Family and Work: The Family's Perspective

6 About Parenting

6.1 How Parents See Themselves
6.2 Conclusions

6.1 How Parents See Themselves

Galinsky asked parents to rate their own parenting skills and observed that employed mothers generally gave themselves very high ratings. Employed fathers gave themselves significantly lower ratings. Galinsky noted that the sample of children tended to grade their parents lower than the parent sample's averages on most of the parenting skills.

Galinsky asked parents to indicate how often they felt successful as a parent – "very often, often, sometimes, rarely or never". In exploring the predictors of parents' self-reported feelings of success at parenting, Galinsky reported that having younger children, participating in more activities with children and spending more time with children led to greater feelings of success. Finding it easy to focus, and feeling that they were raising children the way that they want to was also associated with parents feeling more successful. Having support from family and friends, and feeling comfortable accessing that support were important, as were taking more responsibility or sharing the care of the child with a spouse. Feeling more successful as a parent was also associated with the perception that the non-parental care that children had received was positive for them.

The in-depth interview methodology allowed a deeper exploration of this issue of feelings of success, and failure, in parenting by asking parents when they felt like they were doing a good job, and when they felt like they were doing a bad job.

Most of the parents reported feeling that they were doing a good job as a parent when they had a third-person perspective of their children. This might come because their child was publicly recognized in some way, or parents would be comparing their child to others, from direct feedback from other parents or teachers, or from observing them.

I can feel, well that's OK, because I know I have other parents telling me all the time "Oh, (your son's) just fantastic to have at our house. He's always well-behaved, blah, blah, blah. So I feel happy that in that situation he can be fine, when he's not with me. I feel that's good that he can actually go out in to the world and sort of, other people can feel that he's not disturbing them in any way. So I feel happy about that. But, yeah, I always feel like I can do better.
(single mother)

When you see them from a third person perspective. Like a fly on the wall situation where you can observe some behaviour or comment or action of theirs, that you haven't prompted, that has willingly come from them, that you're proud of. That is one of the ways – observing them.
(father)

Others talked about feeling that they could trust their children, that the children were affectionate, or referred to the nature of the relationship they had with adult children.

I think you look at the kids and you think, "they're nice kids. They're happy, they've got lots of friends, they're comfortable with themselves". You've got to see that in part as a reflection on yourself.
(father, works full-time)

I think the only real test is whether your children are still happy to come home. Whether they seek you out and whether they carry on the conversations of childhood with you.
(father, works full-time)

Some parents felt that "doing their best" or "just being there" was being a good parent.

I actually think that I probably – okay, won't make the same mistakes as my parents, but will make my own little set of mistakes, and my children will say to me – "Mum you should have stood on your head" and "we could have done it this way". Just try and do the best you can at the time and hopefully it's right.
(mother, works part-time)

Some of that just comes out when I'm just being with him and I'm thinking – "I'm being here, just being here now with my boy, with my child". And I think it's one of the most important things for a parent to do – just be there. I think that's so important and sometimes I get a really "feel-good" feeling out of this.
[Single father, non-resident]

Some parents referred directly to the way that they combined work and family as affecting their sense of how they parented.

Most of the time I think I've done a reasonably good job, whether the kids see it that way, I don't know. I never let my work really get too much in their way.
(mother, works part-time)

The impact of an unsatisfactory marriage on parenting was another issue raised by a divorced mother. Obviously there are factors that will have an even greater impact on parenting capacity than work.

The marriage wasn't a good one. Yeah, that really impacted on a lot of things. But once I was free of that…I was just a completely different person, and I'm really pleased with the outcome and I think I'm a better parent since. There was a lot of arguing and fighting going on, and it was just such a bad environment. I think they're better off in this situation as well.
(single mother, works part-time)

Most of the parents reported that they felt like they were doing a bad job as parents when they were irritable, became angry with their children, or felt that they responded inappropriately to their children's behaviour.

Well I think often when I've been put to the test by the kids' bad behaviours…I just fly off the handle. I often feel that my parenting skills are very poor -that I should be able to manage that kind of thing. But little family conflicts - sibling rivalry conflict, digging at each other kind of thing – I just can't handle that. I get very irritated by it. It seems to me to go on endlessly.
(single mother)

One parent reflected that it was the times that she got angry that might have the potential to make her feel like she wasn't doing a good job, but rejected this conclusion.

I think I am fairly realistic that there are times when we're going to be angry with each other.
(single mother)

One parent talked about feeling doubt about how she was parenting when reading or hearing others talk about what parents "should" do.

As an important reminder of how socio-economic status can impact on people's experiences, several parents with lower incomes talked about the impact of finances on how they felt as a parent. One parent who talked about giving her child her last $2 to buy a flying toy being sold for fundraising at school, talked about going to pick him up and finding that he had lost it on the roof.

All I wanted to do was give him another $1.50, but I shook my bag and it was awful. I didn't have $1.50 and I felt bad. And I just thought, things like that really bother me…because then of course he started getting angry, "It's not fair". I said "it's okay, we'll get one tomorrow. I'm really sorry that happened".

6.2 Conclusions

Most parents seemed to find affirmation of the way they were parenting by reference to the way their children behaved when they were with other people or in public. Some talked about the warm relationships they had with their children as a key to feeling they were doing a good job. Some looked at the child's happiness and social adaptability for confirmation of their parenting efforts.

In contrast, nearly all the parents reported that they felt they were doing a bad job when they lost control of their tempers or over-reacted to children's behaviour. Most parents did not feel that work impacted much on the way they felt about their parenting, although some felt that tiredness and stress from work caused mood spillover, which might sometimes reduce their tolerance of children's challenging behaviour.



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