title: Mothering Experiences: How Single Parenthood and Employment Structure the Emotional Valence of Parenting.
abstract: Research studies and popular accounts of parenting have documented the joys and strains of raising children. Much of the literature comparing parents with those without children indicates a happiness advantage for those without children, although recent studies have unpacked this general advantage to reveal differences by the dimension of well-being considered and important features in parents' lives and parenting experiences. We use unique data from the 2010, 2012, and 2013 American Time Use Survey to understand emotions in mothering experiences and how these vary by key demographic factors: employment and partnership status. Assessing mothers' emotions in a broad set of parenting activities while controlling for a rich set of person- and activity-level factors, we find that mothering experiences are generally associated with high levels of emotional well-being, although single parenthood is associated with differences in the emotional valence. Single mothers report less happiness and more sadness, stress, and fatigue in parenting than partnered mothers, and these reports are concentrated among those single mothers who are not employed. Employed single mothers are happier and less sad and stressed when parenting than single mothers who are not employed. Contrary to common assumptions about maternal employment, we find overall few negative associations between employment and mothers' feelings regarding time with children, with the exception that employed mothers report more fatigue in parenting than those who are not employed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology & Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, 267 19th Avenue S., Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA. meierann@umn.edu.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Meier
authors.affiliation: Policy Analysis and Management & Cornell Population Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Musick
authors.affiliation: Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Flood
authors.affiliation: Policy Analysis and Management & Cornell Population Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dunifon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D004651:Employment / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005221:Fatigue / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D015406:Single Parent / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology; D014481:United States
keywords: Emotional well-being; Maternal employment; Parenting; Single mothers; Time use