Women@Work
The Issues We All Face
Today begins a series of excerpts from Thriving As A Working Woman by Gwen Ellis.
It is possible to work full-time and be a homemaker—and do them both successfully. We all know women who have managed both. But over and over women identify the same basic problem areas—the things that try their souls. They take slightly different slants for various groups of women—the mother of small children, the never-married single, the working woman with no children at home, and the divorced or widowed starting-over-again woman—but the basic problems are the same:
- Time management - In a recent survey, working women said their number one problem is time management. Many women work a forty-hour week for an employer and then put in another twenty or thirty hours of housework and child care. The result is overtired, cranky moms whose frustration spills all over their families.
- Priorities—With so many demands on their time, they may have trouble discerning what is most important.
- Finances—Many women feel the more they work and the more money they earn, the more they need. These women want to learn how to budget, to spend wisely, to become savers. Others want information about investments, retirement savings plans, stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
- Need for Christian fellowship—Some women feel the need to establish relationships with other Christian working women, but truly don’t have the time to do so.
- Difficult bosses—Many women surveyed expressed frustration with bosses who were abrasive, abusive, difficult, or dishonest.
- Coworkers—Office jealousies can be a problem. Some women feel harassed by fellow workers, while others simply want to know how to receive more recognition on the job.
- Low self-esteem—One woman said, “I want to know how to establish and maintain my individuality and not be swallowed by the system.”
- Workplace conflicts—Some women are angry and don’t know how to let go of that anger. Others feel insecure in their position at work, and still others need help in avoiding or recovering from burnout.
- Lack of personal support—Over and over women expressed a need for a little tenderness, caring and pampering. Many expressed in their own words what I’ve always believed: What every working woman needs is a “wife.”
- Health—Women admit to not adequately caring for their own health. They realize stress is taking a toll on their lives and that they must do something about it.
- Parenting—Guilt over not spending enough time with their children is universal. Women want to know how to balance motherhood and career.
- Two-career families—Married working women express a need for better relationships with their husbands and their children. They also want to know how other families divide at-home chores in a two-career situation.
- Single working women—They want help coping with the loneliness that assails them when they go home. Single moms express the most need of all. How does a single mother cope with being a full-time career woman and the only parent in residence?
If any of the above concerns are yours, be assured you are not alone. You are part of a great company of working women who feel as you do. We are a sisterhood of employed women who want to find answers to the problems that today’s lifestyle creates.
In the next few issues of “Women @ Work,” we will offer some possible solutions.
Excerpted from Thriving As A Working Woman by Gwen Ellis. Reprinted with permission. Gwen may be reached at www.seasidecreativeservices.com
Like what you've read?
Subscribe to this email newsletter at
www.womensministriesunlimited.ag.org/newsletters
• Privacy Policy • Contact Us