Guilt can make you a better mother

Guilt is an emotion I don't have much time for. I'm all for people behaving well, but most of the time guilt serves no purpose except to lower your self-esteem, and more often than not, its provenance is some ridiculous social stereotype that you're not quite managing to live up to, or some idealised image you have in your mind of what you think other people expect.

But in the latest edition of the Journal of Vocational Behavior (which is mostly devoted to issues of work-life conflict and has loads of great articles), Cho and Allen have written a really interesting paper which suggests that guilt can lead to better parenting. In this study, the researchers looked at a group of over-worked, over-stressed parents and found (surprise surprise) that they spent less time actively playing with their children at the weekends than parents whose lives were stress free. But this effect was moderated by the parents' pre-dispostions to guilt. We each of us have a certain degree to which we are pre-disposed to feelings of guilt - some people become wracked with guilt at the mere sight of a piece of chocolate cake, or a forgotten birthday, whereas for others, it takes something pretty serious to get those guilty feelings started. The research suggested that although over-work normally leads to you playing less with your kids at the weekend, the guilt-ridden, stress-out parents still manage a good dose of what the researchers call "recreational and educational games".

Quite how that leaves time to put your feet up and read the paper, I don't know, but at least it's one less thing to feel guilty about.

Mother hood and part time working

I've been a bit silent on my blog for a few weeks now, but I was just doing some research in to the impact that motherhood has on women's careers and found some interesting bits to share.
One that irked, but perhaps didn't surprise me, was the evidence about part time workers. The first piece of information was about the workers themselves, and suggested that women are so very grateful at being allowed to work flexibly (or possibly so concerned to make a success of their flexible arrangements), that they put in more hours than they are paid for, and that because they don't suffer from work-fatigue, they are more productive per hour. Supervisor ratings for part time workers also tend to be higher. BUT when the researchers asked managers in general terms about part timers, they reported that they they are thought to be less committed, harder to motivate, harder to manage and less caring about their jobs, their departments and their customers. They tend to receive lower pay, fewer fringe benefits, fewer opportunities for promotion and less training and because they are less likely to be members of a Union, they have lower job security.

Managers also reported that they thought that mothers (full time or part time) were more likely to suffer from work-family conflict (e.g. having to leave work early to pick up children, taking days off when the children are sick) than either fathers or non-mothers, and that this (NB the perception not the reality) has a knock-on effect on their chances of promotion.

Humph, grump, grump etc.