Blog Post #4

Personally, I feel that the characteristics of a good home life are extremely subjective but I think that there are a few traits that are imperative to the healthy function of any family. I think the number one characteristic is good communication. And the other thing that is important to family life is the family’s ability to change. As everything in the world around the family is changing, a family needs to be able to remain internally strong, especially if there are children involved. The family needs to be able to support the growing, changing, and learning children. The family needs to be a safe place where the children can do these grow and flourish.

I think that finding a balance between a career and family life is extremely hard to do. It means trying to be the ideal mother and wife, as well as being the ideal employee. This means putting 100% into both of these jobs; not 50% into each. A balance between these two would mean being able to make a smooth transition from work to home, and then from home to work without carrying one over into the other. Ultimately, finding a balance between work and home life is about making choices and sacrifices you wish you did not have to.

There are several things that make striking a good balance between these two spheres very hard. For a single parent, they need to be able to work as many hours as they can while still attempting to spend time with their children. They need to work extra hours in order to be able to provide the material things for their children that they need like food, clothes, and shelter. Many times, these extra hours interfere with the time they get to actually spend with their children. In the case of a dual income home it is common that one of the parents has to sacrifice their career to be an adequate parent. For many people this could be rather frustrating, and upsetting. Those people who have a high level of education, and flourishing careers sometimes have jobs that know no boundaries, and they end up working late nights, weekends, and while at home which greatly interferes with their time with their children. It becomes extremely hard to mesh being a good worker with being a good parent. These parents are constantly finding themselves having to choose between work and home. This can create a lot of guilt for parents.

To me, it seems that the changes in traditional gender roles have made the lives of women far more complex. These women have the duty of bearing children by nature. So we already know that it is there job to not only give birth, but take of the children that they bring into the world. This is part of the traditional gender role for women along with cooking, cleaning, and laundry. However, the changing gender roles are allowing more women to enter the workforce and maintain a higher education. What we are now seeing is women with highly successful careers that are still expected to take care of a family too. While it is more acceptable now for a man to take on traditional female roles, women still try to pick up much of the work as they feel it is their duty. This opportunity for women to now work in traditional males jobs seems like a good thing and a step forward for women but it is really just putting extra pressure on them.

I think that employers can start to be sensitive to a family’s needs by realizing that having children is not really a lifestyle choice. If they stop treating it as a ‘lifestyle” choice and more as a positive step in a family’s life I think the employees will be happier. Employers should just realize that these people are trying to be the best workers they can be, while trying to be the best mother, wife, and daughter. They should try to understand that family will always come first. From the research, it seems that giving these employees some flexibility for family purposes is actually more beneficial to the company. It greatly improves the employee’s satisfaction, and therefore their work and investment in the company.

Having support from family is very useful in managing priorities because you have someone there to help you with what you need, and be there for emotional support. Most of the time, family members can divide the jobs so that one person does not have so much on their plate. Work support brings down your level of stress greatly. It induces great stress when you learn you are going to need time of work for family reason. On top of the already present family stress, there is the possibility that they may lose their job over it. But if they do not have to worry about losing their jobs that is one less thing they have to be stressed about. A good personal example of this is when I was told that I had to have spine surgery when I was 18 (a year ago), and my mom realized she was going to need to take time off to care for me. She was already stressed about her child having major reconstructive surgery, so the last thing she needed to worry about was her job. She knew she did not need to stress over because of family flex time, and the Family Medical Leave Act. Knowing her employer supported her took one more thing off her plate in a very stressful time.