Countless moms confess in online message boards and blogs to feeling a nagging sense of inadequacy when it comes to balancing work and motherhood. They call it, “mommy guilt.”
“I do feel that guilt, especially when I’m trying to get away from my children to get some work done, where I feel like, ‘Gosh, I wish I could just focus on my kids,’” Allison O’Kelly, who has three sons and is also the full-time boss of her staffing company Mom Corps, told ABC News’ “Nightline.”
More than 70 percent of American women with children under age 17 are working moms, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. But now, a growing number of professional women are choosing to focus on their kids instead. The share of stay-at-home mothers rose 29 percent in 2012, up from a modern era low of 23 percent in 1999, according to a Pew Research study. And this May, Harvard Business school released a survey that showed 37 percent of millennial women planned to leave the work force for family, compared with 28 percent of Gen X women and 17 percent of baby boomers.