Development of a Value Recognition Method for Working Mothers to Balance Work and Childcare based on Their Sense of Authenticity

This study proposes and evaluates a psychological coping method that increases the sense of authenticity of working mothers. The number of working mothers is increasing as women’s participation in the workforce has increased considerably. However, working mothers experience conflicts between balancing work and childcare. They can continue working because they can engage in in psychological self-care and overcome the dilemma of balancing work and childcare through physical resources and support. Therefore, it is important for working mothers to integrate their identities as workers and mothers. Our proposed method helps working mothers feel that they can achieve both career development and childcare that relates to their authentic selves and assuages conflicts arising from creating a balance between them. In the proposed method, working mothers reflect on their past and identify the value of work and childcare. The goal is to determine common values for mothers and help them recognize that both work and childcare can coexist, fulfilling their own personalities. We conducted a control experiment with 23 working mothers, in which the proposed method and an existing method were implemented. The effectiveness and validity were compared and evaluated by analyzing questionnaires before and after the experiment. The findings revealed that the proposed method was highly effective regarding the sense of authenticity and work–family enrichment. In addition, working mothers experienced that they could balance career and childcare, which related to their authentic selves, and were more likely to use the proposed method than the existing method. Our proposed method is a psychological coping method that enables working mothers to recognize the common value of work and childcare, realize their identity, and raise their sense of authenticity.