The other morning, amid
the general din of breakfast
requests and morning routine
meltdowns, I heard an
interesting statistic on the
radio: One third of working
mothers surveyed by CareerBuilder
reported that
they were burned out.
One third.
Not tired, not dragging,
not drained but burned
out.
Happy Mother’s Day!
I know this will come as
a shock to all you darling
readers, but being a parent
is tough. And if you’re a
parent in a dual-income
family, the difficulty of doing
your best at both family
and job responsibilities
compounds faster than an
interest rate on an overlimit
credit card.
And it’s not just hard for
mothers, although they
may feel the work/life imbalance
more acutely. Fathers
are stretched thin, as
well. The days of half-engaged
or disengaged fathers
are quaint history, or
should be. The majority of
dads I know would never
mistake “parenting” their
children for “babysitting”
their children. (Hint: Parents
can’t babysit their own
children, only someone
else’s.)
The economy is exacerbating
the situation,
spreading anxiety over
money and employment far
and wide. Even a job you
like feels different when
you think you have no other
options. The survey also reported
longer work hours
for 30 percent of mothers
who work for companies
that have laid off people.
Some 14 percent of working
moms has taken on a second
job to help ends meet.
Just reading those statistics
about burned-out
parents is enough to deflate
me.
Burned-out parents
practice burned-out parenting.
Believe me, I know.
Burned-out parenting
breeds morning routine
meltdowns. And routine
morning meltdowns. It
leads to even more stress
and guilt and burned-outness.
And it leads to kids who
grow up thinking that it absolutely
normal to grow up,
have a family and get
burned out.
How do you fix it? Most
people - many of the most
burned-out people - can’t
just pull up stakes and
switch jobs and realign
their work/life balance
equations. And it’s easy
enough to extol the benefits
of personal downtime,
physical activity and creative,
quality family time.
Those things really do recharge
your physical and
emotional batteries. But
try giving another To-Do to
a mom with two jobs, a few
kids and zero time or energy
to spare.
Here’s a question: What
if communities truly put
the needs of children first?
What if the burnout statistic
was seen as a shocking
public health threat that
deserved immediate attention?
If a third of all working
mothers contracted
H1N1, you can bet that all
manner of public and private
resources would come
together to solve the problem.
Friends and neighbors
would help each other out
to the best of their ability.
Laws and policies would
change. Innovations would
happen.
Quality child care would
be more accessible. Families
would be welcome in a
broader spectrum of settings
- not just fast-food
restaurants and playgrounds.
Schools would
make it effortless for working
parents to stay connected
to their children’s days.
Looking back over the
last several years of CareerBuilder’s
Mother’s Day
surveys, the results are
similar. Year after year,
mothers report that their
jobs adversely affect their
relationships with their
children. They report missing
significant life events in
their children’s lives. They
report feeling trapped financially
and unable to
make decisions that would
improve their families’
lives. And those are just the
mother’s answering a survey.
CareerBuilder also conducts
Father’s Day surveys,
and the results are incredibly
similar.
This isn’t good for children.
And things that are
bad for children end up being
bad for all of us. Elizabeth
Trever Buchinger just
slapped a Mr. Yuck sticker
on the economy. You can
connect with her at www.
moremindfulfamily.wordpress.
com or email her at
VillageWordsmith@gmail.
com.
