I just finished reading a book, "168 Hours: You have more time than you think" this last week or so. I liked parts of the book (I especially thought the ideas of making the most of your time working instead of slacking off and making a list of things you wanted to accomplish and actually scheduling some of your leisure time to accomplish those were very compelling and useful). Other parts of the book, I take more issue with. One of the big pluses of the book was basing it largely on real time log data - how do people actually use their time. However, I think one of the big shortcomings of the book is a shortcoming with this data - you can only report one activity at the time.
I always wondered about those statistics on how much time parents spend reading to their children or playing with their children. And then comes the comparisons with, say, like the 50s or 60s, or between moms that work outside the home and moms who stay at home. And they say - see, working moms still spend most of the same amount of time playing and reading to kids. I think that was one of my big take-aways' from the book. See - you can have it all, if you just maximize all your time working and playing and spending time with your family and you outsource whatever else you can.
I think there are several problems with this idea, however. First, as I said, reporting only one activity at a time. If I am doing housework or cooking or exercising or whatever, during the day, the kids are around and are semi-engaged in what I am doing or are playing on their own. There is great value in independent play. There is also value in having the kids helping me cook or do housework or even just talking and watching me do it (or perhaps, even in bugging me or each other and causing chaos and messes while I am doing these chores). However, none of these things can be reflected in the number of hours spent playing or reading with my kids. (Although, on that note, I KNOW I spend a lot more time reading and playing then these sorts of studies report). And how about all those trips to the zoo and museums and all that sort of thing. Those are all beneficial to children, and, in my mind, worth staying at home with them.
I think the other problem I see with books like these. The idea that you can have both family and work as long as you have quality childcare seems some what problematic to me as well. Whether I choose to stay at home with my children or not and provide the vast vast majority of their childcare, the children have to be taken care of. Under a certain age, children need supervision, physical care, etc. This is a fact. If I don't provide it, someone else has to. We can't just sweep children under the rug and all go and pursue these wonderful jobs and wonderful careers without having a large dependence on another class/subset of people (largely other women) who will care for our children.
And I don't care how much people talk about quality - quality isn't going to happen unless you pay a large enough amount of money so that the turnover is low. And an even larger amount of money if you want a small child-to-teacher ratio (which seems like it would be really essential, especially when children are very small and don't even play with other children excepting perhaps in parallel play). And, for the most part, this doesn't happen. There is a huge cadre of very under-paid women who watch other women's children. And we have to be okay with that and with the low wages and that we are, in fact, outsourcing our childcare in order to go and have another job. And I don't have a problem with that. I think the ideal in most cases is the mom at home, but many women work and that's fine. But I hate the brushing under the rug of the neccessity of someone providing child care. It's not a pointless task that women are just wasting their minds / career futures / retirement benefits on - someone must watch and care and nurture the children.
I am sure that we can cram an enormous amount into our days. And I did take some points away from this - I really want to focus my leisure time, for example, on those things that matter the most to me and give me the most joy. But I find myself trying to get away from this cramming idea and more into the simiplicity and joy in a simple every day life without having to fill every moment. That's hard for me, too, but something I am trying to learn.
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