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A friend of mine linked to https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=907720996370834&id=100013988260274 which is world-viewable, but basically is someone saying they can't balance a job with dinner, exercise, a clean apartment, and weekends, and someone else saying you're not meant to, 40 hour jobs were 'meant' to have a homemaker.
At the risk of being That Guy, I'd disagree. Or I'd say it's more a matter of energy, and maybe urban design, than of time.
Assumptions:
* 9 hours in the office (8-5 job of 8 hours plus lunch, rather than 9-5 job of 8 hours including lunch.)
* 1 hour commute each way, 2 total. (The US mean is more like 25 minutes, but a lot of us have longer commutes.)
* 9 hours in bed, or maybe 8.5 hours bed + 0.5 hours getting read for bed, because sleep is important. (If you're shortchanging sleep that might be why you don't have enough energy.)
So that's 9+2+9=20 hours per workday, only hours left over. Maybe 1 in the morning, to get up and have breakfast. That leaves 3 in the evening, not a lot!
Still... 3 hours. In my experience, that's plenty to do shopping, make a decent if non-elaborate dinner (salad, pasta, some meat you can pan-fry), do some exercise (especially if intensive, not so much time to get a 90 minute walk), do a bit of cleaning (surface wipedown, putting things back, fighting the easy parts of the day's entropy), and even a bit of reading. Leaving the weekend free, for fun, or bigger shopping, cooking huge batches of food, the occasional more intensive cleaning, more reading, etc.
Socializing is important too, but that can be meeting for dinner, which displaces that time.
Judging from my mother, who worked standard hours in various office temp jobs, the problem wasn't time, but energy: she'd veg out in front of the TV after dinner. Somewhat self-consciously so, when I was a young prick and pointed it out.
Now, some things help my spin on things:
My commutes have always involved public transit, and usually displaced from the peak rush hour, and I don't get bussick, which means I could usually get a seat and do some reading, making the commute pleasure or useful time, vs. the having the stress of driving in rush hour. Also I'm not sure my commutes have been longer than 45 minutes, which gains half an hour of time. Though my high school commutes *were* at crowded times, so didn't always get a seat there. OTOH there's often a tradeoff: if you have a long transit commute you're getting on earlier and more likely to find a seat; if you never get a seat, you might be standing for only 20 minutes. And these days smartphones make even that a lot more pleasant: music, podcasts, even reading if I can find elbow room.
A lot of the people I knew in Boston biked to work, as is common in the Netherlands, which gets you even more exercise for free.
I've also lived in urban neighborhoods such that there's at least a bit of exercise just in walking to the transit stop. And I walk to the grocery story, which is maybe 10 minutes away, so that's more exercise, and also I'm more casual about doing shopping when I need things. Plus with a bit of luck or planning there's a market between work and home and I don't even have to go much out of my way, just get things on the way home.
It also helps to have a sensibly sized apartment: if you're one person in a highly cluttered 1000 square foot apartment, that's going to be more work to clean than being in 500 square feet and keeping things ordered to begin with.
It also helps that I've generally liked my jobs, so even if I'm tired, I'm not morally drained when I get home.
I also assume exercise is a run or pushups or such at home, not Going To A Gym.
It may also help that except for the occasional Show I'm Following, like Buffy or Firefly, I haven't had a TV habit; peak TV consumption was like 3 hours a week, rather than 2 hours a night. This affect both the outright available time, and perhaps one's energy -- I'm not sure watching TV nightly is actually restorative.
You'll note that I'm mostly talking about one person without kids, but I take the original complaint to be about just that situation, though it's not clear. If you throw a small child into the above situation then it surely gets much more brutal. Getting the kid to and from school, cleaning up after a little chaos monster, monitoring school performance.
Except even some of that that is situational. I was never ever driven to school; I could have walked to a neighborhood school, but I took school buses from grades 1-8 to gifted/magnet schools, and transit grades 9+. I guess when I was really young I was probably walked to a preschool or kindergarden, back when my parents did fall out as "working and non-working", but for most of my childhood getting me to school was burden-free for my parents, other than maybe getting me out the door. In countries like Japan or Switzerland small kids commonly walk to school; this used to be common in the US just a few decades ago, but we've gone all in on suburbs and schools reachable only by car. I was also able to walk to my neighborhood library on my own from an early age, like 7 or 8, and I didn't have extracurriculars.
