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remarkable in their narratives is the very absence of explicit parental norms and
values regarding an ideal gender division of labour, accompanied by the memory
of a self-evident and consenting ‘caring’ mother. To be more precise, daughters
mostly assumed that their mothers enjoyed their caring and household tasks, but
often they admit they never really discussed the issue with their mothers.
These differences between the qualitative findings and quantitative results
might actually exemplify different processes. Firstly, the traditional division of
labour could have felt so natural and self-evident for all family members that
there were no reasons to discuss or talk about it explicitly.
With quantitative
questionnaires people may feel more or less forced to fill in specific answer
categories, even if they do not really know the answer. Nonetheless, based on the
theory of Ajzen and Fishbein (2005) we can also expect that mothers only choose
answers with strong and positive associations easily accessible in memory, and
that they automatically pick the ‘right’ answer (‘right’ here in the sense that these
parental normative values or attitudes
do affect their own attitudes). Put
differently, and to paraphrase the well-known Thomas theorem, “
if people
perceive their stories as real, they are real in their consequences” (Merton,
1995). Yet, the quantitative results might also be explained by a process of
cognitive dissonance – people make justifications for
their current behaviour
(Festinger et al., 1956). If a mother’s present main task and responsibility is to
care for her children and do the household chores, she might – perhaps incorrectly
– assume that her parents, and her mother in particular, found caring for others an
important value as well: Why would she otherwise do so herself? Bem (1965)
calls this the process of self-persuasion which is also a product of social
interaction. People justify their own behaviour with answers that they think other
people expect them to answer, based on their behaviour (e.g. “Do you like
bread?”; “I guess I do, because I am always eating it”).
Due to the retrospective nature of many questions within this study, and the
cross-sectional research methods, it is impossible to verify the real parental norms
and values that have been transmitted. However, the
aim of the study was to
detect possible discerning patterns between the answers of mothers with different
employment behaviour, based on their various values and attitudes. Therefore, I
compared the answers of relative traditional mothers with the answers of more
egalitarian mothers.
Indeed, mothers with more egalitarian attitudes responded differently than
their traditional/adaptive counterparts. Their narratives stood out due to the
memories of the strong presence of their mothers, who were often the sole
provider, and could
play a dominant role at home, or else were unsatisfied with
their traditional mother role. In addition, their stories included relatively many
examples of sudden and/or unwanted family happenings. For example, for
various reasons one third of the mothers were raised by single mothers, who often
were the main provider of their family income. Other stories of mothers with
egalitarian attitudes revealed rather out of the ordinary family situations – such as
going to boarding school, having an alcoholic father or a mentally-ill mother, and
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other dramatic occurrences with family members.
This meant that these women
were more or less ‘forced’ to grow up as independent young women very quickly.
This is directly opposed to mothers with traditional/adaptive gender attitudes,
who regularly emphasised that they come from warm families, and often
recounted many happy and pleasant childhood memories.
The quantitative results revealed some more discrepancies between the
primary socialization processes of mothers with traditional/adaptive attitudes and
those of mothers with egalitarian gender attitudes. For example, egalitarian values
and attitudes were related to the presence of a mother with a positive work
orientation (she worked with pleasure or would have liked to have worked),
which confirms earlier research on this subject (Barret and White, 2002; De Valk,
2008; Trent and South, 1992; Van Wel and Knijn, 2006). And
in support of social
stratification theory, a more objective background characteristic – the educational
level of the respondent’s mother – is also significantly related to a mother’s
general gender values: the higher educated her mother, the more egalitarian the
respondent’s own general gender values. This effect adds up to that of the
respondent’s own educational level. Sanders (1997) previously showed that a
higher-educated mother directly affected her daughter’s own employment (also
Cloïn, 2010). In this study I could not trace this direct effect, so therefore it is
interesting to find that the effect still persists indirectly in her daughters’ labour
market behaviour, since it is assumed in this study that values can be viewed as
elements behind personal attitudes and preferences (Ajzen, 1991; Becker et al.,
1983;
Van Deth and Scarbrough, 1995). Moreover, the results indicate that (at
least) part of mothers’ general gender values (and thus their ideal family lives)
have a robust source in childhood.
In relation to mothers’ current work attitudes, it appeared relevant again to
observe what is absent in mothers’ childhood chronicles. A significant parental
message in relation to their daughter’s economic independence and professional
perspective appeared present in the youth stories of mothers with egalitarian
attitudes, and was remarkably lacking in the youth stories of most
traditional/adaptive mothers. If mothers have not been stimulated (verbally or
mentally) to consider their professional lives, it appears difficult to overcome this
later in life. The effect of the parental message of economic independence on
mothers’ own adherence to financial autonomy was also found in the quantitative
analysis; undoubtedly the message serves as a guide for life.
Overall, the findings indicate that intergenerational influence mainly occurs
via the transmission (both intentional and unintentional) of mental and verbal
symbols, especially diffused by the mother. These associations could come from
a satisfied and consenting traditional mother figure, or else from the completely
opposite associations of a reluctant and dissatisfied mother, or else from
independent mothers who went their own way.
These different origins between
mothers with traditional/adaptive gender attitudes
and egalitarian attitudes,
enhance our understanding of contemporary diverse gender and work attitudes
among Dutch mothers. Mothers’ gender values and attitudes have not developed