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Hgurg Aa Won'n 's s Harrisburg Area Women's News

Working Mothers: Working It Out

by Andrea Folk Bromberg

One of the most explosive and emotional issues that working mothers must deal with is the effect their absence has on the family, particularly children. A major source of guilt for most women is the feeling, no matter how deeply buried, that their working and being away from. the home for extended periods will have negative ramifications. Mary Beth Backens tose-McCune, psychotherapist, counsels many working mothers and addresses this and other problems below.

What are the major psychological problems working mothers face?

I would say the major one is depression. I think that the overall theme that see with the working mother is simply having too many demands on her time and her adaptive response to that could be emotional dysfunction, perhaps manifesting itself as depression, marital conflict or one or more of her children being possibly symptomatic. Do you feel that husband/wife relationships suffer when a mother works? I don't think that they have to suffer. I think that they can be enhanced by the woman working. But I think frequently they do suffer because the same demands that were on her prior to her working or prior to having a child are on her now; maintenance of the home, care of the children, maintaining a career, herself, a social life and a marital life. There has been no alleviation of demands, and she tries to do everything as she always did. She is then likely to feel guilty because she can't do all these things. Does the mother/child relationship suffer?

I don't think that it has to but frequently does. Say a mother has stayed home in the early years and the child is accustomed to having the mother around 24 hours a day. Perhaps the mother ran the household, did all the chores and work. Maybe you have a child who is not accustomed to picking up her room and putting toys away. There are little chores that any four or five year old child can learn to do but they haven't been trained to do these things because the mother has been at home doing it for them.

Mother then goes to work and this can set up a tension between the mother and child if the care situation is not acceptable. Not only is it placing more demands on the mother's time schedule, but it can also result in an anxious mother and child because of the separation of the two, perhaps for the first time. This is something that I think is very important. When the mother decides that she does want to return to work, or maybe just has the baby and then opts to return to work shortly thereafter, there should be a very good childcare person whom you trust and who communicates with you and enjoys her work. Not someone who is just trying to earn some extra money.

The mother should also perhaps have flexitime in her schedule, as well as the father. We are thinking mostly of the woman, but the husband should be considered also. Does the number of children make a difference in terms of the problems that are faced?

I think so. One child is easier to handle than two. Two are easier to handle than three. The more you have the more complicated it gets.

I think children can be raised to consider their role in the family unit to be as important as the parental role. The typical middle class family of today has the woman doing most of the maintenance tasks. Children can be made to feel useful in the family unit by doing tasks. Children like to feel important and this really does help. Do you think there is a difference between the way male and female children react to working mothers? I think there is a natural tendency to treat children differently because they are male or female, and in this way you are programming them for certain behaviors. For example, the mother may pick up after the male child while making the female assume more responsibility. I think if both the mother and father treat the children differently then they will respond differently. I don't think it has to be this way. Today's family is in a state of flux. Can you define the reconstituted family?

I see the reconstituted family as one who is attempting to again be a family. For example, the family of divorce or a widowed family where the spouses are remarrying. This family unit can become his children, her children and their children or whatever combination. I think that this particular family unit is something that probably every therapist has some kind of dealings with now. And we don't really have a model with which to treat this family. We have all these new relationships.. This is something that has just come into 440 clinical awareness in the last decade or so. This family is coming into

therapy and they have many issues to work on.

What effect, if any, does a working mother have on this family situation? In most of the reconsituted families, the woman is working. They have the same problems as a family unit that has not been reconstituted.. She has a multitude of tasks. She has a role overload; the working wife/ mother/stepmother role. She also has to deal with children that perhaps have been raised by a different philosophy in the last family unit. Sometimes neither parent has custody but they still have children coming in and out.

What effect, if any, does a working mother have on this family situation? In most of the reconstituted families, the woman is working. They have the same problems as a family unit that has not been reconstituted. She has a multitude of tasks. She has a role overload; the working wife/mother/stepmother role. She also has to deal with children that perhaps have been raised by a different philosophy in the last family unit. Sometimes neither parent has custody but they still have children coming in and out. Do you feel that more women are choosing not to have children in order to have a career?

It is probably more than it was in the past. More women are being more verbal about their choice. They are saying, "I have made this choice", and they feel free to discuss it.

I know that you have no children. Does this present a problem when counseling working mothers?

I don't think it does, and I have asked myself that question a lot. I don't think it is necessary to have the same life experience as your clients in order to help them sort out the dynamics of what is going on in their lives and help them to recognize how they feel about the issues that come up as a result of having a career and also having a family life. The issues that might arise are the issues around dependency, having another human being dependent on you for his or her growth con't on Page 17