Adria Freitas

August 16, 2020

Introduction

Most parents in the United States struggle to find a balance between their obligations as a parent, desires as a parent, and managing their career, which is sometimes referred to as the work and family balance. The family unit is many people’s source of connection, love, and support. A person’s sense of well being and their mental health are directly impacted by issues within the family, both positive and negative. Psychology offers much insight into the family and how its inner dynamics connect to our current and future mental health.

Modern Family Stress

Recent data has shown that “family and community interactions affect not only a child's psychosocial development, but also the biological foundation of children” (Patterson, 2014). Right now and even before the Coronavirus outbreak, families have been stretched thin in their attempts to maintain a career to make a living, while fulfilling parental duties, and still getting all the benefits that quality family time can offer. The work and family balance can be impacted by many diverse issues but one thing that remains common is the long term emotional and physical strain that can be put on a person by their struggling to have an adequate balance in their lives. Currently, federal financial assistance for childcare is helping only low income families even though the cost of childcare has increased drastically through recent years, while hourly wages have not increased at the same rate. For the mental and physical well-being of parents, children, and US employed residents in general, the US would benefit from a reform of federal policies that enable flexibility for schedules, guaranteed paid parental and family leave, and encourage generous benefits including policies allowing paid sick days.

The US is the only country that is part of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that (OECD) does not offer citizens guaranteed parental and maternity leave. The FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) does not qualify all citizens for paid leave and those qualified receive minimal unpaid leave when compared with other countries. While the need for family friendly policies (like maternity leave and sick pay) is obvious to some people who are already facing strain, others may not believe that these policies are beneficial or necessary. Veronique De Rugy protested that maternity leave pay is not favorable by voicing concerns that a federal policy requiring mandatory maternity and paternity leave would cause employers to begin to offer lower wages and to favor employees who are not likely to have children. Rugy acknowledges that around 60 percent of women have already had access to some form of paid leave and the percentage of women who leave jobs after just having children is declining. Her argument for this evidence is that employers will often offer paid maternity leave at their best ability and to their own discretion and federal involvement is not necessary and would actually do harm to some business owners (Rugy, 2019). While it is admirable that there are many business owners who willingly set up maternity leave for their expecting employees; according to this statistic, there are currently 40 percent of women who haven’t received paid sick leave and are still relevant and in need. This statistic is still pointing to nearly half the population of expecting mothers being without any type of pay for maternity leave. As for the concern that a policy would cause employers to favor anyone not likely to have a child, one might make an assumption that if 60 percent of women are already being offered maternity leave, those employers are already showing no bias against women who are likely to have children as they are willingly employing them and offering the leave.

Money is a touchy subject for a lot of adults and it is hard to make decisions about money as they are literally life altering and directly impact our lives. We depend on money for survival and it seems like one of our main purposes is how to get enough of it to survive. Law reforms for family-friendly work policies could be a solution for the struggle of work-family balance in most people’s lives, it’s likely that more people would be positively affected than negatively affected by a policy of this sort. However, it is also worth noting that new laws and policies can create challenges for a lot of people. Small business owners simply might not be able to pay someone’s leave while also paying employees to help them continue to run the business, as they have so few employees and so small of an income. This scenario would warrant some sort of assistance to cover for these types of instances if a mandatory parental leave and sick pay policy were to be put into place. In order to expand our understanding of how the policy might benefit the U.S., we can consider the laws that Germany has already got in place regarding maternity and paternity leave. Germany currently has a Parental Leave Act, enacted since 2007, which gives 14 weeks of maternity leave and three years of shared parental leave (at least 2 months of which are designated for the father specifically). The benefits of these policies are stated as “decreasing the risk of poverty of women and children” (Brown, 2016). Poverty is an extreme risk factor to children being continuously exposed to stressful environments, and subsequently makes those children more at risk for developing unfavorable mental and physical conditions as an adult (Patterson, 2014). Additionally, it is worth noting that “during the first weeks of life, parents and their infant develop a relationship by paying attention to each other and actively engaging in matching affect states, both of which are critical to developing a secure attachment relationship” (Patterson, 2014). Such bonding time is encouraged and made more possible with generous maternal and paternal leave. Brown also informs us that no one entity is responsible for covering the cost of paid parental leave with Germany’s parental leave policy, and instead the maternity and parental leave that all parents are offered is paid for by a combination of the woman’s insurance, her employer, and the government (Brown, 2016).

