Working Moms Ignore Their Kids?
Working moms have it hard. I liked the way Kelly came to the defence of working moms in her post I’m fat because mommy works. But being a bit of a juggler myself, I think that working moms have a guilt syndrome that they can never quite escape from.
Moms have it in their head that:
-They have to nurture and love their kids. That’s only natural.
-They want to do it by themselves and don’t really trust the help that they get.
-They want to make the money and if they give up their jobs they mope about it or feel worthless.
So there is a guilt syndrome that exists with women whether they work or not- the mommy kind or the work kind.
I understand how important working is but I have to admit that juggling and time management is a skill that not everyone is good at. Many working moms could opt for fast food and be unable to monitor their kids every action the way moms did long ago. Work does come in the way of harmony at home and it’s the combined family effort that keeps the homefront on track. Parents today work way too hard and they don’t realize that their kids are growing up. It’s not a reason to feel guilty…it’s fact.
The fact is that we don’t have quality in our lives anymore. At least in the cities. That’s not an accusation. It’s the way it is. And healthy living requires more than being career-oriented…unfortunately time is what people need and what is impossible to find anymore.
What do you think?
health, lifestyle, Dr Sanjay Gupta, Working mummy, childre, , parenting, obesity
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:36 am
I think it isn’t about employment status at all. In our research we found the guilt-o-meter is the same regardless of employment status. Putting parents on one side of the employment fence or the other just serves to distract from the issue that care giving responsibilities are not supported in the US the way they are in other developed nations. We need to look at WHY parents are stressed out and guilt ridden instead of focussing on who has more guilt. Once we focus on the “why” we can then look at the economic and political support and see what needs to change in order to bring down that guilt-o-meter.
June 6th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Neel, I agree with you. I think that as a society, time is always lacking. But, there are ways that we can start looking at our time differently. Instead of waiting for time to exist, to schedule free time in the same way we schedule everything else. And yes, not everyone is good at time management, but I think there is time we DO have that could be used either to allow ourselves to relax for a second (working moms) or as family time, but we don’t take advantage of those nuggets of time. Instead we feel like it’s not free time if it can’t be more than an hour, or while we’re on vacation.
When you get a chance, check out “The Get A Life Campaign,” for busy women.
http://www.getalifecampaign.com