Abstract
The trend in the 1950s was to have large families (Ford, 1981). It was considered the “American thing to do.” As politicians and the mass media waved the banner of home and hearth and sang the idealized virtues of motherhood (Margolis, 1984), women felt this as a personal call. World War II had disrupted their lives, and they had a strong need to be surrounded by the security of family (Daniels & Weingarten, 1982). Although many women who had entered the labor force during the war years returned to full-time homemaking in response to the cultural and inner directives (Margolis, 1984), others remained in the workforce. For the most part, those women employed outside of their homes became part of the economy’s expanding service sector, taking on roles compatible with the image of women as caretakers and nurturers (Margolis, 1984). The conditional approval of women’s work outside the home was based on the idea that the woman’s income helped the family by providing for extra discretionary indulgences (Margolis, 1984). Today, these items are viewed as necessities.
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Kuchner, J.F., Porcino, J. (1988). Delayed Motherhood. In: Birns, B., Hay, D.F. (eds) The Different Faces of Motherhood. Perspectives in Developmental Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2109-3_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2109-3_12
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