It is a scandal that working mothers are 40% more stressed than other people

It is a scandal that working mothers are 40% more stressed than other people
Chitra Ramaswamy


The only thing that lowers mothers’ stress levels is to work less – an option most women are unable to choose

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A woman with two children who works full-time will be 40% more stressed than one without children. Photograph: Nick White/Getty Images

Working mothers, let me tell you something you already know and are powerless to change no matter how many mumsplainers advise you to try mindfulness: you’re stressed. Eighteen per cent more stressed than other people. If you are working full-time and have two children, that figure rises to 40%. For single mothers it will no doubt be higher still. Anyway, as if you have got time for this when even reading about the stresses faced by working mothers is like a spa day. You have probably been interrupted by now and are once again up to your neck in the un(der)paid, undervalued and unending hard labour of meeting anyone’s needs but your own.

According to the largest survey of its kind, analysing measures of chronic stress in 6,025 participants nationwide, neither flexible hours nor working from home significantly lowered women’s stress levels. This goes against common thinking that flexitime is the answer to the stress induced by what used to be called “having it all” and has now resurfaced as the equally mythical “work-life balance”. What did have a positive impact? Working less. In other words, the option most women are unable to choose and the one capitalism will never recommend. How stressful.


None of this comes as a surprise. I’m a working mother of two children under five, one of whom has additional needs, and I have never been more stressed. I work part-time from home and look after my 19-month-old full-time with the help of my partner who has two jobs with flexible hours. This is my choice; to earn less, parent more and have an impenetrable diary. I’m lucky to be able to make it. But it’s still stressful. Self-care amounts to pushing out a jet wee (a technical term mothers will understand) while screaming “Nearly done!” at the small crowd gathered outside the door crying. Although that’s a lie. Of course I don’t close the door.

So, what is the solution? As is often the simple answer to the most complex feminist issues: more choice. The chronic stress experienced by working mothers is the result of structural inequality. It’s a manifestation of how undervalued, unsupported and unfashionable the work of mothering continues to be. We live in a society where looking after your own child between the ages of one and three is seen either as a necessity or a privilege. That choice has been excised from one of the most significant experiences in a woman’s life, as the number of working mothers with dependent children has risen by more than a million over two decades, is not just a source of stress. It’s a scandal.


https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jan/28/scandal-working-mothers-40-per-cent-more-stressed-other-people