Full-time Homemakers Research Articles

Childhood Family Structure and Adult Characteristics

When the effects of relevant background variables and other family structure variables are controlled, coming from a large family is related to poor intellectual functioning and to having self-evaluative values while at the same time having a tendency toward authoritarianism. Individuals coming from families broken by divorce or separation are more anxious, distrustful, and less ideationally flexible than are the rest of the population; the decline in ideational flexibility being greater among those raised in households in which there were no adult males. The only effect of having a working mother was a greater receptivity to innovation. In summary, since these relationships were generally not very powerful, it can be concluded that when the effects of other relevant variables are controlled they have at most a modest effect on adult functioning. This paper examines the effects of three aspects of family structure (size of family of origin, intactness of that family, and mothers' working or nonworking status) upon men's values, orientations, and intellectual functioning as adults. There are pressing theoretical and methodological reasons for considering these three family structure variables together. From a theoretical point of view all three parental behaviors may be the result of the same orientation. Each of the three can be seen as reflecting parents' sense of individualism, the extent to which they see themselves as being of central importance in both the selection of means and the evaluation of ends. Limiting the number of one's children, getting divorced or separated, or being a working mother, all may stress the salience and importance of a parent's nonparental roles. Such behavior places an emphasis on parents meeting their own needs as individuals and a de-emphasis on the family's childrearing functions, functions that have been traditionally seen as best carried out by intact families in which the wife remains at home as a full-time mother and home-maker. Such an individualistic parental orientation may be transmitted directly to children

Marital Adjustment and the Employed Wife

No significant difference between the marital adjustment of wives who are engaged in full-time employment and that of those who are engaged in full-time homemaking was found in this study. Nor was a difference found in the marital adjustment of the husbands of the two groups of wives.