Business at Home Ticks Off More Women Than Men
March 11th, 2011
A recent study shows that women report higher levels of stress than their male counterparts when their family time is interrupted by business contacts. “Guilt seems to play a pivotal role in distinguishing women’s work-family experiences from men’s,” says Schieman, a sociology professor and lead investigator of the larger study that funded this research. “While women have increasingly taken on a central role as economic providers in today’s dual-earner households, strong cultural norms may still shape ideas about family responsibilities. These forces may lead some women to question or negatively evaluate their family role performance when they’re trying to navigate work issues at home.”
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Comments
There’s a clear reason for this if you ask me-Women play a more involved role in a family compared to a man. If a child is sick, you’d expect the mother to be by the child’s bed side and not the father. It is just one small example but there are plenty of other things where a mother plays a pivotal role. And this is surely the reason why women experience more stress when interrupted due to work.
I used to work for a company who felt like I had to be on call 24/7 even though that was not my job. Even my days off which were few and far between were not sacred. I simply stopped answering the phone or checking email on my days off so that I could have peaceful time with my family. Needless to say I am no longer with that company but losing that one was not sad at all.
This is true no doubt but if employees,be it women or men,are made to be on call even beyond working hours,it definitely screams of the employer or the organization’s low standards.It is a practice that needs to be discouraged and maybe even ruled against.
Women and their guilt issues. get over it.
I have to work full time and I never feel like there is enough time to give everything to the kids and my husband that they need. I am tired and stressed and that makes me feel like a horrible wife and mom. But i know that I should be grateful that I even have a job in this economic slump. Still makes me feel bad though that my energy has to stay up t work and then I think I have nothing left to give by the time I get home.
Staff are contracted to work for a specific amount of hours on specific days. Trying to go beyond that, even with overtime pay, is just extremely rude and discourteous. Unlike your hotshot boss who sits on a golden toilet, you have a family to spend time with and they need to understand that you are not at their beck and call outwith working hours.
I never feel the need to explain why I can’t work more hours or why I won’t handle work related calls or issues when I’m at home. I work my butt off when I’m there so I can spend quality time with my family
doing things together we enjoy. I don’t allow work to intrude upon that precious time. There is nothing that can’t wait until the next morning.
I’ve had to call employees in more than once, but unless it’s life or death I ask “Do you have a few hours?”. I make it clear they don’t ever have to work overtime and I wont think poorly of them if they don’t. I know what it’s like to be dragged out by your boss and the upset it can cause at home isn’t worth it. An unhappy employee is not a productive employee.
You can’t even tell them no or you’ll risk getting fired. They have free rein to kick you out on a whim in my state apparently. Why don’t we have more solid protection against making staff work outside their normal hours like that? It’s clear that it’s stressful to most.
Stay at home moms feel guilt about not working and bringing in a wage. Guilt is not exclusive to working mothers. Mothers seem wired to accept unnecessary weights on their shoulders and think they could always do better whatever their situation. Lighten up, ladies! You’re missing your children’s childhoods while you’re moping.
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