Mother Guilt Feeling: A qualitative Research of Women's Employment in the Mother-Child Relationship

Abstract

Introduction: Studies show that 60% of working women are struggling with work-life balance. Which  most of the problems are related to mother-child relationship The present study aims at studying the psychological dynamics of women's employment on their mother-child relationship. The purpose of this study is theoretical explanation of women's employment in mother-child relationship.

Methods: The present paper was part of a grounded theory study. The research participants were based on theoretical sampling of 14 married women working in Yazd city and were interviewed in-depth and unstructured interviews.The sampling process continued until theoretical saturation In this study, open coding ,axial coding and selective coding were used to analyze data in so doing, data collection and analysis were done simultaneously.

Results: The findings were presented through careful study of the research interview transcriptions, the main propositions, concepts, main categories, and finally, the core category in a long, precise, detailed, and conceptual process. Consequently, this study included 30 concepts, 13 main categories, and one core category, titled as "mother guilt feeling ".

 Conclusion‌: The present study showed that although some women employed in the face of the challenges of employment in the mother-child relationship have used positive strategies that have had a positive effect such as "increasing child age and satisfaction". But there were more negative consequences for working mothers. Because they are faced with the duality of roles and responsibilities, working mothers also think that their absence may result in harm to their children when they are not involved with their child.Thus, in accordance with this process and the causal factors, the underlying and the confounding conditions, the phenomenon of " mother guilt feeling " is formed.