| Summary: | Submitted in Fulfillment or Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of
MASTER OF EDUCATION
In the Department of Philosophy of Education
of the
University of Zululand, 1987. === Working outside the home exposes a woman to experiences and views common to herself and her family. The kind of job she does and her satisfaction with it, as well as her family's attitude towards her work affects the way she performs her roles as a wife and as a mother.
Very few Black working mothers derive pleasure from their occupations. Their working conditions and renumeration are not consistent with effective mothering in the sense that the period of interaction with the child is minimised, the quality of mother-child interaction is affected and low wages do not allow for satisfactory child care arrangements.
This study revealed that since the quality of mother child relationship during the formative phase determines the child's philosophy of life and his educability in later life^ Black working mothers can ill afford to be effective primary educators. Inadequate ante-natal and pcst-natal care deprives the infant of general alertness that a psychologically prepared mother would elicit from him. Delegating motherhood to caregivers does not compensate for maternal deprivation because they change most of the time providing the child with different values and exposing him to a shaky framework of authority structure. Each of the caregivers does not stay with the child long enough to understand and monitor his total development.
Maternal nurturance builds feelings of security, love esteem and confidence which facilitates the child's venturing into new situations. A mother offers a comfortable and reassuring backdrop in his educational endeavours. Besides being a feedback mechanism for the child.^ She is a source of reference and she offers a reliable supportive guidance.
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