More American mothers than ever are working, and more workers are mothers. Yet their march into the world of paid work continues to cause suspicion. One recent survey found that 48 percent of Americans believe that preschoolers suffer if their mothers work, while another found that 42 percent of employed parents think that working mothers care more about succeeding at work than meeting their children’s needs. The kids are all right. Studies conducted by the University of Michigan have consistently demonstrated that a child’s social or academic competence does not depend on whether a mother is employed. In my research four out of five children told me that having a working mother was their preferred arrangement. My study found that children with working mothers are no more likely to drop out, take drugs, break the law, or experiment with sex prematurely than children with non-employed mothers. Children have taken their mothers’ example to heart. Ninety percent of the young women I interviewed said they hoped to combine work with motherhood, while two-thirds of the men said they wanted to share parenting and work. Sadly, children support working mothers more than we do as a society. Parental leave and child-care benefits in the United States remain inadequate, particularly when compared to what’s offered in other countries. Children thrive when their mothers have satisfying, well-paid jobs when they can count on other caretakers to share the load. The challenge facing us is thus not whether good workers can also be good mothers, but whether we can create the conditions that enable working mothers and fathers to be good parents.What is the main idea of the passage