The inability to maintain a career that provides adequate income while still being financially flexible enough to accommodate the curve balls that being a parent brings is a conflict that affects many of the families in the U.S. This conflict is a main source of stress on parents, which has both a mental and a physical impact on all members of their families. There has been a correlation shown between environment, community and family relationships, and the development of children; and the impact of these relationships on these children’s mental health as adults. Healthy and nurturing relationships within a family have a long lasting positive impact on a child’s development. Studies have found that children within nurturing families are benefited cognitively and that the healthy bonds that children have with their parents help improve psychosocial development (Patterson, 2014). Consequently, the opposite is true as well; a negative family environment, or what Patterson et al refers to as “toxic stress” within a family, can have detrimental effects on the children even into adulthood. The article, “Relationships, environment, and the brain…” explains that parents who are under a lot of pressure are less likely to be warm and nurturing towards their children, and more likely to be abusive or distant. They go on to explain that,

“in children, significant experience of childhood stress and low socioeconomic status… are risk factors for chronic diseases during adulthood, and childhood abuse and trauma can alter the brain in ways that render individuals more prone to mental health issues including addiction, mood disorders, PTSD, and personality disorders, ” (Patterson, 2014).

The lack of nurture within a parent-child relationship “may cause issues with memory, executive functioning, linguistic skills, cognitive skills, and social ‐ emotional skills” (Patterson, 2014). Chronic stress has also been shown to cause long term physical health effects and cause people to develop chronic health issues. It can also lead to “anxiety, depression, gastrointestinal disorders, ulcers, colitis, and sleep disorders. High stress levels also are linked to immune system–related problems such as frequent colds and infections, and higher incidences of migraines and asthma.” (Miller, 2010). Relieving some financial stress factors that parents commonly go through will positively impact the environment in which children are being raised, which can in turn positively impact their adult personality, productivity, and quality of life in general.

Society is obviously going to be influenced and affected by the physical and mental well being of the majority of the members of said society. In order for a society to function at its best, most members of society should be healthy. This includes physical AND mental health. A society full of mental discord and health problems is likely to become burdened by health issues and to lose productivity, if not also losing functionality. Parents and employees can not be expected to perform to their full potential in society if they are feeling significantly unwell. One can safely assume that health issues will impact almost all employees’ performance at work to some degree. When someone is experiencing a lot of stress at once, they are subject to, “fatigue, an inability to concentrate, sweating, an increased heart rate, abdominal pain, irregular bathroom habits, and anger” (Miller, 2010). All of these immediate reactions to stress would be distracting to some professionals in society and detrimental to others. Additionally, parents are less likely to be supportive and nurturing when they are facing financial hardships or when they are chronically ill. Children that have undergone chronic family stress due to financial issues are more likely to grow up to contribute to society in a less positive way when they become adults. They are also more susceptible to developing the mental illnesses they are genetically prone to. As an adult, these children who are exposed to negative family conditions and chronic stress are shown to be more likely to grow up to continue to be living in poverty, to be homeless or unemployed, and they have a higher likelihood to commit violent crimes (Patterson, 2014). Crime, poverty, unemployment, and homelessness are a strain on the well being of society as a whole; and in the long run, healthy members of society would be the most effective, focused, and pleasant contributors to their society.

The Future

Children are our future and our society’s future and their environment and development impacts them even as adults. A healthy family dynamic is essential to a healthy and productive child and future adult. A loving and low-stress family environment is beneficial to children, but a family impacted with chronic work and financial related stress is less likely to have strong familial bonds, which has a lasting negative impact on both the children and the adults in the family. Financial stress and a conflict between the work and family balance causes chronic stress for millions of households. Chronic stress in the family causes health and developmental issues with adults and children and hurts our society and our future. If the U.S. would consider adopting policies requiring employers to provide adequate maternity and parental leave, it could reduce financial stress for millions of parents and help improve family dynamics; which have a very real effect on children and the adults they become. In order to help reduce the likelihood of developing mental illness or chronic health conditions, the family unit and their financial well being should be a high priority to secure a future with less crime, homelessness, addiction, and other behaviors that create strain on society. A family’s ability to overcome hardships such as illness, death, or the birth of a new child, is often directly correlated with the family members’ employers’ paid leave policies, benefits packages, and scheduling flexibility. A family’s inability to withstand financial difficulties creates a chronic stress environment within that family, as money is the source of survival for humans in the U.S. Chronic stress has been shown to negatively affect all members of a family, especially children, and has a lasting negative impact on both physical and mental health. A healthy work-family balance would be beneficial to all of society in the long run.

References:

Brown, K. S. (2016). Families in Germany. The wiley blackwell encyclopedia of family studies.

(pp. n/a). Wiley. http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/loginurl=https://search.credoreference....

Miller, A. R. (2010). How stress affects you physically. Living with stress.(pp. n/a). New York:

Facts On File. online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=105049&itemid=WE48&articleId=412665

Patterson, J. E. (2014). Relationships, environment, and the brain: How emerging research is

changing what we know about the impact of families on human development.. Family Process, 53(1). EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/famp.12057

Rugy, V. D. (2019). Why are conservatives suddenly supporting mandatory paid leave?.

Reason, 50(8). EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=asn&AN=133064360&site=ehostlive&scope=site.