Positive Psychology, Mindfulness, Psychotherapy and Philosophy

Biography

Biography: Ashley R Cosentino

Abstract

The image of what it means to be a good mom has consistently been a part of a prescribed performance of gender for women.  According to this mother ideal, the mother must be the primary caregiver of children because men cannot be relied upon the duty. Child rearing logically requires extensive time, energy, and material resources, and the children are priceless and incompatible with paid labor (Hays, 996).  Based on the latest U.S. Bureau of Census (2018) most mothers are employed.  Around 60% of mothers with children under six are employed compared to 80% with teenagers. When it comes to mothering, guilt can emerge frequently because of the pressure to be perfect and the perpetual feelings of inadequacy in attaining perfection. That is guilt and shame stem from the very discourse of motherhood that measures women against an unattainable and therefore problematic ideal of perfection.  While the link between perfectionistic standards and negative outcomes has been established, less is known about how the dominant ideology of being a “perfect mother affects mothers’ psychological well-being.  Research on working mothers has argued that they utilize cognitive acrobatics in order to manage the tension between employment and the dominant mother ideology (Johnston & Swansonn, 2007). A woman’s yearning for balance in the most desired and hardest to achieve factor (Sullivan & Mainiero, 2006). The balance notion declares the need for balance across multiple areas of life.  This means a woman may decline work until her children are in elementary school. Supple (2007) found in her qualitative research with working mothers that women placed a high value on self, work, and motherhood, and relied on support systems to obtain a balanced life.  However, the literature does not specify how the role of parenting and family affects the leadership expansion of working mothers.