Why Supermoms are More Likely to be Depressed

Working women who think they can have it all-a satisfying family life and a challenging career-may be setting themselves up for depression, according to a new study by Katrina Leupp of the University of Washington in Seattle. Leupp's research also found that in general, stay-at-home moms were more likely to be depressed than their in-the-workforce peers.

Leupp based her research on the Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, a massive set of surveys following tens of thousands of people for about 40 years. Leupp looked at the responses of 1,600 women, aged 22 to 30, when asked if they agreed with statements such as "Women are much happier if they stay at home and take care of the children," and "It is much better for everyone concerned if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of home and family." From attitudes about these statement, Leupp hoped to learn something about these women's expectations for balancing work outside the home with family life. Leupp then looked at the answers these same women gave to questions about depression once they were 40 years old, married and living with children.

The results:

• Stay-at-home moms are more likely to be depressed than women who work outside the home. Leupp suspects this is because work outside the home brings not just money but important social interactions (and respect!), that stay-at-home-moms have trouble finding.
• Working moms who, as younger women, didn't seem to think work and family could be balanced had fewer symptoms of depression than those who thought they could have both a satisfying home life and a challenging career. Working moms who had voiced the least support for blending work and family life actually had the fewest symptoms of depression. As Leupp says in an article for U.S. News and World Report:

The findings really point to the mismatch between women's expectations about their ability to balance work and family. Women still do the bulk of household labor and child care, even when they're employed full time... Women who go into employment expecting it to be difficult -- 'I'm going to have to work full time and do the laundry at night,' but who are accepting of that are less likely to be frustrated than women who expect things to be more equal with their partners."

Wanted: family-friendly workplaces
There's more to this than housework, of course. "Woman are sold a story that they can do it all, but most workplaces are still designed for employees without childcare responsibilities," says Leupp.

Earlier research has shown that having to interrupt family time to deal with work-to take a call or pound out an email on that blackberry-makes women feel much more guilty than it does men.

It could also be that women who expect to be able to balance work and family are perfectionists in other ways, and also have other unrealistic expectations that are likely to lead to depression. Says Leupp, "Balancing work and family feels hard because it is hard."

Is it possible for any parent to successfully balance their work life with their home life? How?

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