Parents with 80 Hour Weeks and Their Impact on the Family

What happens when a mother works 80 hours a week? Obviously the women themselves enjoy their jobs and find them hugely rewarding and enjoyable but does this professional success come at great cost to their families and themselves?

Parents with 80 Hour Weeks

What an 80 hour week can mean for a mother

Well in a word, Yes! 45-year-old Miriam George has handed over the job of parenting her 3 children to husband Paul, and herself has neuralgia due to high stress levels and has piled on the pounds too. Not only does she have long hours, she also needs to be away for days at a time and cannot be there for her kids.

Amazingly Sally Fielding, 36 year old and mother of three too just a couple of days off for the birth of each of her kids.

Since she works from home, she is never not at work! Lawyer Alison Henders-Green is 44 and tries fit being a stepmother to her 19 while coping with her hectic job.

The impact of having workaholic parents

Researchers have found that workaholic parents are more likely to have problem teens with greater chances of delinquency.

Another study found that children of workaholic parents tend to have the same levels ofdepression and anxiety, as the children ofalcoholics tend to have.

Not only many workaholic parents suffer emotional and physical damage themselves, there could also be alienation of their children and a higher risk of divorce. Further the impact of this sort of behavior on children could be worrisome as well – either the child may emulate the parent and work extra hard to try to get parental approval or they may rebel and become indolent and low achievers.

Having a parent who thinks of family leisure time as a waste of time (as work oriented parents tend to do) cannot be sending out the right signal to a child.

Why a workaholic mother may be worse

And when it is a woman who is the workaholic parent, things may be worse for her and her family.  It may not seem fair but then life rarely is! According to Dr Gail Kinman, professor of occupational health psychology when women reach the higher echelons in the workplace the pressure on them increases.

Multitasking and perfectionism have them setting impossible goals, which drive them beyond normal limits. Heath suffers and a crash may be imminent. Work can be very rewarding but the key is to maintain a balance between home and work.

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