Conflicts Can Cause Housewife’s Fatigue

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30715, 2 April 1965, Page 2

Conflicts Can Cause Housewife’s Fatigue

The housewife whose anxious waking thoughts are: “I don’t know why I’m so tired again; I haven’t had any extra exertion lately,” may be suffering from psychological fatigue.

Unaware of it, she has probably built up a resentment against the monotonous chores she has to do every day of the week throughout the year. The conflict between what she has to do out of environmental necessity and what she would like to do with her time is wearing her out.

She may have a yearning to jcrin an amateur theatrical group. But who is going to do the dishes and bath the children if she has to dash off to a rehearsal at 7 p.m.? If her husband is too tired or disinclined to take over these duties for her once a week, or if she has no other relative to give her a break the conflict will increase—unless she faces it and she solves it another way. Facing It

Professor I. N. McCollom, an American visiting professor in the department of psychology and sociology, University of Canterbury, said yesterday that combatting fatigue is largely a matter of reconstituting life to make the fullest use of any particular ability. “It is a matter of finding something of dominant interest” he added. But it was useless to tell a young mother of a large fam-

ily to find an interest unless someone would give her relief from her daily routine. Professor McCollom believes a husband should do it.

“I have washed plenty of dishes and diapers to let my wife do something more interesting,” he admitted. Children’s quarrels, someone breaking a precious dish, not being able to afford something she really wanted to buy, were factors which roused conflict. So were opposing demands within the family, coming from her husband and the children.

“All today’s labour-saving devices mean that the modern housewife does not have too much to do physically, compared to what her mother or grandmother did. But what if the washing machine breaks down when she has a pile of laundry to do on the first fine day in the week? What if she has just put a very special cake in the oven

for a very special occasion and the power goes off? There is conflict again. She is not getting her own way,” he said.

Dominant Interest The professional woman, in the main, suffered less from fatigue that the housewife because she was doing work she wanted to do. If she goes home tired out because of emotional problems arousing conflict, the professional woman can usually switch her mind away from her job to her dominant outside interest and relax. Much of her fatigue then disappeared.

Basically there were three kinds of fatigue, Professor McCollom said —physical fatigue, which came from overexertion of muscles; fatigue through work decrement in factories, for instance; and psychological fatigue. Physiological fatigue came from the conflict between the physical task in hand and the forces of nature, such as gravity and friction. “We assume that fatigue is wholly the result of muscular overwork. Some is; much is not,” he said. The Shadow

Fatigue was the shadow, not the substance. But like pain it was a good indication that something had gone wrong. “If it were possible to eliminate fatigue a dangerous situation would arise unless all the causes were also eliminated. So long as there are conflicts it is fortunate that we have fatigue to make us aware of them in the same way as pain makes us aware of injury. "Pain and fatigue may be the danger signs that tell us something needs to be done about them,” Professor McCollom said.