Blog entry #6

Overworked Individuals or Overworked Families?
Many of today’s jobs are able to be taken home- which makes parents spend even more time working, even if they are not at work. However, the author states there is a conflicting viewpoint that some people believe leisure time has increased recently. One common research method includes time-diaries, where people are asked to explain their days and how they spend their time. According to time diaries form the early 1960s, leisure time increased for many people. People are spending less time working, because they go to school longer and retire earlier, but perhaps they make up with that lost time by working more hours while they are actually in the workforce. Women in the workforce have drastically increased since the end of WWII. The reported hours of housework have declined, as more women are in the workforce.
Single parent households, usually run by women, face the most time constraints, followed by dual earning couples. The number of children most people have has also decreased, allowing parents to spend more time outside of the home because they have less to take care of. Dual earning families have increased from 35.9% to 59%, making dual worker families the majority (Jacobs and Gerson). Dual earner families were also the group that saw the biggest increase in hours worked per week. However, studies that we read last week reported that children care less about the quantity of time with their parents then the quality of the time. When parents are overworked though, the quantity of time goes down but sometimes the quality does as well since the parents are tired while at home from working such long hours. Education level has also led to longer workweeks, especially for women. The most worrisome statistics are those about dual earner families that work a combined 100 hours a week or more, as the proportion of these couples is rising. That accounts for an incredible amount of time spent away from the home, whether the parents are working at the same time or split shifts of who is working when.
The workplace is becoming more competitive, and mothers and fathers alike need to balance their work and family lives, but many jobs do not make this easy for them.

The Career Mystique
Companies place demands on their employees that are not conducive to having a family. Children are seen as a burden to a worker, so couples such as Lisa and David began to work even longer hours after the birth of their child to show their continued dedication to their jobs. These people define success as having it all- happy marriage, children, and a successful career. This differs greatly from the 1950s perfect family, which was a career successful man and a supportive and loving wife at home. Women began to express unhappiness with this ideal, however, and more women looked for fulfillment outside of the home. This was the thought behind Betty Friedan’s book, “The Feminine Mystique”. This gave a voice to women unfulfilled with a life completely locked in the house.
The division of who is more valued in the family reinforces the gender division, men’s superiority and value triumphs over women. Working men bring home a paycheck, while women’s work is usually unnoticed. Careers and children can be compatible, but many companies make it hard and while parents need the money and benefits a career provides to be a good parent, they then lose out on spending time with the family they work so hard to support. Women spend less and less time at home when their children are first born, as Lisa did, because of the concern that their employer will punish them for time spent outside of the home. Longer life spans means many people will eventually need to care for their parents, as well as their children and possibly grandchildren or extended kin. The classic question arises though- is it better to work so you can afford getting them care from others, or is it better to sacrifice your career to be with them?
Retirement begins much earlier now and is often encouraged by the time people are in their 50s, making it even more important for people to make money while they have their full-time jobs. Also, the rising cost of college, and graduate school for many as well, often leaves people in debt when they first enter the workforce. In the 1980s and 1990s, companies began to understand the importance of helping their employees find a balance of work and family. Usually these work-family problems are faced by women, because men are still usually seen as the breadwinners and women are more likely to make sacrifices in the workplace in order to keep their family happy.

The Time Bind- Chapters 14 and 15
The desire of spending more time with family is an opinion often cited by many working parents. However, they are often not able to spend less time working because of the financial needs of their family. Parents with the highest incomes are usually those that have their children in daycare the most, suggesting that high paying jobs are those that demand extraordinary amounts of time from their employees. 89% of employees reported they feel they suffer form a time famine- and also that this effects time with their family. Some parents also reported feelings of guilt for not spending enough time with their families. Surprisingly, some workers said they feel more at home and appreciated in the workplace then in their actual home. Only 51% stated feeling most relaxed in their home. Many parents go home stressed after a day of work and spend their time at home worrying about their responsibilities. Often upper and middle class answer feeling more relaxed at work than home, and those with less desirable jobs see the home as where they are happiest. In the middle of this spectrum lie those who are not relaxed at their home or work. Corporations, such as Amerco, try to make their employees feel at home- offering casual dress days and company-sponsored social events to make their employees more relaxed and willing to spend large portions of time away from their family. These companies encourage their workers to dedicate themselves to their company the same way they would dedicate themselves to their families. Divorce and remarriage also make people seek relaxing environments outside of the house. Some stepparents cite resentment and anger expressed by the stepchildren, so they find solace at work.
Many parents try to fight the time bind by allocating certain hours that is time with the children and time with their spouse when they are at home. This way they can know that they will be with all of their family at some point during the day. However, it is also important for entire family to spend time together, and for children to see their parents together. Shorter mealtimes illustrate how pressed employees are for time. While at work, they often eat while still doing work. At home, quick meals are the preference, because people have no time to cook. Fewer families have mealtime together now, and that results in a lot less time spent together as a family. The children of these overworked parents express anger when their parents are not able to commit time to them. Also, some children are too young to understand that the parents need to have specific times set up to be with their children, and the children want to be on a different schedule. Parents often resort to buying affection from their children- they want to show them their love, but do not have the time to instead try to make up for their lack of presence with gifts. This guilt of spending less time with families also showed itself when Amerco employees were asked how often they leave children home alone- many more men answered yes than women, perhaps because women feel guilty admitting they leave their children home alone. One mother expressed hopes that this leads her child to be more independent, but also worried that it makes them feel lonely. This mother admits she could afford after-school care for her child, but she is 10 years old and the mother believes she should be able to be on her own at that age. There are many publications helping both children and parents feel more comfortable and safe by leaving children home alone, these stress safety and household rules of how to spend time alone. Many parents worry their kids will watch too much TV or neglect obligations if they are not around to remind them, yet knowing to do these tasks themselves is the independence parents want their kids to learn. For those parents who choose day care or after school programs, they expect the programs to make their lives easier. Many daycare centers make hot dinners for children to bring home, while others provide athletics and other activities for the children to travel to. Most parents interviewed did experience this “time bind” even though there are several options for childcare, some parents just do not feel they do enough for their children.

Maternal Employment and Time with Children
The author states that the most dramatic change in families in the past century has been the number of women entering the workforce, followed by the number of divorced and single parent households. However, some sociologists believe that the lack of maternal presence leads to antisocial behavior, as how learned in the previous article, these children often are left home alone after or before schooldays. However, before the entrance of women into the workplace there is no way to know how much time they were spending with their children. Even without a job, many mothers still spent time away from home during the days. The migration of women to the workplace also put more responsibility on the fathers, and generally, fathers today are more active in their children’s’ lives then before. The smaller families of today also allow parents to spend more time with their children individually, instead of always having to care for many children at once. As noted before, nonemployed mothers do not necessarily spend more time with their children. A study found that most of the time nonemployed mothers spent with their children was not directly interacting with the children, rather doing other household chores such as cooking or cleaning. However, in general, number of hours performing housework has decreased for both working and nonworking mothers, but it is unknown if this time is spent interacting with their children or doing personal activities. Mothers also balance work and family by taking time off when children are first born, and when they do return to the labor force, not working as many hours as they previously had.
A large number of both employed and unemployed parents have entering children into a preschool or educational program as earlier as age three, a jump from 10% of children in the 1950s were in these programs while now 50% are. This way parents know their children are getting social interactions with other children while an adult is still present. Employed and unemployed mothers struggle to find a balance for raising their children, even with the large options of childcare available parents express a desire for more time with their children.