness. Rachel Köhler, a nurse practitioner, had a
controlling father and compliant mother. "One ofthe things I took away from that is I would
never be controlled like that in a relationship. And I think that is why I've always been so
assertive making sure that my personal needs are met."
Instead of embracing a distinct world of motherhood and defending it against the demands
of work or the incursions of a father and husband, the career women approach child-rearing
and demands oftheir career as challenges that can be satisfactorily met with help from their
husbands, family members, nannies, au pairs, or day care teachers.
Goals and Motivation
The predominant impression one gets from the career women is how ambitious and successful
they are in managing their work. They love to solve problems. They are self confident,
energetic, and report one challenge and triumph after another. The 47-year-old management
consultant proudly recounted how she had held three major corporate positions by the age
of 35 and had moved successfully from govemment to health care, to high tech, and then the
insurance industry before establishing her own firm. Implicit in these accomplishments is a
capacity for vision, taking a critical view ofthe status quo, and having the courage and selfconfidence to risk a new approach.
The career women also express gratitude for the sense of fulfillment that comes from their
family life. Stephanie, the management consultant who never thought she would want children,
found after her marriage to a man with daughters from his previous marriage that the children
just opened my heart. It was great to have them with me because they taught me mothering
kids is different from helping raise your sisters and brothers. There is a different level of
involvement and different opportunity for hoping for the best for them, and, you know,
loving them. It's great.
In many ways the narratives describe not only the women's accomplishments at work and in
their families but also the pioneering nature of their lifestyle. The unspoken reality is that
they are inventing their lives as they go along against a cultural backdrop that is saying they
can't do this and that they will undermine their husbands or ruin their children in the process.
But what almost all the career women with children report is that their lifestyle is good for
them and their families and that they are happier people than if they were to leave their
careers and stay at home. Rachel, the nurse-practitioner, felt lonely when she stayed home
without work after her first child was bom. "No one had prepared me for that. Just the way
they don't prepare you for feeling you want to get married and have a baby if you're smart
and career-oriented."
AdaptiveMode
Just as several of the homemaker mothers are amazingly creative and innovative in the
service of nurturance, so also the mothers with careers find and create strategies that enable
them to exercise their dual work and family functions. Dana Brooks, a 45-year-old lawyer who
entered law practice in the early 1980s, recounted how she was the first person in the firm to
Homemaker or Career Worruin
'
407
request a maternity leave. Heather Stowe, the cofounder of an environmental consulting
firm, described creating a culture in the firm where she and others could bring a baby to a
meeting if absolutely need be. To increase herflexibilityin commuting, Libby Jervis, a marketing
executive, set up three offices-one in Boston, one in New York, and one near her suburban
home.
As to household work and child care, the mothers with careers are comfortable sharing their
role with others. They appear to trust that children can be well cared for by others besides
themselves. Nor do the mothers with careers think of children as deprived if a mother is not
there for every play or soccer meet. The lawyer Dana Brooks conceded, you do make
sacrifices. You may not be there when they take the first steps; you're not going to be there
when they say their first words...but they understand that someone will be there. Your dad or
I will be there when you need us and we've put somebody in place who is there to take care
of you.
It is not immediately evident where this trust of outsiders comes from or the willingness and
sense of legitimacy to share mothering with others. It may be that growing up in a small
community, where people know each other, gives some women faith in the adage that "It
takes a village to raise a child." Or it may be that personal experience in a large family in
helping to raise the younger ones lays a foundation for believing that mothering is in its very
nature a task to be shared. These interviews were not detailed enough to capture more than
general clues about the roots of career women's attitudes on sharing mothering with others.
There is probably also a historical dimension to the various modes of mothering as a homemaker
or with a career. Parenting norms have changed in recent years. Middle-class families are less
likely to have household help. Being present at a child's school functions has become almost
obligatory in some circles. At the same time, the range of daycare options, nursery schools,
and after-school programs has expanded dramatically. The upshot may be that the standards
have been so upgraded with respect to expectations of mothers at home that the only way to
accommodate them is to become totalistic in trying to do it all. For the mothers with careers,
given the demand for longer hours and greater commitment to work, the best way to respond
may be to pursue flexibility at their workplace while welcoming any help they can get at
home.
Race Differences
There are many similarities between the white and black career women with children.
