Balancing Career and Family

Abstract

Even the most experienced psychologists have trouble balancing paid work and family, whether their work is in academia or clinical practice, so undergraduates, graduate students, and interns have no reason to feel incompetent and inadequate if they have trouble doing the balancing act. We feel we are shortchanging our loved ones when we spend time on our studies or work, and we feel we are being insufficiently productive as students or workers because of spending time meeting family responsibilities and even more when we notice that we are actually having fun with our partners, parents, or children. Spending any time meeting our other needs, such as going for a swim or reading a book of poetry or just sitting quietly and thinking, often makes us feel we are shirking both of our other sets of duties. This is the case for people of both sexes but is more common for women and for men who are not white, heterosexual, able-bodied, or doing what is considered to be "mainstream" work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)