UWLP Blog - Family

Given the high rates of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, continued research is crucial to inform both policy and practice and to help new mothers most at risk.

Did you miss this Spring Symposium event? Don't worry! You can read about it and watch the full recording here.

The COVID-19 pandemic that reached Utah in March of 2020 has had an enormous impact on the way companies do business. Many companies adjusted work practices and policies in other ways to support their employees during a challenging time.

Utah fathers recognize the strong influence local culture can have on the way their daughters develop their sense of self. The state’s distinct environment, with its own set of social norms, can affect girls and young women in both positive and negative ways. Fathers can work to support their daughters’ efforts to navigate cultural influences.

This idea sheet is based on a 2018 gathering of 25 mothers who are raising school-aged daughters in Utah. With the knowledge that mothers are one of the most powerful influences in a girl’s life, this discussion focused on various topics, including culture, confidence and self-discovery, education, personal and social development, and resilience.

Childcare is an important consideration for millions of American families; 71% of all women with children under 18 are in the labor force, comprising one-third of the total female workforce in the U.S. Further, childcare costs are becoming increasingly burdensome; in the U.S. generally, and in 33 states specifically (including Utah), the annual cost of childcare is higher than the cost of in-state tuition at a four-year public college.

In October of 2017, the Utah Women and Leadership Project along with the YWCA of Utah brought a group of experts together to identify current resources/strengths, challenges, and potential interventions that would help Utah caregivers. What follows are their recommendations organized by category.

Utah Women and Education Project researchers conducted in-depth research in 2010 to discover why more young women around the state are not attending and graduating from college. We discovered that fathers in Utah have a significant influence on their daughters’ college choices and regarding graduating from college.

In March 2017, the Utah Women and Leadership Project along with the YWCA of Utah brought a group of experts together to identify current resources/strengths, challenges, and potential interventions that would help Utahans have access to child care. What follows are their recommendations organized by category.

A majority of the participants’ mothers wanted their daughters to attend college. Some mothers wanted their daughters to become independent career women while others believed that a college degree should be used as a backup plan in case their husbands were unable to care for them.

According to the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition, more than 40% of adult homicides in Utah since 2000 have been domestic violence related. Domestic violence is often presumed to refer only to physical violence, but it also includes many other forms of abuse—emotional, verbal, financial, and spiritual.

I have come to realize that I am a product of “hardy stock” –a line of strong women. Both my mother and her mother were born in Pacific Junction, Iowa, a town that regularly experiences the flooding of the Missouri River. When I asked my mother “why do people stay?” Her reply was, “It’s their home, where would they go?”

Growing Up. Over half of the survey participants said that they had their greatest struggles with confidence between 6th and 12th grades. Factors that most negatively affected confidence included unstable or unsafe homes, dysfunctional families (i.e., abuse and neglect), and poor relationship with parents.

There are some days when the weight of my responsibilities and my physical limitations are poignant. It’s almost enough to make you crazy to think that you can’t just jump in a car and go wherever you want to go—that you have to get a ride with someone or pay for a taxi.

Sometimes a degree is only viewed as a stepping-stone to a lucrative career, but maybe that’s part of the problem with the gender and education gap. If a college education is only viewed as a prereq to that nice salary position, those who don’t see themselves in the breadwinner role or the white-collar job.

Before retiring in May 2014, my mom, Kathy, worked in a sector of education which is often overlooked, but imperative for those struggling with speech difficulties. As a speech language pathologist (SLP) she was employed in the Utah public school districts for a little over 35 years.

As a result of my egalitarian upbringing, it had never occurred to me that I could not have both a family and a career (after all, my mom did). I was seventeen before I encountered a certain idea typically prevalent within my faith culture: that good, worthy motherhood was only of the full-time stay-at-home variety.

It is impossible to overestimate the value of mothers as leaders. As the poet, William Ross Wallace, wrote, “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” And we are all familiar with this quote from Abraham Lincoln: “All I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”

When I married at 20, I knew I was making the right choice for me. I had found my best friend, and I wouldn’t let him go. I had one year until college graduation, and he had three. We started our life together as your typical poor, struggling college students, but we had a plan.

In many ways am a walking billboard for young Utah mother stereotypes. I met my husband in high school, we married when I was 20. I spend my days taking our two daughters, ages 2 and 4, to playdates with friends or story time at the library. We frequently attend Sunday dinners and group birthday celebrations.

I typically responded to the first with a fake laugh to avoid giving an actual answer. No one really wants to hear the long answer, that I inherited my mother’s petite frame, and most of my meals were consumed standing up. I also have the mad skills of making one peanut butter sandwich last for hours.

My father was a teacher and the football coach at the high school I attended. I felt lucky to be in his health class. As a teenager I felt he had the best job a father could have. During high school I struggled with the decision of what course of study to pursue in college.

You were more likely to be prepared when you started school if your mother had a college degree. You were more likely read too. If your mother had to work, she was more likely to find a family-friendly job that provided some flexibility and/or higher pay, allowing her to spend more time with you.