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Most working mothers will tell you it's not easy having it all. Sometimes, the kids eat cereal for dinner. And sometimes, the school will call with an emergency that plucks you from that crucial meeting.
Depending on the feelings you had about work-life balance as a young woman, these kinds of experiences can seriously affect your mental health by the time you're 40.
In a new study released this weekend at a meeting of the American Sociological Association, women who buy into the supermom myth are at a higher risk of depression than those who think they can have it all.
Working mothers who expect that they will have to make sacrifices fare best, researchers found.
"You can happily combine child rearing and a career, if you're willing to let some things slide," said Katrina Leupp, a University of Washington sociology graduate student who led the study, in a release.
Ms. Leupp analyzed survey responses from 1,600 women, all 40 years old and married, across the United States, who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, administered by the U.S. Department of Labor.
As young adults between the ages of 22 and 30, the women ranked how much they agreed with such statements related to work-life as "A woman who fulfills her family responsibilities doesn't have time for a job outside the home," "Working wives lead to more juvenile delinquency" and "A woman is happiest if she can stay at home with her children."
The study then measured their levels of depression at 40. Stay-at-home moms had more depression symptoms than the working moms in the study - a conclusion other studies have also found. But women who, as young adults, "consistently agreed with statements that women can combine employment and family care were at a higher risk for depression compared with working moms who had a more realistic view," according to the release.
"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 labour and child care, even when they're employed full time," Ms. Leupp told US News and World Report.
"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."
Readers, do you think that the key to a working mom's happiness is lowering her expectations about what she can accomplish both at work and at home? Should it be?