Keep
your promises.
Children by and large learn their basic values
from parents and other close adults. We can’t
expect children to behave in a way we don’t do
ourselves, and being reliable and consistent is important.
Children need to be able to trust their parents in order
to be able to trust other people. When time is short,
it can be tempting to make promises that then get overruled
by work demands. Children need to know they are important
too.
Keep on working and supporting your children.
Children don’t see the two things as incompatible;
they want parents to do both. But you may need to talk
with them about the best way to do this.
Spend ‘focused’ and ‘hang around’
time with us – the more time you spend, the better.
Find out what’s going on in your kid’s lives.
Children are acknowledging that you are busy and
have limited time to spend with them. But these children
wanted their parents to spend time with them without
being distracted, where children could raise problems
as they arise, and where issues could ‘emerge
at their own pace, not to schedule’. Just ‘being
there’ is important, and it is your emotional
availability that matters, not necessarily how much
time in hours you spend with them. Sometimes walk with
them to school or to the shops, prepare and eat food
together; go to a playground or park with them. A third
of the children thought their parents knew what was
going on in their lives. That means two thirds of them
thought their parents did not know enough. Could you
know more?
Put your family first. Be there for your children
– or else. Take care of your kids –
one day they may take care of you.
These final messages are a reminder of what we might
lose if we need to change our work-life balance, and
don’t listen to our children in time. We might
put the relationships we care about most in some danger.
Taking a little time out to think about what these children
have said can be all that’s needed to change patterns
of behaviour that may have become ‘stuck’.
Try it!
Women still do more than their fair share of housework
and child care in two-parent heterosexual families,
which means that stresses of paid work come on top of
everything else. Family-friendly policies at work cannot
help if there are unequal relationships at home. These
messages are equally addressed to fathers and mothers.
In fact, Galinsky’s children badly wanted to spend
more time with their fathers. Finally, having the support
of family and friends, with adults around who were ‘like
an auntie’ to them for example, were much appreciated
by children and made life much easier for the mothers
in the study.
References and further reading
Brannen, J., Heptinstall, E. and Bhopal, K. (2000)
Connecting Children: Care and Family Life in Later Childhood.
London: Routlrdge/Falmer
Galinsky, E. (1999) Ask the Children: What America’s
Children Really Think About Working Parents. New York:
William Morrow and Company.
www.radlogic.demon.co.uk
Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2003) Families and work
in the twenty-first century. JRF Foundations number
923
www.jrf.org.uk
Reynolds, T., Callender, C. and Edwards, R. (2003)
The impact of mothers’ employment on family relationships.
JRF Findings number 773.
www.jrf.org.uk
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