职场父母最大的误区：孩子，多陪陪就好了 | 双语哈评

缺席孩子的足球比赛和钢琴演奏会，哪个父母没有感到内疚？当工作中最后一分钟的日程安排有变化或者需要出差去拜访客户时，担心自己给小家伙留下永久性的伤痕是很正常的。

但是我们的工作是如何影响孩子的生活的呢？大约20年前，卓克索大学的杰夫•格林豪斯和我在一项研究中调查了大约900名年龄介于25岁到63岁的职场人士，探讨了工作和家庭生活之间的关系，并描述了这两个方面如何既是盟友又是敌人。鉴于我们现在应该对社会上的心理健康问题给予更多的关注，我们有必要重新审视一下过去我们的一些发现，这些发现是关于孩子们——他们是父母工作中无形的利益相关者——的情感生活是如何受到父母职业生涯影响的。我们的发现有助于解释自我们的初始研究以来所观察到的现象：被数字分心的父母(也称为"技术干扰")以及工作压力对家庭生活的危害效应是如何对孩子产生负面影响的。

关于父母职业对儿童影响的大多数研究着眼于：母亲是否工作(只是直到最近才开始包括父亲是否工作) ; 父母的工作是全职还是零工; 父母花费在工作上的时间; 以及父母工作生涯在子女生命中持续的世界。然而，我们的研究超越了时间问题，另外还着眼于工作的内在体验: 父母关于事业和家庭重要性的价值观、工作对家庭生活的心理影响(也就是说，当我们身在家中与家人相处时，我们还在考虑工作)、工作中情感投入的程度，以及对工作条件的自主决断权和控制力。

我们发现，父母职业生涯的所有这些方面都与孩子表现出行为问题的程度相关，而行为问题是他们心理健康的关键指标。对这些指标的衡量我们使用了儿童行为检查表，这是儿童发展研究文献中的一个标准，在组织心理学的其他研究中还没有使用过。不幸的是，到目前为止，父母的工作经历(而不是工作时间的长短)对孩子心理健康的具体影响仍然不是这个领域研究的重点。事实上，它应该是。因为这是测量工作对健康产生重要影响的另一种手段。下面重点列举我们所观察到的一些亮点。

当父母双方都认为家庭是第一位的时候，不管他们在工作上花了多少时间，孩子的情绪健康指数会更高。我们还发现，如果父母把工作看作是挑战、创造和快乐的源泉，孩子会过得更好，这一结论仍然与父母在工作上花了多少时间无关。并且，毫不奇怪，我们发现如果父母有空陪在孩子们身边，孩子们会过得更好。

如果父亲在心理上过度投入于职业生涯，无论他是否加班加点，孩子们都更有可能表现出行为问题。在家庭时光和休闲时间内，父亲带来的与工作相关的认知干扰，也与孩子的情绪和行为问题有关。进一步说，就是父亲是否心理出席或在场，比如如果父亲在看手机，那他就是心理缺席。另一方面，如果父亲在工作中表现良好并对自己的工作感到满意，那么他的孩子很可能表现出相对较少的行为问题， 同样，与他的工作时长无关。

另一方面，母亲在工作中拥有自由度和自主权与孩子的心理健康呈正相关。也就是说，我们发现，如果孩子的母亲在工作中能够控制与她相关的事务，孩子会受益。此外，母亲在自己身上花时间——放松和自我照顾——而不是花太多时间在家务上，对孩子会有积极的影响。这不仅仅关乎母亲是在家还是在工作，而更关乎她在家和非工作时间内所做的事情。如果母亲没有和她的孩子在一起，以便她能够照顾自己，那么她的孩子就不会受任何不良影响。但如果母亲忙于应付家务，孩子更容易受到行为问题的困扰。

自从我们从事这项研究以来，父亲和母亲的传统角色肯定正在发生变化。但事实仍然是，女性承担了为人父母责任中更多的心理义务。我们的研究表明，花时间照顾自己，而不是做额外的家务劳动，可以增强母亲照顾孩子的能力。而对父亲来说，当他带孩子时身心俱在，当他的能力和幸福感通过工作而得到提升，他则能更好地为子女提供健康的体验。

这项研究的好消息是，父母工作生涯中的这些特征，至少在某种程度上，是他们能够控制，并且可以改变的。在我们的研究中，我们惊讶地发现，无论在工作上和在照顾孩子上，父母花费的时间长短(考虑目前的经济和行业状况，几乎很难有效改进这些时间)并不影响孩子的心理健康。

因此，如果我们真正关心我们的职业是如何影响了孩子们的心理健康的，那么我们就能够并应该着眼于: 我们赋予事业的重要性（相对于家庭生活而言），而且尝试以创造性的方式，全身心投入陪伴孩子们的时光，尽管不一定需要花更多的时间。高质量的时间是实实在在的。

英文原文

What working parent hasn’t felt guilty about missing soccer games and piano recitals? When there are last-minute schedule changes at work or required travel to a client site, it’s normal to worry that you’re somehow permanently scarring your little one.

