If 91% of working moms are depressed, shouldn't we either change the paradigm, or call it something else, like "it's hard to be a working mom"? This is like saying 91% of men suffer from loss of appetite after eating. It ceases to be a clinical diagnoses if 91% of the people have it, right?

Kapauldo, just because something is statistically "normal" doesn't mean we have to like it. Thank God they have finally put GPS in bras so I can track down my wife is she has a freak out.

Seriously though, there are a number of clinical diagnoses that occur frequently, such as anxiety (12-18% of all children under 18 years old meet diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder at any given time; over 30% of the U.S. population experience an anxiety disorder at some point during their lives). If the symptoms cause undue distress to the individual or cause any kind of functional impairment, we call this a "disorder". In this case, depression in working mothers must mean that these women are suffering internally or they are under productive as a direct result of their symptoms. That's a little different than "it's hard to be a working mom". Check out my Christmas light display for more info.

Unless the online survey was something like: "Hey, ladies. Working all day and then coming home to take care of your family is so depressing. Am I right? Yeah or Meh."

I'm suggesting 2 things- a) that when something becomes statistically normal, or say, with 91%, statistically dominant, it ceases to be a disorder. I'm exaggerating here because depression, in a clinical sense, not in the Tylenol sense, is medical diagnosis, but for this population, we can say, with some exaggeration, that depression is normal. So, when you have surgery, a doctor might say "nausea is perfectly normal when you wake up," and similarly, we can say, again, with exaggeration, that "depression is perfectly normal when you become a working mom." It's no longer a medical disorder, because it's occurring 91% of the time. My second point, b) is that you're right, we shouldn't like it, which is why I originally said if 91% of working moms suffer from depression in some form, shouldn't we change the paradigm of the working mom in our society? I should say shouldn't "they" change the paradigm and the rest of us support it? I don't want our wives and sisters and daughters and mothers to simply accept depression as a perfectly normal symptom of being a working mom, but instead, it would be nicer if the paradigm wasn't work/daycare/school/house care/husband care/sleep. Without delving into the sitcom stereotypes of men, the paradigm of the working mom is seriously broken, and I'm speculating that the solution is not in psychiatry but in a change in the paradigm of the working mom. It sounds like it really sucks to be a working mom for virtually all working moms some of the time.

lady taco?

I wonder what a survey of stay-at-home moms would have found. I'm willing to bet about 91% of them experience symptoms of depression too...

you may be right. my sole point was that *if* this is true, it's time to rethink the paradigm, and if it's true and it's also true that 91% of stay at home moms exhibit signs of depression then 91% of all moms exhibit some sign of depression and if this is true, we can conclude that a) either we have a serious problem with motherhood in america or b) statisticians truly enjoy masturbating with statistics.

It also may just suck to be a woman. The demographic category that is at highest risk for depression is: Female, middle-aged, White, married, with kids (not necessarily in that order).

yeah but this is all speculation. the fact that a study was done that resulted in a supermajority of a population having symptoms of a disease tells me something is grossly wrong here. it may be that this is alarmist journalism, it may be that all working moms suffer from depression, it may be that everyone suffers from some symptoms of depression. in any event, this is more bubble gum research and it annoys me, even though i believe the premise.