The key point in Jane Waldfogel’s new book,
What Children Need, is that mothers should not work full-time in the first year of their child’s life.
It’s an unambiguous statement, backed up (like all Waldfogel’s assertions) by copious research. But it’s not a conclusion that she had necessarily been hoping to reach. “It’s not a bias I would look for, especially considering my own background,” she admits, “but it’s a clear message.
“For a lot of questions, the answer is ‘It depends’ — on the age of the child or on the quality of care. But in the first year of life the evidence is clear that children on average don’t do as well if their parents are working full-time.”
The book, written by one of the most eminent professors in the field of childcare and family policy, makes it clear that children don’t merely perform better in later cognitive tests, but also that their health and behaviour is better if their mothers are around for the first year.
It’s strange then, for Waldfogel to state that she is not keen to discourage parents from working. Indeed, when her own daughter, Katie, was small, Waldfogel herself worked full-time (part-time when Katie was between six weeks and five months old), and nowadays she has no regrets.
Perhaps somewhat disingenuously, Waldfogel is convinced that her pattern of work has not affected her daughter, now 11, who attends a top private school in New York and who helped with criticism of the book’s chapter on school-age children. In fact, she explains that what all the research shows is an average — albeit strong — finding, which is not necessarily applicable to every family.
“It’s a question of quality,” she says, denying very convincingly that she feels guilty about her daughter having been at nursery from 9am until 6pm from such an early age. “For her it was an absolutely terrific setting. One issue is the possible mismatch between the quality of the care-givers and the quality of care that she would have got at home. But these were terrific care-givers. They were extremely well qualified. They knew a lot more about babies than I did. She is a first and only child and I learnt so much from them. They were teaching me.”
Waldfogel, 51, was born just outside Boston. Her father was a businessman, while her university-educated mother ached to work but, living in a different era, instead brought up her two children. After studying at Radcliffe College, Waldfogel took an MEd at Harvard, then worked full-time as a child protection services social worker and in child and family policy. In 1994 she took her PhD at Harvard and, at the relatively tender age of 39, was offered an assistant professorship at Columbia University. She had just given birth to Katie.
“My husband [the historian David Hebb, 63] and I met later in life,” she says, “and we felt like one baby was plenty for us to handle. Katie was such an easy baby. She slept through the night very quickly and she was so easy: smiling early, a really lovely and adaptable baby. We thought that a second child would pale in comparison.”
Above all, Waldfogel is keen on three things: parental choice, quality childcare and support for flexible working arrangements.
Her key point is that women should not work full-time (more than 30 hours a week) in the first year. But this assertion is balanced by the suggestion that part-time working can be not merely neutral but actually positive for mother and child.
After the child is a year old, a mother can work part-time or full-time, although (as she emphasises throughout the book), so much is dependent on the child’s paid-for carers being both sensitive and responsive to its needs.
The book runs through a child’s life from birth to the end of adolescence. Most of its research is American (although Waldfogel wrote the book during a sabbatical at the London School of Economics), but much of the comment would please new Labour.
For example, she waxes lyrical about the British ten-year childcare strategy, and our flexible working conditions and maternity pay and rights. Paid maternity leave is almost unheard of in the States, which means that most women go back to work within a few months of giving birth.
“The UK has moved from having a position almost as bad as the US to now being a model for us,” says Waldfogel, who is a strong advocate of the American Head Start programme (a similar version of which, Sure Start, has been implemented here).
For many British working mothers, however, the reality is less impressive than the rhetoric. It may be possible to ask for more flexible working hours, but it is often impossible actually to find part-time work. In addition, many women who work part-time do so on poor wages and in unsatisfying jobs.
Waldfogel admits that this is a problem. “The most common thing I heard in the UK was that the only part-time jobs on offer were not worth it,” she says. “It’s very hard to break into the labour market when you want a part-time job, and the only hope is that you are already working for a firm that will let you work more flexible hours.”
The quality of work and the satisfaction it gives a parent is an important issue. A happy parent, as many psychologists will tell you, makes for a happy child. This may explain why research indicates that having parents with higher incomes (in other words, who may well be more satisfied with their jobs) can lead to better behaviour and higher cognitive test scores. But such research doesn’t help to ease the guilt that many other working parents feel if they have to work — and do it far more for money than for love.
Problems arise when the work that a parent does is stressful, and that stress filters through to their child. Waldfogel quotes one survey of school-age children who say that they wish their parents were less tense about work.
“It’s useful for parents to know that children don’t so much wish for more time with their parents, but that they are not so stressed and grumpy when they are with them,” she declares.
“People need time to let go of work and I try to be careful to leave it at the office. When Katie wants it, she has my undivided attention.
“I love my work and I love my family,” she adds, happily. “Truthfully, I haven’t ever wanted to work less, and I think Katie gets more from me when I am home. What makes it quality time is that the parent is happy, satisfied and fulfilled.
“It always comes down to the effect of work for the parents. For a parent to stay home only for the good of the child — and then be miserable — is not good for the child. I’m somebody who has always worked. After having Katie, I was home for about three days without setting foot out of the house and I was absolutely stir-crazy. So I stopped in at work and checked my e-mails!”
From her time at the LSE,Waldfogel knows the UK well. And she has often talked to British government departments. (The Treasury, she says, gave her a hard time, asking lots of intelligent questions.)
She is also on the same wavelength as the Government in being pro-nurseries, and when it comes to more wraparound childcare in schools. However, she adds that nursery staff should be more highly educated and better paid.
“The school of thought that suggests that being in a nursery when you’re under 3 will lead to behaviour problems is wrong. It depends on the quality of the setting, and at their best nothing is better than a high-quality nursery.”
Waldfogel clearly loves her work and doesn’t seem to suffer from the guilt that besets many working parents. Perhaps, she suggests, that is a cultural thing.
“No one has ever said to me that I should be around more,” she says. “The norms are different here. In the UK there is a much stronger sense that mothers should be at home with their children, at least part-time until the children start school. In the United States they are much more accepting of mothers working, and of working longer hours than in the UK.”
The book is a call for action by government. But it also challenges parents: Waldfogeladmits that there is an enormous conflict for women who try to do their best in both parental and work roles. But she is convinced that, if parents do want change, they can’t expect other people to do the leg-work. “If parents don’t speak up and say that they need time off, or don’t take advantage of time off when it is offered, then the workplace culture will never change.”
However, she is convinced that there will eventually be progress. “I’m optimistic,” she says. “I think that fathers want to play more of a role and I think that the culture of the workplace will change, too.
“The children of today are the workforce of tomorrow and it’s vital for society that we do what is best for them.”
What Children Need, by Jane Waldfogel is published by Harvard University Press at £22.95 in the UK on June 21. Available from bookshops, via www.hup.harvard.edu, or call 020-7306 0603
What must be done
What Children Need promotes three fundamental principles — choice, flexibility and quality of care. It also makes some key policy recommendations:
To allow parents more flexibility to take time off work for family responsibilities
To give mothers and fathers more options to stay at home in the first year of their child’s life
To improve the quality of care from infancy and throughout the preschool years
To increase access to high-quality out-of-school programmes for school-aged children and teenagers. Waldfogel says that what’s on offer is often seen as too “babyish” for older children.