Which points to a commonality, with or without kid: living with a 40 hour job is easier in a traditional urban neighborhood, with walkability and with appropriately sized housing, than it is in a suburb where you have to drive to work, drive to school, and perhaps occupy (and clean) more house than you really need because smaller housing units aren't legally allowed. (Ooh, and mow/weed the yard too! I've never had a yard as an adult. Also helps.)
Just having school buses (on a reasonable schedule) and accepting latchkey kids would help families a lot, compared to driving kids around and expecting an adult to always be home with them.
So it's not just having a 40 hour/week job, but having one in a typical US context, even more so if there's a kid (especially with modern expectations of Activities and lack of independence.)
Easier scenario:
* 8.5 hours in office
* 30 minute commutes (1 hour total)
* 9 hours bed
* 1 hour morning
4.5 hours left in the evening.
At the risk of being That Guy, I'd disagree. Or I'd say it's more a matter of energy, and maybe urban design, than of time.
Assumptions:
* 9 hours in the office (8-5 job of 8 hours plus lunch, rather than 9-5 job of 8 hours including lunch.)
* 1 hour commute each way, 2 total. (The US mean is more like 25 minutes, but a lot of us have longer commutes.)
* 9 hours in bed, or maybe 8.5 hours bed + 0.5 hours getting read for bed, because sleep is important. (If you're shortchanging sleep that might be why you don't have enough energy.)
So that's 9+2+9=20 hours per workday, only hours left over. Maybe 1 in the morning, to get up and have breakfast. That leaves 3 in the evening, not a lot!
Still... 3 hours. In my experience, that's plenty to do shopping, make a decent if non-elaborate dinner (salad, pasta, some meat you can pan-fry), do some exercise (especially if intensive, not so much time to get a 90 minute walk), do a bit of cleaning (surface wipedown, putting things back, fighting the easy parts of the day's entropy), and even a bit of reading. Leaving the weekend free, for fun, or bigger shopping, cooking huge batches of food, the occasional more intensive cleaning, more reading, etc.
Socializing is important too, but that can be meeting for dinner, which displaces that time.
Judging from my mother, who worked standard hours in various office temp jobs, the problem wasn't time, but energy: she'd veg out in front of the TV after dinner. Somewhat self-consciously so, when I was a young prick and pointed it out.
Now, some things help my spin on things:
My commutes have always involved public transit, and usually displaced from the peak rush hour, and I don't get bussick, which means I could usually get a seat and do some reading, making the commute pleasure or useful time, vs. the having the stress of driving in rush hour. Also I'm not sure my commutes have been longer than 45 minutes, which gains half an hour of time. Though my high school commutes *were* at crowded times, so didn't always get a seat there. OTOH there's often a tradeoff: if you have a long transit commute you're getting on earlier and more likely to find a seat; if you never get a seat, you might be standing for only 20 minutes. And these days smartphones make even that a lot more pleasant: music, podcasts, even reading if I can find elbow room.
A lot of the people I knew in Boston biked to work, as is common in the Netherlands, which gets you even more exercise for free.
I've also lived in urban neighborhoods such that there's at least a bit of exercise just in walking to the transit stop. And I walk to the grocery story, which is maybe 10 minutes away, so that's more exercise, and also I'm more casual about doing shopping when I need things. Plus with a bit of luck or planning there's a market between work and home and I don't even have to go much out of my way, just get things on the way home.
It also helps to have a sensibly sized apartment: if you're one person in a highly cluttered 1000 square foot apartment, that's going to be more work to clean than being in 500 square feet and keeping things ordered to begin with.
It also helps that I've generally liked my jobs, so even if I'm tired, I'm not morally drained when I get home.
I also assume exercise is a run or pushups or such at home, not Going To A Gym.
It may also help that except for the occasional Show I'm Following, like Buffy or Firefly, I haven't had a TV habit; peak TV consumption was like 3 hours a week, rather than 2 hours a night. This affect both the outright available time, and perhaps one's energy -- I'm not sure watching TV nightly is actually restorative.
