Content area
Abstract
This descriptive study addressed the needs of Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) mothers for preschool child care services that are in harmony with the beliefs of the church. The stratified sample population consisted of 122 SDA mothers with preschool children who reside in a nine-state area identified as the Mid-America Union and who belong to churches with memberships of 150 or more.
Eighteen research questions were presented and data were collected through the use of an investigator-constructed questionnaire. This instrument was designed to identify types of child care services SDA mothers prefer as well as those most utilized, to determine the existence of any relationship between educational backgrounds or years of church membership and SDA mothers' child care practices, to assess the mothers' perceptions of the church's responsibilities to preschoolers, to identify the depressed feelings of guilt incurred by mothers requiring surrogate care, and to determine the influence SDA child care services (if available) would have on the mothers' desires to seek employment outside the home.
The analyses of data consisted of calculation of frequencies, percentage, through chi-square analysis, relationship between variables were tested.
Significant conclusions arrived at through this study included: (1) Nearly one-half of the SDA mothers who live in the Mid-America Union are employed outside the home because of financial needs. (2) More than one-half of the SDA mothers employed outside the home place their preschool children in non-SDA environments for surrogate care and have a feeling of guilt about leaving their children in surrogate care. (3) With few exceptions, SDA mothers of preschool children feel the establishment of church-sponsored child care services would be of value to the over-all mission of the church and would not be a major influencing factor to cause SDA mothers of preschool children to seek employment outside the home.
