Working mothers can forget the guilt trip. New research published this month in the American Psychological Association's journal, Developmental Psychology, says a mother's employment outside the home has no significant negative effect on her children.
The research involved a group of 12,600 people and assessed behaviour problems, cognitive development, self-esteem, academic achievement and other variables.
Dr Elizabeth Harvey and colleagues found that those whose mothers worked in the first three years of their lives were not significantly different from children whose mothers did not.