Mothering to them is a wonderful and unexpected add-on rather than the central purpose of
their lives. Both black and white groups see themselves as outstanding because of their
intelligence and leadership potential. They are managers at work; at home they work with
their husbands and household and child care helpers in a collégial fashion to get the home
chores and child care done. They are ambitious, and they strive for success and recognition
in their work. They consider home and children as a blessing that rounds out their lives and
makes them feel like whole human beings, but without believing that mothering should be
their whole life. They adapt to challenges by seeking new solutions for flexible work
arrangements and sharing child-rearing responsibilities with others whom they tmst. But
there is one huge difference by race that might well be expected. The African American
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Journal of Comparative Family Studies
women have experienced repeated racial discrimination. Their families told them, "Girl, get
your education. They can't take that away from you." Yet a typical story comes from Stephanie,
the management consultant, who while she was a student in college, was shocked to arrive
at an interview for a summer job and be told there had been a mistake: "We don't have a job.
We really don't." Stephanie explained, "We had talked on the telephone. She couldn't detect
from my accent or anything that I was black. She was very impressed by the experiences I
had, and then, I show up, my little brown self, and now, it's not going to work."
In contrast, white women are virtually unaware of their race; they never mention it. What
they do mention occasionally is the fact of being Jewish, or having come from a poor working
class family, being the first in their families to go to college, or in a couple of cases having a
physical disability that they are determined to overcome. The common thread between the
African-American women who are determined to overcome race discrimination and the white
women who see themselves as different in some way is that both groups have faced some
kind of discrimination or barrier as the result of race, religion, social class, or some other
condition that is treated as an impediment. Yet all are determined to realize the potential that
parents and mentors see in them. Their vindication is to gain public recognition for their
accomplishments in the workplace rather than through the private rewards of being a mother
at home.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
It is well recognized that women's roles have changed toward greater equality with men,
especially as seen in the long-term rise in married women's labor force participation. Marriage
norms have changed to expect men to help more with household tasks and child-rearing.
Recently, however, the rise of mothers in the labor force has leveled off, and some high
profile women managers and professionals have quit work to be with their children at home.
The question has arisen whether the feminist revolution is stalled or perhaps even reversed.
The research reported here reframes the question of whether women's equality is threatened
and asks instead which women are staying at home and why, and which women continue to
combine families and careers. Answering these questions requires a life course approach
that compares homemakers and women with careers but who are as similar as possible in age,
education, race, and social class. The findings reported here are based on interviews with 48
white and African-American college educated women, of whom two-thirds were women with
careers and families and one-third were homemakers. The interviews were transcribed and
coded for themes related to identity, relational style, goals and motivation, and adaptive
mode.
For mothers who are homemakers, motherhood is at the very center of their identity, and this
orientation colors all other aspects oftheir lives. They are dedicated to making their children
thrive, and they believe that only a mother can truly fulfill that function. The relational style
of a homemaker mother is managerial in all things matemal. She is in charge ofthe household
and is wary of help from outsiders, but she is an expert in forming networks that will help her
children find friends and engage in outside activities. She enjoys being with her children and
is in the habit of always putting her family's needs ahead of her own—a pattem that sometimes
leaves her feeling drained and frustrated in meeting her own needs. In her adaptive style, she
can be unusually innovative and creative in forging new and better ways to nurture her
Homemaker or Career Woman
409
children. But in facing the future once her children are older, she may be cautious and worried
about what she will do, or she may already be thinking about a retum to the world of work.
The mothers with careers present a contrasting picture especially with respect to their identity.
They are more likely to see themselves first as workers who didn't expect to get married or
have children. Yet they are thankful for the way family has rounded out their hves. In relational
style they are much more likely to seek and welcome help from husbands and caregivers in
raising their children. They appear to be driven by enormous ambition to achieve and be
recognized. They welcome new experience and adapt by being innovative and flexible in
order to find new ways to pursue both work and family life.
Race differences were striking in both the homemaker and career groups. Black women in the
homemaker group had to go against cultural expectations of their families that they would
continue to work, and they did so with zeal. White homemakers, however, were doing what
they considered natural in light of their family history. Consistent with these differences, the
black homemakers saw their choice to stay at home as not only deliberate but time-limited,
and they generally planned to retum to work when their children were a bit older. The future
timetable for the white women seemed much more indefinite.
Both white and black women in the career group had a strong sense of themselves as being
different from others—being told they were outstanding, or the smartest in the class, or the
person who would become a leader in the future. While the black women had experienced
race discrimination, the white women had not. But the white women had fought discrimination
in some other way—because of their rehgion, coming from a poor family, or having a disability.
For women of both races who combined family and career, achievement and recognition
through their work was vindication and proof of their distinctive qualities.
In sum, the individual life course differences between college-educated homemakers and
mothers with careers are very clear. Although both groups have experienced broad historical
and demographic change in what is expected of educated married women, their distinctive
personal characteristics and Ufe histories help to explain why each group responds differently
to the long term rise in women's employment and occupies a different niche on the spectmm
of egalitarian marriage norms.
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