Pressured Women – Trying To Be Superwoman
Written by chameleonfridays on August 10th, 2008What is a modern woman? In a historical snapshot the 50’s saw ‘our’ men come back form war and we returned to our rightful place in the kitchen. Then we had the 80’s, and suddenly we could smash through the glass ceiling in the workplace. What happens now though?
What is it that women want? A career or a family? Or something else, something more, do we actually want both?
Dr Pam Spurr wrote for MSN UK on the subject………
Thank goodness a few celebrity mothers have decided to come clean recently and make us mere mortals feel better. Their revelations? That they can’t constantly look amazing, be the best possible mums, be sexy wives/partners, and maintain a high-profile career without something slipping.
Melinda Messenger recently split from her husband and partner of 18 years amid reports that the catalyst was her obsession with being a ‘perfect parent’. Although I admire this refreshing honesty, I feel sorry for her that this realisation came a bit too late and she’s now separated from her husband – the father of her three children. If speculation is to be believed, she’s simply found it too much trying to be super-mum, super-celebrity and super-wife all at the same time. Juggling all these demands on top of her much-publicised battle with post-natal depression has meant that her marriage has crumbled. And all of this left her feeling stressed and unhappy.
The yummy mummy Myleene Klass has also recently discussed in frank detail the difficulties of keeping motherhood, high-profile work and a relationship up to the standards she wanted. Luckily, she recognised that she needed to address these issues before her relationship got to the point of collapse as Melinda’s did. However, at times she confessed she felt terrible anger towards her partner that can often simply reflect anger with oneself. Anger for feeling too pressured, too pushed and too responsible for everything.
Kym Marsh has put a brave front on her separation from Jack Ryder and undoubtedly has experienced similar sorts of stresses and strains of juggling her career, motherhood and marriage.
Unfortunately, what happens when we try to do it all and juggle too many balls is that it all comes crashing down around our heads – affecting our relationships along with our self esteem.
Your self-esteem within a relationship is crucial to its success: If you feel bad about yourself, it will rub off on your relationship. It’s the same with your self-esteem generally and how it effects the way you do your job or, more importantly, how it affects the job you do as a parent if you have children.
If you’re trying to be superhuman and to give 100 per cent to everything, then something’s got to go give: your relationship, your parenting or your work are likely to suffer – as well as your self-esteem because it gets squashed! This state-of-affairs is no good for anyone. If you’re not feeling good about yourself, you’ll find it harder to get what you want to out of your home and work life.
