“Working Mother and Son” Photo by Russell Chopping // Creative Commons 2.0
https://www.flickr.com/photos/russellchopping/3501039851/
Research is often reported as though it is news, as though the most recent article is the best and research that was not published this year is somehow not as interesting or is out-of-date. I recently dug out some articles I wrote about the psychology of working mothers that were based on a study I did in the mid-1980s. I interviewed psychotherapists about how being a mother had affected their professional lives. This study was qualitative research. I offer the results as interesting ideas, not as definitive conclusions. Some points I think are still interesting:
- Overall, about 64% of the 25 mothers I interviewed opted for part-time work; when children were preschoolers, this was about 78%. Psychotherapists, unlike many other women, have the option of working part-time: part-time jobs, especially for therapists who see clients in private practice, are the same jobs that a full-time worker would have.
- I compared the mothers with another group of 19 therapists who did not have children. The non-mothers tended to work full time (about 90%). However, both groups of women were deeply and apparently equally committed to their jobs.
- Many of the mothers (about 60%) felt that work was not as important to them as it would be if they were childless. However, this did not mean that work was unimportant. For most women, it only meant that they now had two strong priorities instead of one.
- Almost all of the mothers (88%) felt that having children affected their work as psychotherapists by deepening their empathy, understanding, or emotional knowledge about parents and parenting. This was not simply intellectual, that they knew more facts, although this was also true. It was experiential understanding, a different experience of what facts mean. This was so even though their profession involves helping clients understand their parents or their parenting, and was reported whether they had a child while in graduate school or after they had worked for many years.
- One aspect of this increased knowledge was an experience of how passionate an experience mothering is. Another aspect was a less idealized view of both parents and children, and greater tendency to see the experiences of parents and children from their own perspectives. For example, in addition to seeing parents in terms of how their children felt (e.g., that the parent was mean or rejecting), the therapists might perceive more clearly where parents were coming from or that children might misunderstand or be unreasonable.
- This greater ability to see the position of both parents and children more clearly is what a psychologist might call psychological individuation. That is, the stereotype is that mothers are or should be all-giving, selfless, thinking only about their children. However, these mothers seemed to grow more realistic, clear about and accepting of who children as well as parents are. As I said in one paper: “Interconnectedness, or intimacy, requires a sense of oneself and the other as separate but related. (If children really do lack a sense of this separation, that is no reason why their parents, who are adults, should identify with their perspective.)”
References
Derry, P.S. (1994) Motherhood and the importance of professional identity to psychotherapists. Women & Therapy, 15, 149-163.
Derry, P.S. (1992) Motherhood and the clinician/mother’s view of parent and child. In J. Chrisler & D. Howard (Eds.), New directions in feminist psychology: Scholarship/Practice/Research. New York: Springer.
