I found this video on alpha vs. beta moms and their parenting skills with the children and which style is better for raising children.
Alpha moms are defined as the "working" mom who likes having every minute of her day and her children's day planned out. She is always telling her children when to do their homework.
Beta moms are usually the stay-at-home moms and are more relaxed than the alpha moms. They usually just let their children do what they want during the day and tend to follow the kids lead.
http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/new-beginnings/video.aspx?vid=2d40e0a8-d152-4b87-9e6c-93a431afe389&w=92&h=69%26tab=New Beginnings%26ap=true
The psychologist on the show didn't say that one was better than the other, but that a mix of the two would be best, that one day a mother is usually more alpha and other days more beta. But that the mix is how most women tend to raise their children. The example that she gave was that parents should be training wheels, which the children should start the momentum and the parents just stabilize the children's ideas. When watching the video, I thought about what we had learned and talked about in class regarding classroom structure and autonomy supportive classrooms versus controlling classrooms.
I thought that the beta moms were more autonomy supportive and the alpha moms were more controlling. But when it comes to children and their different personalities it seems that parents need to be a combination of both with their kids. But I believe that beta parenting is more lenient and changing with kids and it concentrates more on their strengths and lets them recognize their potential.
As I was reading your post, I had the reoccurring thought of the Tyra Banks Show. A couple weeks ago there was an episode talking about two types of mothers, those who smoke pot, and those who don't. The main focus of the show was to debate whether mothers should smoke pot or not. The reason I thought about this particular show is because the fact that these "stoner" moms demonstrate both characteristics from the alpha and beta type moms. Many of the moms who smoked pot do work 40+ hours a week, have several children, involved in their children's lives in their school and in the church. One of the mothers has a medical marijuana card which legally allows her to smoke/eat pot. (Yes I found out they make lollipops from marijuana which you can eat.) The stoner moms seemed to live full and busy lives, yet give their children the freedom. However this second part is hard to tell because only one of the moms had a daughter old enough to make decisions for herself.
In terms of motivation and emotion, according to Michaele P. Dunlap, Psy. D, he states "Frequent use can lead to the "amotivational syndrome", in which the person becomes apathetic, loses the ability to set realistic goals, lacks drive and ambition." So according to this, moms who smoke marijuana run the risk of lacking motivation in their day to day lives. This wasn't addressed on the Tyra show, but it would interesting to see if this pans out ot be true.
So I completely understand that this might not be directly related to what you posted, however I feel like there are similarities between the two. I tried to find the show to post a link, however the only crappy link on youtube.com, and its in parts and its called "soccer mom stoners" if you are interested in watching.