Why Working Mothers Need All the Love
Imagine this. It’s another Monday morning and you have to get up and head to work. You drag yourself out of bed (good job), unenergetically get dressed, and roll into your car on your way to work. We have all been there. Now imagine adding children to that scenario. You get out of bed even earlier to help your children get ready for the day. You have to muster up enough energy to get them motivated. Just as you’ve gotten them geared and ready to go, you now head to work to put in an 8-hour shift. Now, this is something we cant all relate to. This, or some version of it, is the life working mothers face on a daily basis. Working mothers are some of the most underappreciated people who do so much! So here are some reasons why working mothers need all the love!
This post is sponsored by BBVA Compass and Working Moms Mean Business. All opinions are 100% my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make Miss Millennia Magazine possible!
Pressure to Stay Home
BBVA Compass provided an info graph of what most Americans said when asked what they thought were best for children (see above). 60% of Americans say that children are better off with a parent at home! However, 71% of moms are in the workforce. So you know the pressure is real on working mothers when 60% of Americans think that at least one parent should stay at home. You may be thinking that the father or male partner could stay at home, and that is true, however, more often than not it is the mother that ends up staying home.
The gap in how many mothers believe a parent should be home and the number of mothers who are at home can create a guilt effect. Mothers begin to question if they are choosing something best for themselves at the expense of the best interest of their children. Some don’t even have the option of questioning whether they can stay home or not, yet they still feel that guilt. So the pressure to quit and stay home is a real thing!
Have to Juggle Time
So not only do working mothers have the pressure to stay home, they also have the pressure to spend equal amounts of time with work and family. This leaves them having to prioritize which is more important. However, often more times than not, children and work do not keep consistent schedules which means the mother won’t either. There will be something that pops up and has to be taken care of. This need to balance out time also plays back into the guilt factor and need to just stay home. However, what working mothers don’t realize are the many benefits to working outside the home, but we’ll get to that soon.
Lack of Support from Job
Many jobs are not supportive of working mothers and often demand the mother prioritize the job over family. Women are already trying to break the glass ceiling of gender inequalities in the workplace, but it becomes even more of a challenge when you are a working mother. Trying to balance the need to move up in your career and being an involved mother is no easy task.
But There are Some Resources…
So I know I have probably not made that guilt any easier and I hope you’re still with me because here is the awesome part. DO NOT LET THESE FACTORS SHY YOU AWAY FROM BEING THE BOSS MOM/WOMAN/HUMAN BEING THAT YOU ARE!! You have got this! These things are just challenges that can be overcome with just a bit of help! I recently had the opportunity of working with BBVA Compass and their Working Moms Mean Business campaign designed to encourage working mothers. Working Moms Mean Business believes that too often, matriarchs are exposed to negative stories of stressed-out moms not quite meeting the needs of their children. They are pulled between prioritizing work and family but they generally are not equipped with the data to illustrate the benefits of working outside the home. See I told you it was going to get good!
What Working Moms Mean Business Offers
Working Moms Mean Business created a 50+ page eBook called Mom Guilt which seeks to dispel that myth, give a practical guide to overcoming it, and tells the stories of working moms in many stages of career and parenting and how they have combatted successfully the problem of working mom guilt. In addition to the eBook, BBVA Compass has partnered on a 10 podcast series with Emma Johnson, a personal finance writer, and blogger on her website, Wealthy Single Mommy. The podcast series interviews successful women at many stages of their career and explores the topics of women in the workforce, what it’s like to be a primary breadwinner in a marriage relationship, women in tech careers, and more.
I personally read the eBook and listened to a few podcasts. I really enjoyed “Mom-friendly Workplaces” featuring Kate Torgersen which discusses her business Milk Stork! Milk Stork delivers mothers breast milk home from their offices or when they are away on a business trip. Kate Torgersen says that most companies even reimburse the women. How amazing is that?! Not only is there a company making life a little bit easier for breastfeeding mothers but also companies willing to reimburse mothers.
There are so many other topics discussed in the eBook and podcasts that you need to go check out! Having this amazing network of women who understand what you are going through and want to help is one of the best resources a working mother can ask for.
So I challenge you to download the eBook and podcasts or sharing this article with the working mothers in your lives so they can download them!
