Work and Family in Any Individuals Life - Essay Example

Your full full March 05, Introduction Work and family are of critical importance in any individual’s life. Managing a perfect balance between them is not only important for the men but also for the women. In today’s fast paced world, it has become extremely difficult for the working class families to maintain a balance between their work life and family life. Modern families face various challenges in properly balancing work life and family life. Work and family balance is a very complicated issue which involves gender roles, time management, financial values, career paths and various other critical factors. In the tradition and culture of any society, the husband is expected to work outside the home for income and the wife is expected to be at home for children care and household maintenance. Womens family work includes responsibility for household tasks socially, legally, and in practice but in today’s world, women with children are increasingly getting employed outside the home which is resulting in increased conflicts between the families. Challenges regarding balance between work and family While talking about importance of maintaining balance between family life and work life by the modern families, let us discuss those challenges and conflicts that arise due to paid work and unpaid household work. For that we will discuss challenges related to both; men and women. Challenges regarding men Men face a lot of challenges while trying to effectively balance the family and work. One of the major challenges regarding the issue is neglecting behavior towards children due to work load which may result in conflicts between the children and their father. As we know that men are traditionally expected to work outside the home to earn for the family, it affects their family life. If a man pays more attention towards his work than his family, children get affected because they do not get required love and attention from their father. As a result, the children feel ignored and the level of affection between the children and their father would go significantly down. Same happens with the person’s spouse who also gets affected if the person becomes unable to properly balance work schedule. A job that requires excessive travel and long working hours brings a negative impact on the family of a man. But if a man starts ignoring his professional duties in order to pay more attention towards his family, it brings a negative impact on his professional life. Challenges regarding women Just like men, working women also face a lot of problems in order to maintain a balance between family life and work life because the role of the women has expanded due to various economic and financial factors. Work and family are considered as opposite ideals in our culture and this pressure really hits working women. Major conflict between family and women occur when demands of work life becomes incompatible with those of the family life. And this is the conflict that forces women to completely leave the workforce in a proposition that is “all or nothing”. Career growth becomes unrealistic due to the differences between work life and family life requirements. Due to this reason, employers prefer men over women because they consider female employees less productive than male employees as women are more likely to take time off because they have to take care of their children. Whereas men have no such responsibility and they can work for longer hours for their employers. Ways to balance work and family life “Work life balance cannot be successful without effective priority setting” (Parker). Only those activities should be given importance, which are essential for any specific family. One of the traits of effective families is implementation of scheduling in their lives. Without a proper schedule regarding every matter, proper work and family balance can never be achieved. Chaos should be ignored because they don’t promote balance. Proper time management is the key towards effective work and family life balance (Strong, DeVault, and Cohen). Another very important way is to manage work related activities and home related activities separately in order to increase productivity instead of letting it decreased. This can be achieved if home related activities are kept at home and work related activities are not given preference while at home. Men are expected to work outside for earning, so women should never do job until required. They must perform their household activities efficiently in order to keep the family structure safe and perfect. Examples regarding balance between work life and family life In order to exemplify balance between work and family life, let’s mention an experience related to a mother who has four little children and she has managed to perfectly balance her work and family life. The mother, whom we are talking about, goes to her work daily but she has left a couple of maids to look after her children. The maids constantly look after the children while the mother is at work. Not only that, mother also makes calls from office in order to guide the maids about what they have to do and when they need to do any specific task. The mother also makes sure her children that she is with them at home before they go to sleep. When the children were younger, she used to hand them over to her parents but now she has arranged maids for them. The mother also goes to the gym once a week. Whenever she comes back from work, she makes sure if every thing has been done properly or not. She doesn’t let the children feel alone or ignored even being at office. But this kind of solution is available to upper class women only because most women can not afford additional help to mange their family life. Another example is of a mother who has a young daughter with her and she has maintained lovely relationship with her daughter and takes care of every little thing. She not only cooks for her when she comes back but also helps her in her studies. Here one thing which should be mentioned is that she has managed to balance her work and family life even being a single parent for the last six years. “Being a single parent for the last six years has proven even more tricky for me” (Ellis). She has organized herself really well and has prioritized her activities which help her a great deal in effectively managing her work and family life. So we can say that, with a perfect time management system and prioritization of activities, any person can able to effectively manage the balance between work life and family life. Conclusion Summing it up, it can be said that work life and family life are two different ways of life and they need to be managed effectively in order to maintain balance between the two. If any one of these become less important for a person, it brings a negative impact on the life of that person but if the balance between them is maintained, not only the productivity from work life gets increased but also the family life becomes much more satisfying and pleasant. Work cited Ellis, Indira "How do you balance work and family?." How do you balance work and family?. 25 Jan. 2010 Parenthots.com. 19 Feb. 2010 . Parker, Wayne “Top 10 Ways to Balance Life and Work.” Top 10 Ways to Balance Life and Work. n.d. about.com. 19 Feb. 2010 . Strong, Bryan, Christine DeVault, and Theodore F. Cohen. The Marriage and Family Experience: Intimate Relationships in a Changing Society. 10th ed. U.S.A: Wadsworth Publishing, 2007. Print. Read More