No abstract

This study investigated the role of spirituality in working Christian mothers coping with tension due to interrole conflict, in light of past research suggesting a relationship between spirituality and coping constructs. Interviews with 32 mothers working in Christian academia were examined using a post hoc analysis of content informed by principles of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Several aspects of a sense of calling emerged that appeared related to the experience of interrole tension: a sense of certitude, collaboration, and a context of purpose. It was theorized that for these women, the sanctification of work, through experiencing a sense of calling, was related to coping with interrole tension.

Mental labor is an under-researched and long-invisible component of family work. Scholars have described mental labor as important, taxing, and disproportionately performed by mothers compared to fathers. However, operational definitions used in these studies were only preliminary and lack unified terminology. Answering calls for expanded views of household labor and better definitions of its content, we undertook a phenomenological investigation of family-related mental labor performed by mothers. Our interpretive phenomenological analysis of seven focus group interviews produced a definition of mothers’ mental labor and its component parts that was empirically grounded in the lived experience of mothers of young children ( N = 25). Distinct from housework chores, childcare, and emotion work, mental labor emerged as thinking activity performed for the sake of accomplishing family goals. We identified six forms of mental labor: (a) planning and strategizing, (b) monitoring and anticipating needs, (c) metaparenting, (d) knowing (learning and remembering), (e) managerial thinking (including delegating and instructing), and (f) self-regulation. All participating mothers represented themselves as their family’s primary mental laborer, regardless of employment status or their partner’s level of involvement. Our description of mental labor may help parents, researchers, clinicians, policy makers, and educators recognize, value, and better account for the mental labor dynamics operating in the construction of family life, reproduction of gender roles, and perpetuation of gender gaps in family labor division and mental load. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index

This study applies the construct of sanctification to working mothers' experiences of work. Women (N = 200) who had completed a master's, doctoral, or professional degree and were employed with at least one child under the age of 18 years residing in the home, completed an online survey investigating their sanctification of work, intrinsic religiosity, religious commitment, positive and negative affect, interrole conflict, and satisfaction with work. The results indicated that greater levels of sanctification of work show incremental validity over intrinsic religiosity and religious commitment in predicting higher positive affect, lower interrole conflict, and higher satisfaction with work. Implications of these results for religious working mothers are explored.

The present study examined the relationship between gender, religious belief and ambivalent sexism. Specifically, this study tested the hypothesis that participant gender moderates the relationship between religious belief and ambivalent sexism. Three-hundred thirty seven Evangelical Christian undergraduate students from the Southwestern United States were administered the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory and the Christian Orthodoxy Scale. Results showed that gender moderated the relationship between Christian orthodoxy and Protective Paternalism. This finding suggests the importance of intervening variables, such as gender, in understanding the relationship between religion and sexism.