Such is the conclusion that Laura, over at 11D, is coming to. She gets to this point not through ideology: she is not a radical feminist. Rather, she is coming to the realization that "good jobs" might actually be bad for family responsibilities through the direct and frustrating experience of her own family life.
Her husband has a "good job," something to do with investing and money. He goes into the city five days a week, while she, a relatively newly minted Ph.d., has had to give up the career track (for now at least) to do most of the care of their two boys and manage myriad other household duties. She is not resentful of her situation, but she looks forward to the time when she might be able to stretch her career legs (she is a talented blogger) while he takes up more of the home responsibilities. They are a young couple, just settling into a new house and the suburbs. But, for all of the good material stuff in her life, Laura is noticing the increasing time demands of her husbands job:
My husband came home last Friday night and announced that his boss wants him to start carrying around a Blackberry. He also said that Steve wasn’t being a team player, because he didn’t go drinking with his co-workers on Friday nights.
Let me get this straight. He’s gone from the house for 60 hours per week. He sees his kids for an hour per day. And now he’s supposed to be checking his e-mail, while he watches his kid’s soccer game. The people that he spends 10 hours a day with are making him spend more time in the evening with them, so they can do jello shots and pat each other on the back for closing all those deals. As he’s pounding shots and head butting the other guys, the kids and I are supposed to amuse ourselves.
Thus her conclusion: "Corporate life is the enemy of the modern family."
I am quite sympathetic to her claim. I have come to realize, over the years, that the demands of "good jobs" really do rob people of the time they need to do the right thing by their family. My situation is unusual. When Aidan has a medical crisis, lots of work stuff has to be put on hold, or just not done at all. And even in our "normal" status, I can never be sure when I might have to rearrange an hour or an afternoon to go to a doctor's appointment, or do something with Maggie while Maureen is attending to Aidan.
But my job is fantastically flexible. The amount of time I absolutely have to be in a particular place doing a specific task, like teaching, is fairly minimal. I can do much of my work at home or on the fly. I once researched and prepared a lecture on Meiji Japanese foreign policy while staying over with Aidan on the pediatric floor of Bay State Medical Center in Springfield. Yet it is precisely in my own good fortune that I have come to appreciate just how unforgiving and, even, cruel work life can be for most parents.
I think about this problem a fair bit, especially when I am reading and writing about Confucius. His world view places family responsibility at the absolute center of moral life. If there is ever a conflict between time to be spent fulfilling family duties and maintaining a professional career, he would demand that we go with the family every time.
Of course, in a general sort of way, having a "good job" does fulfill family responsibilities: it enables children and spouse the material context they need to live up to their own humanity. But, the real issue is in hours and minutes. How much time can be reasonably taken away from family life in order to do a job? We could debate this but, for the situation Laura describes, I think Confucius would say that modern corporate life is asking too much.
It is more important to be a good father and husband, than a good "team player."
I haven't worked in the "corporate" world for over 15 years. For the last 12 years I've worked in small to mid-size nonprofits that seek to mitigate over overturn the corporate model. What I've lost in dollars I've made up for in time with my family and activism in my community.
Posted by: The Rambling Taoist | January 27, 2006 at 01:45 PM
Thanks, Sam. It's very heartening to see that others understand our predicament and share our priorities.
Posted by: Laura | January 27, 2006 at 03:54 PM
It would be helpful if you could attach some hours to these sensible thoughts. Laura's husband spends <50 hours at work. (She notes that he is gone from the house for 60, but it is presumably not the companies problem where they choose to live.) His boss seems to want to increase that by 10% or so as well as connect him via a blackberry.
Having once had a boss force a blackberry on me, I can understand his position.
So, how many hours at work per week are "too much"?
Posted by: David Kane | January 27, 2006 at 05:47 PM