But how does our work affect our children’s lives? About two decades ago, in a study that surveyed approximately 900 business professionals ranging from 25 to 63 years old, across an array of industries, Drexel University’s Jeff Greenhaus and I explored the relationship between work and family life and described how these two aspects of life are both allies and enemies. In light of the deservedly increased attention we’re now paying to mental healthproblems in our society, it’s worth taking a fresh look at some of our findings on how the emotional lives of children — the unseen stakeholders at work — are affected by their parents’ careers. Our findings help explain what’s been observed since our original research about how children are negatively affected by their parents being digitally distracted, also known as “technoference,” and by the harmful effects of stress at work on family life.

Most of the research on the impact of parental employment on children looks at whether or not mothers work (but not, until very recently, fathers); whether parents work full- or part-time; the amount of time parents spend at work; and the timing of parental employment in the span of children’s lives. Our research went beyond matters of time, however, and looked, in addition, at the inner experience of work: parental values about the importance of career and family, the psychological interference of work on family life (that is, we are thinking about work when we are physically present at home with our family), the extent of emotional involvement in career, and discretion and control about the conditions of work.

All these aspects of parents’ careers, we found, correlate with the degree to which children display behavior problems, which are key indicators of their mental health. We measured them with the Child Behavior Checklist, a standard in the child development research literature that has not been used in other research in organizational psychology. Unfortunately, to date, the specific effects of parents’ work experiences (not time spent at work) on children’s mental health has still not been a priority for research in this field. It should be, for this is yet another means by which work can have important health consequences. Here are some of the highlights of what we observed.

For both mothers and fathers, we found that children’s emotional health was higher when parents believed that family should come first, regardless of the amount of time they spent working. We also found children were better off when parents cared about work as a source of challenge, creativity, and enjoyment, again, without regard to the time spent. And, not surprisingly, we saw that children were better off when parents were able to be physically available to them.

Children were more likely to show behavioral problems if their fathers were overly involved psychologically in their careers, whether or not they worked long hours. And a father’s cognitive interference of work on family and relaxation time — that is, a father’s psychological availability, or presence, which is noticeably absent when he is on his digital device — was also linked with children having emotional and behavioral problems. On the other hand, to the extent that a father was performing well in and feeling satisfied with his job, his children were likely to demonstrate relatively few behavior problems, again, independent of how long he was working.

For mothers, on the other hand, having authority and discretion at work was associated with mentally healthier children. That is, we found that children benefit if their mothers have control over what happens to them when they are working.

Further, mothers spending time on themselves — on relaxation and self-care — and not so much on housework, was associated with positive outcomes for children. It’s not just a matter of mothers being at home versus at work, it’s what they do when they’re at home with their non-work time. If mothers were not with their children so they could take care of themselves, there was no ill effect on their children. But to the extent that mothers were engaged in housework, children were more likely to be beset by behavior problems.

Traditional roles for fathers and mothers are surely changing since we conducted this research. But it’s still the case that women carry more of the psychological burden of parental responsibilities. Our research showed that taking time to care for themselves instead of on the additional labor of housework strengthens mothers’ capacities to care their children. And fathers are better able to provide healthy experiences for their children when they are psychologically present with them and when their sense of competence and their well-being are enhanced by their work.

The good news in this research is that these features of a parent’s working life are, at least to some degree, under their control and can be changed. We were surprised to see in our study that parents’ time spent working and on child care — variables often much harder to do anything about, in light of economic and industry conditions — did not influence children’s mental health. So, if we care about how our careers are affecting our children’s mental health, we can and should focus on the value we place on our careers and experiment with creative ways to be available, physically and psychologically, to our children, though not necessarily in more hours with them. Quality time is real.

斯图亚特•弗莱德曼（Stewart D. Friedman）|文

斯图亚特•弗莱德曼是沃顿商学院管理实践教授。福特汽车公司领导力发展中心前主任。

译言网网友 玉堂春晓 |译  周强|校

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