Women's Expanding Role in Families
It is often said that, "Man's work ends at sun set. Women's work is never done." With sixty-three million women working and 62% of those women maintaining families, most women would this statement very true (AFL-CIO). While women are expanding their lives to include a career, they must also maintain their traditional roles at home. This combination of housework and career-work is the reason why working mothers today have more stress than working fathers.
Mothers may work in an office from nine to five, but their work does not end at the office. After working an eight-hour day, a mother will come home to take care of her children, husband, and house. Women remain the primary caretaker and housekeeper of a family, and are also the primary caregiver for the elderly (Kelly, Garrett). All of this makes for a very demanding schedule.
Typically after leaving work, a mother will pick up her children at a babysitter or day care, and then continue to caravan her children from soccer practice to ballet class to girl scouts, etc. When she finally reaches home, exhausted, a mother will try to spend some quality time with her children before feeding them dinner, giving them a bath, and putting them to bed. For some reason, all of these chores remain the work of a woman. In the mean time, a mother has no time to herself to recuperate from a long day because she is so busy caring for everyone else.
If both parents are working and their child becomes ill, the wife is more likely to leave work and get the child (Bianchi 171). Also, since husbands generally work eight more hours a week than their wives do, they tend to miss out on responsibilities, such as feeding their children dinner and breakfast. "Men miss out on meal chores and those tend to be very stressful" says Dr. Barnett (Kelly). More often than not, women's work interferes with family while for men family interferes with work (Bianchi
Mothers may work in an office from nine to five, but their work does not end at the office. After working an eight-hour day, a mother will come home to take care of her children, husband, and house. Women remain the primary caretaker and housekeeper of a family, and are also the primary caregiver for the elderly (Kelly, Garrett). All of this makes for a very demanding schedule.
Typically after leaving work, a mother will pick up her children at a babysitter or day care, and then continue to caravan her children from soccer practice to ballet class to girl scouts, etc. When she finally reaches home, exhausted, a mother will try to spend some quality time with her children before feeding them dinner, giving them a bath, and putting them to bed. For some reason, all of these chores remain the work of a woman. In the mean time, a mother has no time to herself to recuperate from a long day because she is so busy caring for everyone else.
If both parents are working and their child becomes ill, the wife is more likely to leave work and get the child (Bianchi 171). Also, since husbands generally work eight more hours a week than their wives do, they tend to miss out on responsibilities, such as feeding their children dinner and breakfast. "Men miss out on meal chores and those tend to be very stressful" says Dr. Barnett (Kelly). More often than not, women's work interferes with family while for men family interferes with work (Bianchi