Preparation for motherhood for a woman is always fraught with various problematic questions, to which she and her husband want to find the right answer. A woman’s professional career is one such problem. Today, most women have full-time professional employment, and often have to work seven days a week. The number one problem is parental leave.
The situation is complicated by the fact that not all employers want to give future mothers leave to care. The maximum they agree on is maternity leave.
What to choose for a woman: parental leave or career?
It will be appropriate here to advise a woman to ask herself another question: “Who needs my child?” The answer is obvious. A woman gives birth to children only for herself. Other motives, as a rule, are not long-term and do not justify themselves (for example, the desire to keep a beloved man).
To make the right choice for the next three years, you need to weigh the pros and cons of parental leave.
A small digression into age-related psychology, I think, will help many future mothers. It will be about the most difficult period in the life of a child - newborn and infancy. In the first year of life, the foundation of the character of the child is laid. The way your baby will feel psychologically comfortable will affect the formation of a mentally healthy person.
For the baby, emotional communication with the mother is the main activity. Through establishing contact with the mother, the child learns the world: can you trust him? Only a mother can give confidence to a child in the development of space, in communication with other people.
In addition to emotional closeness, the mother in the first three years of her life creates the necessary behavioral patterns, forms self-care skills, and monitors her health. The more time mother spends with the baby, the healthier the child. This is confirmed by numerous life examples.
Recall our great-grandmothers who breast-fed a baby for a long time. The benefit is not only in breast milk, but also in close relations with the mother. Modern children very often are on artificial feeding and are brought up by nannies. Because for mom, work is more important. Mom wants the child to have a lot of toys, beautiful clothes, and the baby wants to be with mom.
I have often seen how children from a dysfunctional family aspire home to their mother. At home, dirt, lice, a series of drunken roommates, and the child is eager for mom. Mom is the main value for the child. It is we, adults, who are gradually teaching him to value something completely different - things and money.
A small child is waiting for mom from work. And the mother, tortured by clients, documents, delayed until late at night, crossing the threshold of the house, is no longer able to be affectionate, play, read, bathe the baby.
In recent years, child psychologists are increasingly referring to “maternal attachment disorder” as a cause of increased anxiety in children, neurosis, and self-doubt.
So, on one side of the scale - an application for leave to care for a child, on the other - a career.
The child will be with you all his life. And your employer, for whom you hold on so, may, for example, go bankrupt in six months. Life is long, everything happens.
Sometimes we just think the upcoming disaster in my career. In fact, nothing terrible can happen. There is a lot of work around, and a good specialist will always be in demand.
Once I heard the words of a mother who had lost her drug addict son, I remembered them forever: "I worked all my life, made a career, but I had to keep my son with me like a medal on my neck."
A wise woman will reasonably manage the opportunity to be with the child in the first years of life. She will make the right choice before abandoning parental leave.