Korea Institute of Psycho-education: [Mother Therapy] The 'Stability Formula' Working Moms Should Know

A friend of mine who is a working mother told me that she wants to continue pursuing her career, but it's not easy because she worries about her child every day. Her child is still young, so she relies on her family for child care, but sometimes she can’t get help when she needs it. She loves her career, but she constantly wonders if her working outside home is affecting her child and if the choices she makes will have a negative impact on her family.

I think every working mother has to deal with the same thing at one point or another. If you're constantly feeling unstable, it can have a negative impact on both your work and your family, and you can't focus on either one. In the end, the more unstable you are, the more likely it is that your family will be unstable as well. So, what's the most important thing? You guessed it - your own psychological stability. If you're a working mother who wants to pursue your values through career, you need to think about how important your psychological stability is.

It's really not easy to pursue your career while maintaining a family and raising children. As a working mom, you're trying to make sure that both your work and your family are stable, and I think it's safe to say that the most important thing is how stable your psychology is. If you're unstable yourself and you're trying to make your family and children feel stable, you are likely to end up with conflicts and anxiety that you didn't intend to have. You're trying to make them feel stable when you're unstable yourself, so you're either repressing yourself or forcing yourself on them.

Another friend of mine wanted to be perfect at both work and raising her child, so she worked hard at work and tried to spend more time with her child at the same time, but there were many days when she was disappointed in herself because it was difficult to fully immerse herself in both work and home, and she blamed herself a lot. She was disappointed and blamed herself, and she didn't know what to do, so she kept repeating the same routine. She kept thinking about her child even while she was working, so it was difficult to concentrate on work, and even when she was spending time with her child, she became anxious about work. Finally, she quit her job, but quitting her job didn't solve all the problems either.

Eventually, she realized that she was unstable psychologically, and from then on, she started by first recognizing her own psychological state and then tried to recover. She was able to approach new things in a more relaxed way, both for his child and for herself. If a child sees anxiety in a mother's expression, it is transmitted to the child, so the child is affected by the psychological state of the parent and has a similar emotional state. In fact, your own stability leads to the stability of your family.

Of course, it can be harder when you don't have people around you to help you, but there are things you can do within your resources and your environment, depending on how you think about it. Don't limit yourself by saying you can't do this or you can't do that. It's not always easy to put yourself first as a working mom, but I want you to remember that your own psychological well-being is the most important starting point. When you are stable, your family is stable, and your child is able to see you and feel psychologically stable forming a virtuous cycle. That's when we can truly pursue our values and meanings of life with balance.

https://youtu.be/sI8iynWBBwM?si=IfPHU7bKuRIpYgWF

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