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American Morning

Interview with Jane Waldfogel, Ellen Galinsky

Aired July 18, 2002 - 07:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Many working mothers already feel guilty about leaving their babies in day care so they can go back to work, but now a new study suggests there is a price to pay when mothers work full-time during the early months after their babies are born. Researchers at Columbia University say kids develop faster and are better prepared for school when their mothers do not work full-time for the first nine months.

Joining us now to discuss the findings, from London, Jane Waldfogel, one of the study's authors, and here in New York with me this morning, Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute -- welcome -- glad to have both of you with us this morning.

So, Jane, I recognize that this is a very complicated study. But is the bottom line that mothers who work outside the home during a baby's first nine months of life are negatively impacting them?

JANE WALDFOGEL, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK: What we found, Paula, was that if children's mothers worked full-time in the first year of life, the children scored lower on their tests of school readiness at age 3. We didn't actually find any significant differences for children whose mothers worked part-time. So it's the long hours that seem to be important in the first year of life.

ZAHN: I know you have been studying these patterns for years. Did the outcomes surprise you?

WALDFOGEL: The outcomes did surprise me. I was hoping that we wouldn't find such large effects, once we took into account the quality of the mother's own care and the quality of the child care that the children attended.

ZAHN: Did you attempt to evaluate the roles that fathers might play in these young babies' lives?

WALDFOGEL: Unfortunately, we weren't able to look as much at fathers' care as we would have liked to. There are always the big missing element in these studies is the care provided by fathers. I hope next time around, we can do a better job with that.

ZAHN: So just help us this morning, for women out there, most of us who have taken maternity leaves and are concerned about the separation, then go back to work and feel guilty about it. What is your advice to moms out there, particularly those who have to work to support their families?

WALDFOGEL: I think there are lots that moms can do. First of all, what moms can do is make sure they choose the best possible quality child care for their children. That means child care that's sensitive and responsive to their individual child; that provides the kind of care that the mother herself or the father himself would provide.

The other thing that working parents can do that's very important is make sure that when they do come home from work, that they leave work at the door, and that they are ready to be there and be responsive and sensitive with their child. Those are two really important things that parents can do.

ZAHN: And, Ellen, this has been at the top of the list of your concerns. You've worked with companies to create better day care situations in corporations, and I see you nodding your head when you talk about leaving your work at home when you hit the door. Do you have any confidence corporations are going to shift anything out there to make it easier for women to do just that?

ELLEN GALINSKY, PRESIDENT, FAMILIES AND WORK INSTITUTE: I think particularly large companies are beginning to pay attention to this issue. You might think that that's crazy in such a shaky economy, but there has been an influx of women out of the doors of large companies into their own businesses because they have more control.

So companies are beginning to do things like provide more flexibility and more control, to do -- pay attention to the work that we do that's a waste of time, to try to pay attention to all of the multitasking that people are doing and the feeling that you're on an endless treadmill. So they are beginning to see this in their own business interests.

ZAHN: I know your phones were ringing off the wall yesterday. What do women have to say about this?

GALINSKY: Well, women feel guilty. They want to know if they have made the right choice. Many of them can't afford to do anything differently, so they just feel awful about it. And I think that rather than feel awful, try to do what you can do to reduce the stress in your own life. If you can, try to calm down before you leave work, have a good transition home, pay -- you know, try to be there with your child when you're with your child. But also begin to work with your employers to provide more flexibility and more control, those sorts of things that we know make a big difference.

ZAHN: Tough thing to do in this very jumpy economy. Jane, is it also true that you examined the impact that a marriage may have on the young development vs. a single mom raising a little baby?

WALDFOGEL: Well, actually we were mainly interested in whether the differences -- the effects of maternal employment were different in married couple families vs. single mother families. And somewhat surprisingly, we found that these effects of maternal -- early full- time maternal employment were stronger in the married couple families than in the single mother families.

ZAHN: OK, I don't follow. You mean that the kids who did better came from houses headed by single people?

WALDFOGEL: No. Let me try again, Paula. What we -- what we found was that the children who seemed to be most affected in terms of their school readiness by their mother working full-time in the first year, were the children who came from married couple families.

ZAHN: Interesting. Quick thought on that, we've got five seconds left, and then we've got to move along.

GALINSKY: We found that what the father feels about the mother's working makes the difference. And we go back to Jane's earlier point that we need to include fathers in these studies. Life is complicated, and we need to begin to try to tease (ph) apart what makes the difference.

ZAHN: I think we all would support that idea. Jane -- or -- yes -- Jane Waldfogel, thanks so much for your time from London this morning.

WALDFOGEL: My pleasure.

ZAHN: Ellen Galinsky, appreciate your time as well.

GALINSKY: Thank you.

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