The Comparison of Children with Working Mothers and Children with Housekeeping Mothers in Family Drawing

Background and Factors such as women’s higher education, tendency to financial independence, social cooperation, and social and cultural development have leaded to increased number of working mothers. Present study aimed to compare children with working mothers and children with housekeeping mothers in terms of their family drawing. Present study was a descriptive research. Study sample consisted of 120 six to twelve years old male and female students (60 with working mothers and 60 with stay-at-home mothers) who were studying in schools of Tehran city in 1393-94 academic year, and were selected using cluster sampling method. Participants completed Halse’s Draw-A-Family-Test. Each child was interviewed individually after the test. Data were analyzed using chi-square test. Results of chi-square test showed that comparing to boys with stay-at-home mothers and girls with working mothers, boys with working mothers had greater tendency to omit themselves, made their mothers less important, made their fathers more important, and showed unconscious identification with their fathers. Moreover, comparing to girls with housekeeping mothers, girls with working mothers revealed more father omission, made their mothers more important, and showed greater unconscious identification with their mothers. According to our findings, we can conclude that male and female children with working mothers showed emotionally different reactions to their mothers’ employment status.