‘I wished my mother enjoyed her work’

Abstract

This article discusses links between parents’ work and adolescent psychosocial wellbeing from an adolescent perspective. What do adolescents think about their parents’ work? According to adolescents, do parents have enough time and energy for them? Are there links between adolescents’ perceptions of parents’work and their own wellbeing? In the research the sample consisted of 140 Finnish adolescents (mean age 15.9) derived from the longitudinal Adolescent Relationships and Well-Being study. The results indicate that, although most of the adolescents had rather positive perceptions of their parents’ work, they also perceived their fathers as especially spending long hours at work and their mothers as being often in a bad mood after work. Boys were more positive in their evaluations of their parent’s work than girls and had more materialistic wishes, whereas girls expressed more empathy. Negative perceptions of parents’ work were linked to depression and negative school attitude (fathers’ work only). Parental warmth and acceptance partially mediated these links. It is concluded that from the adolescent point of view parental working conditions should be taken seriously.