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Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers  
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not relate to or associate themselves with hard-working mothers. “My friends 
have already had two burn-outs, and then I think for whom are you doing it? 
Always in a hurry, and being exhausted all the time. And then those heels… and 
the bag… and then I think that I am glad I don’t need to do that” (Mireille).  
Nevertheless, Mireille doesn’t want to be allies with the mothers hanging 
around the schoolyard drinking coffee either.  
Gender attitude 
The gender attitudes of the interviewed stay-at-home mothers are less traditional 
than one would expect, based on their lifestyle. Full-time housewives consider 
child-care and household tasks as their main responsibility, and in general have 
no other priorities. However they are not overly satisfied with their current 
traditional division of labour and so deal with contradictory inner feelings. As 
described, mothers would like to be in paid work and desire (often receiving) help 
from their husbands. However where this is not the case, mothers generally tend 
to withhold from complaining. “Actually, he always does a lot, so I cannot really 
complain about it. Always when I say, oh, and those children are so... he says, 
‘leave the dishes for me’. But you know, sometimes I think, yes, yes, those dishes, 
I can do those too. You should go and deal with our annoying children... But yes, 
I also think, well okay, you can do the dishes then…” (Janne). 
Stay at-home mothers describe their partners quite often as egalitarian 
husbands. “He always said, and I believe him: ‘You must do what you want. If 
you want to work then we can arrange an au pair or bring the children to the day 
care. If you don’t want to work, it is fine as well’” (Nora).  
In other situations, mothers cannot remember explicitly discussing their work 
decisions with their partners, yet they do remember that they agreed fully with 
their conclusion to give up work. This marital decision-making process vis-à-vis 
mothers’ employment activity expresses two rather opposite ideologies. On the 
one hand, it expresses the modern view that work is something personal to decide 
upon, but on the other hand, it might also reveal a rather traditional attitude that 
work for mothers is not a self-evident matter, and that not working is a viable 
option. Whatever attitude prevails, the partner’s apparent tolerant attitude leads to 
the situation that how children are taken care of mostly depends on their mother’s 
decisions in relation to work. Partners’ tolerant attitudes may appear agreeable, 
but as I have described above, mothers’ decisions to give up work are not always 
such a pre-planned or positive choice for motherhood. Rather, they are frequently 
the result of a sequence of unfavourable happenings, for example escaping an 
otherwise wearisome career. In this light, partners’ liberal or phlegmatic attitudes 
allow mothers to slip into non-working situations that do not necessarily make 
their lives easier or happier. In addition, there are examples of husbands or 
partners who did not comply with earlier plans to work less. However this has not 
led to an apparent conflict between the partners, rather mothers deal with and 
adapt to the situation.  

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Chapter 3 - A qualitative typology of Dutch mothers’ employment narratives 
89 
Another finding is that stay-at-home mothers are, unexpectedly, not very 
critical about mothers who work full-time.  “If mothers really like their jobs, they 
should work 40 hours. In that case it’s much less draining than sitting at home. I 
really think so” (Nienke).  
This ‘tolerant’ attitude of full-time homemakers towards full-time working 
mothers may be a reaction to the fact that they often receive (critical) comments 
themselves about not being employed. “People ask me: what are you doing all 
day: And then I say on purpose: Nothing, I do nothing all day” (Mireille). 
Early adult attitude towards motherhood 
Being a young adult, the mothers remember they had a strong wish to become a 
mother and have children. They are particularly child-minded, and are somewhat 
less outspoken about their maternal role; or as Marieke describes it: “As a mother, 
you have to put yourself aside.”  
In their previous jobs, they had difficulties switching off: “When I was at 
work, I always thought of them sitting on the ground with dirty nappies, neglected 
by the professional carers” (Nora).  
Using the terminology of Duncan (2005), stay-at-home mothers’ gendered 
moral rationalities about childcare are in particular expressed in relation to how 
they understand the needs of their children, and less in relation to how they 
understand their own needs, or the balance between the two (p.57).  
Mothers want their children to have the same things that they were used to 
having themselves when they were younger: a nice, cosy house, where there is 
‘simply’ someone there for the children. In particular, after-school day care is not 
referred to enthusiastically. Mothers want to offer their children the freedom and 
intimacy of home, instead of being once again in a structured and crowded public 
environment (see also Portegijs 2006; Portegijs et al., 2008b) and also because it 
is not ‘good’ for the children to be in professional childcare too often. Children 
need to bond with their parents, and vice versa. The fact that mothers remain 
primarily responsible for this bonding process is unquestioned. 
Stay-at-home interviewees appeared successful in realising their juvenile wish 
to have three or more children, a situation which makes the option of being a full-
time home-makers acceptable. “Large families tend to push women away from 
paid work, whereas good jobs draw women into the labour force” (Risman et al., 
1999, p.337). 
 
 

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