An Analysis of Maternal Experience of Women Working in Managerial Positions

Becoming a mother has always been one of the main roles of women in Iranian society. In recent decades, however, due to changes in attitudes and increasing options for women's advancement, including education and employment and opportunities for more social presence of women, the maternal experience has changed for some women. Becoming a mother is no longer a mandatory and full-time role for women. They can choose alternative social roles. The purpose of this study was to analyze the maternal experience of women and their policies in playing the role of motherr among women working in senior positions in Iranian Ministry of Petroleum. In order to achieve the goals, a qualitative method with a descriptive phenomenological approach was used. In-depth interview data collection technique and purposeful sampling method were used. A sample of 30 women of 40-55 years old participated in this study. Content analysis was used for analysis of data. The results of the study fall into six categories and 16 subcategories including motherhood as the most important source of identity, maternal choice, redefining motherhood, pregnancy experience as a completely feminine experience, separation from the child and reappearance at work, feeling complete, feeling deprived of maternal pleasure, benefiting from the support of spouse and mother, combining maternal duties with work and paid work, interaction with children from the work environment, interaction and dialogue with the work environment, maximum stress tolerance. It can be concluded that the concept of motherhood has been redefined according to its social situations and cultural changes. In this process, working women face the costs of childbearing and job-maternal role conflicts due to the weakness of family-friendly programs.