Mcquillan, Julia et al. 2008. The Importance of Motherhood Among Women In the Contemporary United States. Gender & Society 22: 447-496.
The article aims to complicate our understanding of long-term assumption that mother and work are considered as competing statues. Using a national probability sample (N=2519) of U.S. Women aged from 25 to 45, the authors find a continuous distribution of scores that are used to measure perceptions of the importance of motherhood among both mothers and non-mothers. Three theoretical analyzes towards motherhood are tested: economic approaches, cultural and identity approaches and life course approaches. The authors find that education level is not associated with the importance of motherhood for either group and that valuing work success is positively associated with valuing motherhood among mothers. There is not significant association between work and motherhood among non-mothers, but they also show a high score in believing that motherhood is a desirably social status. This debunks the assumption that work-oriented women must be “anti-child” and motherhood-oriented women tend to be “anti-work”. Besides, the lower importance of children for non-mothers or fully employed mothers might be explained by the reality that it is difficult to combine work and expected intensive mothering.
长期以来，我们一直觉得家庭和事业——尤其是做母亲和追求自己的事业——对女性来说是一对相矛盾的概念。这篇文章运用全国概率抽样样本（样本量2519）来分析，在美国25到45岁的女性（妈妈和非妈妈两个群体）对于母职的重视程度和她们的教育水平、种族、宗教、母职经历等等因素的关系。一般来说，有三个视角来理解母职对于女性的意义：经济角度、文化和认同角度和生命历程角度。通过分析，作者发现对于两个群体而言，教育水平和对母职的重视程度没有显著性关联。对于妈妈群体而言，工作和母职同样重要。在非妈妈群体内没有发现两者之间的联系，但是母职依然是一个被看重的社会角色。这个就挑战了我们的既有假设，认为以事业为重的女性都不喜欢孩子，而以家庭为重的女性都不在乎自己的事业。另外，对于有些全职妈妈和非妈妈群体而言，她们不那么看重孩子也许是因为在当今社会，母职和工作确实非常难以兼顾和平衡。