You'll note that I'm mostly talking about one person without kids, but I take the original complaint to be about just that situation, though it's not clear. If you throw a small child into the above situation then it surely gets much more brutal. Getting the kid to and from school, cleaning up after a little chaos monster, monitoring school performance.
Except even some of that that is situational. I was never ever driven to school; I could have walked to a neighborhood school, but I took school buses from grades 1-8 to gifted/magnet schools, and transit grades 9+. I guess when I was really young I was probably walked to a preschool or kindergarden, back when my parents did fall out as "working and non-working", but for most of my childhood getting me to school was burden-free for my parents, other than maybe getting me out the door. In countries like Japan or Switzerland small kids commonly walk to school; this used to be common in the US just a few decades ago, but we've gone all in on suburbs and schools reachable only by car. I was also able to walk to my neighborhood library on my own from an early age, like 7 or 8, and I didn't have extracurriculars.
Which points to a commonality, with or without kid: living with a 40 hour job is easier in a traditional urban neighborhood, with walkability and with appropriately sized housing, than it is in a suburb where you have to drive to work, drive to school, and perhaps occupy (and clean) more house than you really need because smaller housing units aren't legally allowed. (Ooh, and mow/weed the yard too! I've never had a yard as an adult. Also helps.)
Just having school buses (on a reasonable schedule) and accepting latchkey kids would help families a lot, compared to driving kids around and expecting an adult to always be home with them.
So it's not just having a 40 hour/week job, but having one in a typical US context, even more so if there's a kid (especially with modern expectations of Activities and lack of independence.)
Easier scenario:
* 8.5 hours in office
* 30 minute commutes (1 hour total)
* 9 hours bed
* 1 hour morning
4.5 hours left in the evening.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-19 07:09 (UTC)From:
- 2½h before work to exercise, shower, shave, make and eat breakfast, make lunch, etc.
- 10h for work, given commute, lunch, whatever
- 8½h to try to sleep
so getting around 3h each weeknight for catching up online, doing some personal computing, practicing musical instruments, whatever. I might sometimes lose half that period to grocery shopping (given travel, queueing, whatever) but I figured that most chores and errands should be able to wait for the weekend. Quite feasible.I figured a larger apartment is less likely to be cluttered because I then have space to arrange everything well. With this move I'm shipping two large desks with shelving, I figure to use one for Paid Work stuff and the other for personal stuff and home admin. (Separate computers, paperwork, etc.)
At least commuting by car isn't useless downtime. I've typically used that as news-catchup, I would tend to listen to NPR's and its like. Here in the UK I've also liked shows like the BBC's . One could argue for catching up with current affairs while cooking food or whatever but I can instead use that time for keeping in touch with family, I don't want to be trying to converse with remote interlocutors on just about any mode of transport.
Yeah, kids suck time, partly because, if you're not going to give them that time, share yourself with, help and guide them in some way, why did you have them? I am a big fan of getting to do things like sit together for a meal each evening and actually talk to each other. Most chores and such I can do faster myself but I would rather involve them so we can learn from and enjoy each other.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-19 07:19 (UTC)From:That's an interesting point. As long as one doesn't end up filling the extra space. Of course bigger also means more floor space and windows... not that I've cleaned a single window outside the family house.
> if you're not going to give them that time, share yourself with, help and guide them in some way, why did you have them?
Indeed! OTOH being a daily chauffeur for kids who could in a better environment transport themselves isn't quality time, IMO. At any rate it can greatly complicate the time budget.
> I am a big fan of getting to do things like sit together for a meal each evening
As am I, but it's not necessarily taking much more time out of your schedule. Depends on the family I guess; I was a very non-picky eater, and generally helped bus dishes even if I wasn't doing the full dishwashing 1/3 of the time (gifted student has to do his homework ;) ) so it was different than having to be a short-order cook for multiple picky kids who run off after eating, as I've seen elsewhere.
Anyway my main point, if it wasn't clear, was that the modest 3 hour free time becomes a lot tighter if you need an extra 30 minutes on each side for driving kids around.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-19 10:53 (UTC)From:Yup!
no subject
Date: 2020-09-19 13:50 (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2020-09-20 16:25 (UTC)From: