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Double burden Family and work More and more women are burned out
Getting family and job together is often not easy. Many parents feel torn and feel overwhelmed by the situation. If the exhaustion gets bigger and bigger, usually only a cure helps - to get out of everyday life for a while and to be able to regain new strength. The demand seems to be getting bigger and bigger. Last year alone, around 49,000 women took a cure, according to the latest annual report from the Maternal Welfare Association (MGW). Nearly 90 percent suffer from exhaustion or even burnout. But not only the mothers are affected - men are also increasingly requesting a break.
The daily balancing of family and work brings many women to the limit of their capacity. (Image: kite_rin / fotolia.com) Excessive demands are often not admitted
Lack of time, stress, rush and constant organization: The daily balancing act between work and family pushes many women to their limits. "I'm completely at the end" or "I just can not do it anymore" are therefore sentences that have probably already gone through almost every working mother in the head. However, many find it difficult to admit the excessive demands and to seek help. According to the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" (WAZ), Anne Schilling from the Müttergenesungswerk said at the presentation of the annual report of the convalescent work in Berlin, "many mothers believe that they are the only ones who can no longer achieve work, children and household." "But when they meet other exhausted women, they see that they are not the only ones," Schilling continues.
Nearly 90 percent suffer from exhaustion
Around 2.1 million mothers with underage children in Germany are in need of medical treatment, according to the mothers' welfare organization, but only five percent use maternal or mother-child cures. Many suffer accordingly, e.g. with back problems, allergies or headaches. In addition, more and more psychological stress such as moodiness, sleep or anxiety disorders, many sufferers feel "burned out" and at the end of their powers. Eighty-seven percent of all mothers who took part in a cure of the maternal healing work in 2015 suffered from a fatigue syndrome to burnout, according to a statement by the MGW.
According to the annual report, around 49,000 mothers and 72,000 children underwent a course of cure in one of the 76 clinics approved by the Maternal Wound Care Workplace (MGW) last year. In 4,000 cases it was a pure mothers measure. Around 80% of mothers in mother-and-child cures were aged between 26 and 45 years old, and about 31% were single parents. The majority went to work, just under a fifth even worked full time. About one fifth of all participants had to make do with less than 1,500 euros a month, the main earner is still the man.
Women often also care for relatives
According to Schilling, many women would only think of themselves at the very end and often would not notice how everyday life is slowly growing over their heads. Frequently, reacts only when exhaustion and exhaustion become a permanent condition and the body does not play along. Not infrequently, however, women still have a guilty conscience because they no longer "work" and, from their own point of view, no longer meet the requirements. "They want to be particularly good mothers, they often want to beat the social requirements," Schilling is quoted by the WAZ.
In addition to family and work, many women have yet another burden to deal with. Because they are often the ones who take care of dependent relatives. According to the MGW, around 70 percent of the 2.5 million people in need of care are now cared for at home - mostly by women. According to Schilling is known that a quarter of all mothers in maternal hospitals care for relatives and that about a third of them even due to the additional burden of disease. "The health of middle-aged women is remarkably poor. In this age group, there are particularly high psychosocial burdens due to home and family work ", explains the managing director of the MGW. Accordingly, there is a great need for action, so five maternity clinics of the MGW would already offer priority measures for caregiving women. What many sufferers do not know: Since 2012, there is a statutory right to cure measures for all caring men and women.
Even men more often at the limit
But not only the mothers are affected, but mental stress in 2015 was also at the fathers with almost 70 percent, the main reason for a cure. "Mothers and fathers are equally particularly under constant pressure, due to double and triple burden. However, the traditional role model with the man as a full-time and full-time earner is an extreme challenge for fathers. Nearly 60 percent called the compatibility of family and work as a burden, "said the chairman of the board Dagmar Ziegler (SPD), according to the report of the MGW. Despite the difficulties of the profession, 52 percent of the fathers surveyed would work 40 hours or more a week. "If they take on family-related tasks, men also reach their limits and become ill," Ziegler continues.
According to the report, the number of men who make the father-child cures at the maternal health care clinics is significantly lower than the number of women, but rose 24 percent to around 1,500 men last year. According to the expert, it is also due to public opinion that not even more exhausted men apply for a time-out. Because a man "on cure" collide with the prevailing image of men, so Schilling.
Great burden of time pressure and incompatibility of family and work
What is perceived as a burden is relatively similar in women and men. According to the report, they are equally under time pressure and the incompatibility of family and work. In addition, women in mothers' measures are particularly often burdened with lack of recognition and lack of support from the environment. For women in mother-and-child cures, money problems and the difficulty of reconciling children with work also play a major role. Therefore, men in father-child-measures suffered particularly often under occupational burdens and constant time pressure. (No)