FINDING A CALM BALANCE

摘要

If working parents tell you they're feeling burned-out by work - or if indeed you're feeling it - you may not be that surprised to read the following statistics. For every 100,000 workers in Great Britain, 1800 suffer work-related stress, depression or anxiety, a trend that has worsened over the last few years and is caused mainly by mounting worldoads (Health and Safety Executive (HSE), 2018). In all, a worrying 1.4 million working people in the UK endure a work-related illness (HSE, 2019). And the UK has the longest working week in Europe to boot, according to a survey by Eurostat (2018). Unhealthy figures indeed. Perhaps even more upsetting is that working life can also impact negatively on the wellbeing of families and children. This year's Modern families index highlights that, overall, 78% of parents said they put in extra hours at work every week (Working Families and Bright Horizons, 2019). Yet the tradeoff can be unsatisfactory. In the report, parents admitted that work 'regularly and negatively spilled over into home life, disrupting everyday activities as well as health and wellbeing'. These activities included saying goodnight to their children, helping them with homework or playing or reading with them.