The US is the leading developed country with the highest work-family conflicts than any other developed countries around the globe. The cause of this is that most employers pay an hourly wage; thus, employees will tend to maximize their time working than attending to family matters. Also, every single day more and more industries are being offshored, leading to a decrease in the level of stable jobs. These factors continue to intricate the relationship between employed parents and their ability to raise their children. With the intensity of the responsibility being a key factor, it is important to stress on the work-family relationship and how it affects the ability to raise children. It is crucial to bring to highlight the workplace factors that hinder interaction between children and their parents (Michael, 2018). This factors can vary from stress in the working environment to maternity and paternity leave.
The higher the work intensity, the more an employee becomes stressed, leading to reduced interaction with their children. As Maccoby (2000) observed, parental guidance is important in facilitating infants’ “blank slate” status. They have the ability influence children to do good or bad. After a stressful work, all one needs is some time to rest. This may work for people who do not have families. However, the working population with families finds it difficult to cope with the two. Stress from work coupled with the responsibility to care for children leaves one torn apart (Michael, 2018). The ability to focus on this two different aspects becomes a challenge, leaving children exposing children to the learning environment. Most of these parents will even avoid coming home early just to find the children asleep to give them peace and a quite stress-free house.
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Although employee in the US works for long hours, they lack robust regulations to protect employees with families and abolish overtime. More so, most employers do not support maternity leave, and the available leave is unpaid, and last up to three months. Maternity and paternity leaves are crucial opportunities for parents and their children to interact and bond. Therefore, maternity and paternity leaves will mean time off work which will subsequently lead to loss of money during this period (Michael, 2018). Employees have determination, and with determination comes more and more time spent at work bringing the aspect of opting to skip the great opportunity for bonding with children. In most cases, men victims as they are considered the head the family. Thus, most of them lose touch with their children.
Policies from the workplace may significantly affect the ability of a parent to raise their children. Policies like reporting time and departure time for some may not seem like an issue but to people with children may see it as a nightmare. People without children are flexible and can access the workplace at the specified time at ease, unlike parents. This is especially when one has kids to drop-off and pick children from school with no one to help (Michael, 2018). There is also the fact that children will require someone to talk to after school, a person who will understand them directly and will give them advice.
It is clear that there is a significant impact on the parent-children relationship, as a result of work. Therefore, work-family affairs need to be balanced; otherwise, it can adversely affect a child’s development and even lead to delinquent behaviors. So, every child requires the help of parents in the early stages of their life.
References
Maccoby, E. E. (2000). Parenting and its effects on children: On reading and misreading behavior genetics. Annual Review of Psychology, 51 , 1-27
Michael, F. (2018). Chapter 10: Work and family . New York. Cengage Learning.
