sponsibility and taskcompletion such as is needed for school work and extracurricu! lar activities. A study by Hoffman in 1974corroborates these observations and therefore one canconclude that, in general, the working parent provides avery positive role model for the child in a family whereboth parents are employed. (Hoffman 18) Attitudes of workingparents pertaining to achievement, responsibility andindependence affect both male and female offspring. Thereseems to be more beneficial effects felt by daughters ofworking women than by sons; however, this neither impliesnor concludes that males do not receive some positiveeffects due to maternal employment. (Spitz 606) Hoffman hasconcluded that daughters of employed mothers tend to be moreindependent. (Hoffman 73) This tendency may result from thefact that in the mother’s absence, a daughter is often leftto cope with caring for herself: This promotes herindependence and self-reliance. At the same time, thedaughter may also be left with the job of looking after ayounger sibling, helping to promote her sense ofresponsibility. Significant too, is the fact that daughtersof working mother’s tend to be more decisive about theirfutures than sons. Further studies have demonstrated that amother’s employment status and occupation tends to be a goodpredictor of the outcome of the working mother’s daughter,since daughters tend to follow in their mother’s footsteps.Typically, working mothers held higher educationalaspirations for their children and furthermore, mostdaughters tend to achieve higher grades in school. (Spitz606) It is also important to note that both male and femalechildren acquire more egalitarian sex role attitudes whenboth parents work. Boys with working mothers showed bettersocial and personal skills than boys of non-working mothers.On a negative note, middle-class boys tend to do worse inschool when their mothers worked. (Shreve 118) As well, boyswhose m...
