Maternal Employment and Child Rearing
Every fourth mother of our respondents in the city is employed. Of the mothers of rural respondents, only one in twenty works outside the household.
The mother of city children is in three quarters of cases the child’s main educator because she is not employed. In the countryside, she is almost always the main educator.
Urban children whose mothers are employed are less likely to exhibit behavioral disorders than children whose mothers are employed only in the household. Mental development disorders occur equally often in the countryside, regardless of whether the mother is employed or not.
Maternal employment outside the home is not, therefore, as detrimental a factor in raising children as is commonly thought. The mother’s public employment seems to have a positive effect on the formation of the child’s personality, especially in the city.
Grandparenting and Child Rearing
The most common replacement in the family for the mother is the grandmother. Along with her mother, she is the most important educator of our children.
Of the city respondents, one in six lives with their grandmother, and one in four in the countryside. There is no statistically significant difference in the incidence of mental disorders in children living with a grandmother and in those living without her.
That is why we cannot say that grandmothers are better or worse educators than their parents.
