Documented surveys have found that hat 80 percent of moms feel stressed about balancing childcare, work, home and relationships — which makes sense if you consider that these women reported spending 80 hours on home responsibilities in addition to work. No wonder many of them are regularly breaking down in tears.
Help can come in many different forms that don’t cost money, whether it’s asking a neighbor or a friend to watch the kids while they sleep so you can run to the supermarket or simply seeing if your spouse can chip in more. The trick is to give tangible examples to your partner of what you need from him or her.
Stress is a condition we are all too familiar with. More than a third of American employees are chronically stressed about work, according to a recent study from the American Psychological Association. The study indicated that women are more stressed at home than they are at work.
In addition to making us feel personally awful, stress is incredibly damaging and expensive for the workplace overall: Stress-related absenteeism, lost productivity, legal and insurance fees, and employee turnover cost U.S. companies millions of dollars per year.
Working Mother has long worked to promote family-friendly workplace policies that experts agree can help ease working parents’ anxieties, but many businesses just aren’t there yet. Meanwhile, here’s what stress may be costing you—in dollars and more. Studies indicate that stress is responsible in some way for a whopping 70 to 90 percent of doctor visits, either directly or by aggravating an ongoing medical condition.
Recent data shows American private-sector workers take almost four times as many days away from work yearly (a median of 31 days) because of stress, anxiety and related issues than they do for all other nonfatal injuries and illnesses (median of 8 days). Working moms are at particular risk for losing work time due to stress because of the trials of managing child care arrangements, elder care and necessary family tasks and errands. Even if you’re physically at work, you may be mentally absent if home- or work-related stress is taking over your life. You may leave your desk often to make personal calls or text loved ones, be less attentive than usual in meetings, make mistakes in your work and not be as creative at problem-solving as you once were. Left untreated, stress could eventually affect your job performance review—and potential pay raise.
Solutions suggest outsourcing some of these duties, or hiring assistance are options most mothers may not consider. The dads still need to step up and take a greater role in family and home care to make mental/labor less stressful for working mothers. Of course for single mothers this poses a problem.
In this case, taking the time to transition from home to work and adjusting your expectations. Sometimes as mothers we can be perfectionist or narcissistic, adapting the trait of patience with ourselves and our families could lighten the load. Adjusting our focus to the children, we realize that it is all about the kids and they are going to love us no matter what or how we are able to provide their needs.