In the nineteenth century ... explanations of who and what women were focused primarily on reproductive events--marriage, children..., the empty nest, menopause. You could explain what was happening in a woman's life, it was believed, if you knew where she was in this reproductive cycle.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The knowledge that for women in middle adulthood, multiple roles can tie in with well-being should help younger women who are stru...ggling with the pressures of small children and a job, and who may be tempted to abandon or severely curtail their career goals.... The woman who manages to hang onto her career may be in for some stress in her younger years when the pulls and tugs of family and career can be intense, but if she can persist, her chances for much smoother sailing in her mature years seem very good.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are seeing an increasing level of attacks on the "selfishness" of women. There are allegations that all kinds of social ills, f...rom runaway children to the neglected elderly, are due to the fact that women have left their "rightful" place in the home. Such arguments are simplistic and wrongheaded but women are especially vulnerable to the accusation that if society has problems, it's because women aren't nurturing enough.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mental health data from the 1950's on middle-aged women showed them to be a particularly distressed group, vulnerable to depressio...n and feelings of uselessness. This isn't surprising. If society tells you that your main role is to be attractive to men and you are getting crow's feet, and to be a mother to children and yours are leaving home, no wonder you are distressed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The mother whose self-image is dependent on her children places on those children the responsibility for her own identity, and her... involvement in the details of their lives can put great pressure on the children. A child suffers when everything he or she does is extremely important to a parent; this kind of over-involvement can turn even a small problem into a crisis.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Diamonds may have been a girl's best friend in an era when a woman's only hope of having a high family income was to marry a man w...ho was well-off, but today, marketable skills that will enable a woman to command a good income over her lifetime are a better investment.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The things women find rewarding about work are, by and large ,the same things that men find rewarding and include both the inheren...t nature of the work and the social relationships.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In different life prints, stress will be felt intensely at different times. The woman who is trying to juggle young children and a... demanding job may feel the most pressure in her late twenties and early thirties, but by her forties her investment in the job will be paying off and the demands of the family will be lessening. The woman who has been a homemaker in a very traditional pattern may experience a great deal of stress around the issue of redefining her life as the active role of mothering comes to an end.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The myth of motherhood as martyrdom has been bred into women, and behavioral scientists have helped embellish the myth with their ...ideas of correct "feminine" behavior. If women understand that they do not have to ignore their own needs and desires when they become mothers, that to be self-interested is not to be selfish, it will help them to avoid the trap of overattachment.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »