Work Parent Thrive Chapter 2 Summary
While all of our focus is on work family conflict, there also exists work family enrichment, which is the phenomenon where each domain (work and family) improves the quality of the other one. An example of work having a positive impact on your home life is learning how to successfully deal with an immature colleague and then applying it to your interactions with your toddler or even rebellious teenager. I have personally seen work-family enrichment in my life as well through resilience and motivation. When I found out I was going to be a Father, I was first filled with elation of course, but once I was brought back to earth by the gravity of the change in my life that was coming, I felt determined. It felt like someone placed a battery in me that would never lose charge because I needed that battery to provide for my daughters.?
Yael highlights a similar example that having a child “can provide greater meaning to your work, whether the meaning comes from doing work that contributes to a greater good that includes her?or work that helps keep her solid on her snack fund.”
Each chapter in the book has a reflection section that helps drive the point home. In this chapter, the mindful pause section is about how you have seen work family enrichment in your life. She encourages you to ask yourself:?
Growth mindset
Yael references the concept of “growth mindset vs. fixed mindset” because is it really a psychology book without referencing the legendary neuroplasticity?!?
In all seriousness, to any parent who thinks that “work makes you a bad parent and that parenting makes you a bad worker,” please stop. If you believe that it’s only about conflict between the two, the guilt, disappointment, and frustration will seep into both sides and you risk suffering from psychic entropy, leading to suboptimal work productivity and a hollow presence in your children's lives. Research shows this with Yael referencing a study on this exact topic. The study showed that mothers who exhibited a growth mindset to working parenthood had children with “healthier psychological well-being” than those who did not. Changing your mindset for the better will shape your child’s mindset in the same direction.
The three effects of Work Family Enrichment:?
The transfer effect - the resources you develop in one area of the dichotomy can be usefully applied back to the other area.?
Parenting and Productivity Example:
Being a working parent can be used to teach kids about hard work and taking ownership in your craft. Everyday they see you putting in the effort and time and then if you connect it with what that results in, they will make the connection, giving them the necessary foundation of working towards your goals.?
Your hard work transfers into parenthood by you being able to make it a part of it. (need to write this better.)?
The buffering effect - the positive ways in which role-switching forces you to separate from the negative impacts of the other.?
A recent example from my working parent life, during a very rough period at work, I would look forward to picking up my daughter from school because she was always happy to see me and lit up my world.?
The additive effect:? Participating in multiple roles, stretch us and make us more complex and resourceful individuals as well as bring multiple dimensions of meaning into our lives.?
Example: finding out I was going to be a father, “felt like someone placed a battery in me that would never lose charge because I needed that battery to provide for my daughters.”
This creates a virtuous cycle. They motivate me, I do my best at work, I provide a better life for them, and I am satisfied on both fronts.
Which of these three effects have you experienced in your life as a working parent?