About two-thirds of the 23.5 million working women in the U.S. with children under the age of 18 worked full-time in 2018, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. One psychotherapist claims that by working, mothers are harming the mental health of their children.

Licensed clinical social worker Erica Komisar, who is in private practice in New York City, said she has seen an “epidemic” of mental disorders in the children of working mothers in her clinic where she offers parent guidance practice.

She places the blame on the role of motherhood not being valued by society.

The U.S. is the world’s only wealthy country without any guaranteed paid parental leave and most U.S. workers do not have access to paid family leave through their employer. President Joe Biden campaigned on parental leave but a Democrat proposal to mandate federally paid leave is in jeopardy as Republicans and some Dems argue over its inclusion in a package to overhaul health care, education, immigration, climate and tax laws.

“Our society tells women go back to work, do what you want, (babies will) be OK. But they’re not OK,” Komisar said in a video interview with the New York Post. “The ideal maternity leave would be one year of fully paid leave for all women of all backgrounds.” 

Komisar, the author of “Being There, Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters,” revealed how she’d seen an “epidemic level of mental disorders in very young children,’” which she attributes to the “devaluing of mothering in society.”

Motherhood must become more valued by society, she told the Daily Mail. Daycare is a stressful environment full of stimuli that are not good for young children. Their stress levels only reduce when their mothers return.

When working women return home in the evenings, they spend as little as 90 minutes with their babies before they put them to bed, Komisar said. She advised working mothers to keep children up late so they can spend more time together.

“I was seeing it in my clinic. I was actually seeing an epidemic level of mental disorders in very young children who were being diagnosed and medicated at an earlier and earlier age,” she said.

A 2009 study found that children of working mothers do in fact develop behavioral problems.

The paper, “Relationship of working mothers’ parenting style and consistency to early childhood development: a longitudinal investigation,” published by the Journal of Advanced Nursing, concluded that working mothers “should increase interactions with their children in their free time to reduce the risk of developmental delay.”

But other studies contradict this paper and the theories of Komisar.

“Overall, maternal employment seems to have a limited impact on children’s behavior and academic achievement over the short term. And there appear to be benefits in the long-term,” according to The Journalist’s Resource, a project of Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative.

A study published in 2018 found that daughters raised by working mothers are more likely to be employed as adults and have higher incomes.

Image credit: Prostock-Studio / iStock 

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