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When you have a week-old baby on your hands, the most common question you get is when will you go back to work, says a parenting expert.
Nathan Wallis, a neuroscience educator and child development specialist, says that being a stay-at-home parent has gone from being the norm to being the minority.
Over the past 50 years, the number of parents choosing to stay home with their children has and continues to decline, which Wallis fears will lead to a generation of angry and anxious children.
JOSEPH JOHNSON / THINGS
Parenting expert Nathan Wallis says that as a society we have lost family cohesion and resilience because we have fewer stay-at-home parents.
Figures from Stats NZ show that in June 2020 12.7 percent of all people who were not in the workforce reported that their main activity was caring for a child, a significant decrease from 21.1 percent in 1986 .
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Experts attribute the decline in stay-at-home parents to improvements in gender equality, the rise in tertiary education for young women, their participation in the workforce, the cost of living, and the cost of raising children. children in New Zealand, which is about $ 285,000, or about $ 16,000 a year.
Choosing to be a stay-at-home parent these days will see you battling society’s expectations and constantly justifying your decision, Wallis says.
“Most children receive care outside the home before their first birthday, it is a cultural change, people accept what everyone else is doing and what everyone is doing now is putting their children in child care centers.
“Society has a lot more anxiety, basically we have a pandemic of anxiety and depression among our teenagers, that’s something multifaceted, but I think that the loss of a parent at home in the first 1000 days of life is a big driver.”
Wallis says research shows that the first 1000 days of a child’s life are the most critical to the lifetime habits created during this time, and children will benefit the most from having a parent at home.
But stay-at-home parents have always been undervalued, Wallis says, and are even more so today.
Lack of recognition and appreciation for what they do can make parents feel compelled to return to work rather than stay home with their children.
Things-co-nz
Massey University professor Paul Spoonley says the decision to be a stay-at-home parent or return to work has become an economic decision.
Paul Spoonley, Professor at Massey University and author of New New Zealand: Facing demographic disruption, says that a change occurred in the 1970s and that since then stay-at-home mothers have become less common.
It was then that more women began seeking more education and increasing numbers of people entered the workforce.
He says stay-at-home parents have also become less common because the increase in family income has not matched the increase in the cost of living.
In the 1970s, the cost of buying a home was double your salary, Spoonley says. Now, in major centers like Auckland, it is nine times the average salary.
“Many need to have a double income to, for example, buy a house, so the decision to have children and continue working has become an economic decision.”
Statistics New Zealand’s Household Workforce Survey showed that there were 56,100 women with a child under 12 months of age in the September quarter of 2020.
Of these, 28,900 were employed and 1,300 were looking for work, 54.0 percent of the group.
However, it is not always an economic decision.
SIMON O’CONNOR / Things
Tim and Nicola Hunter have two children: Lucy, 2, and Daisy, 5. Nicola stayed home for the first five years and recently returned to work and loves it.
Nicola Hunter, a mother of two and a Taranaki resident, has experienced both worlds and recently returned to work after five years as a stay-at-home mom.
She says most people thought she should have gone back to work sooner.
After her first daughter, 5-year-old Daisy, Hunter did not plan to stay home for more than a year, but she developed postpartum depression and anxiety, so the thought of going back to work was overwhelming.
“It was difficult to give up the second income, but we made it work, you just have to sacrifice a few things, I haven’t been to the salon very often and that sort of thing.”
Hunter and her husband Tim were also able to purchase their home in Waitara on one income.
However, after his second child, Lucy, now 2, arrived, Hunter felt a loss of freedom and identity, so he decided to look for a job.
It’s only four hours a day, while Daisy is at school and Lucy is at daycare, but it is the outlet she needed to feel like herself again.
“I don’t think he was being the best father he could be, it was very difficult.
“Although we are not necessarily better financially, feeling better about myself is a greater reward than money.”
