Balancing motherhood and career work is not an easy task for most women. In many cases, women would want to have it all regarding motherhood, marriage, and career. It is a naturally a nice feeling being a mother because parenthood is associated with life satisfaction as opposed to being childless. Many working-class women would always want to return to employment after a period of mothering to advance their career aspirations. This paper discusses aunt Florence’s (not her real name) experiences in trying to balance her motherhood roles with work responsibilities.
Traditional theorists argue that multiple responsibilities among women in balancing between work and family may cause negative psychological effects. They view this from the fact that in the interest of balancing all the roles of family and career, the limits of time and energy would be taxing to the demands and obligations of these roles. While this is true, aunt Florence admits that it is challenging balancing work and her three children, but she says that her husband has been supportive of her commitment to both her teaching role and family roles.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Aunt Florence is a college graduate teacher in a community high school. When asked how she chose her present line of work, she says that throughout her life she has been concerned about this issue of working and raising a family. She would be interested in pursuing other involving careers such as a law or nursing career but thought it would have been much tricky satisfying such demanding career obligations. She thus opted for a teaching career so that she could have enough time and energy for her family as well. Further, she agrees that different role expectations depend upon the limited time and energy resources and therefore, if not adequately addressed, they may result in inter-role conflict leading to increased stress and reduced wellbeing. Aunt Florence thus chose the teaching career because she felt that salary and other employment benefits would enhance family caring.
Although she had not become a mother at the point of pursuing her career, aunt Florence was mindful of future family obligations and desires, so her career choice was well informed. She admits that in the management of her family, she learns skills that are critical in enhancing her employment. For Florence, teaching and family upbringing perfectly complements each other that she finds much pride doing the two without any overload issues. She has gained self-esteem from the multiple roles which further contributes to the effectiveness of the functions. While it is important to separate work life from family life, aunt expresses her conviction that such integration of full-time employment with family obligations provides her with social, emotional and financial support.
I wished to know if she, at any point, had to choose to stay at home caring for her child or go to work and she confessed that such decisions are made at family level with her husband. Again, she alluded to the instance when she was choosing her career that she knew well that the teaching career is associated with programmed off sessions. She together with her husband had to plan well on parenthood and motherhood so that her holidays matched with early childcare. Her career is flexible enough to address her childcare concerns. Also, nurseries have worked perfectly well for her children whenever she is on-session and the holidays correctly address her family bonding demands. She says that during some school events such as sporting, music, and touring held over weekends and holidays, she asks her children to accompany her so that they can have quality time together and learn more about her job. According to her, such experiences are great for her children because they make them more sociable and give lots of insights on what it means to be a student out there.
For aunt Florence, the field of education is a perfect one for mothers. She is proud that everyone, colleagues, students and the employer understands the obligations of female teachers as mothers and it does not matter when it comes to remuneration, promotion, or other acknowledgments. The treatment is entirely fair for all teachers both male and female. She says that in other career fields, motherhood may be a limiting factor to career advancement and work performance but in teaching, such challenges are very rare.
Florence confesses that minor challenges can arise in trying to balance between work and motherhood especially during instances when a child fells sick and one has to take time off work or at early infancy stages, but it all boils down to the support of one’s family and work supervisors and colleagues. She confirms that her husband is always supportive of her and the flexibility of her work has made it easier for her during such times. Whereas the employer expects total commitment to work and good work outcomes, the employer recommends prior adjustments to address work deficits following an absence from work.
