Who has time for this stuff?

Someone asked me a few days ago what should they write about in this blog. I realized that maybe some people might be intimidated by this format, or think that they have to produce some polished, well-argued position before they can make an entry. Please, this blog is a place where you should be able to relax, and just write what you are thinking about in the moment (although we would assume that whatever you write about can somehow be linked to the issues of gender, work and family). No one is grading you. No one is going to judge you if your sentences are not perfectly correct in the grammatical sense (if so, I am in big trouble!). No idea or response is "stupid" or "silly" - in fact, there are probably lots of people thinking or feeling the same thing - they just haven't gotten around to expressing it.

Perhaps it would help if I shared more about why I decided to organize this "reading group." It isn't just to get people to read a book. In fact, in addition to providing us information, the books are a way of bringing us together, and giving us a shared experience to begin talking about this very serious issue: Work and Family in contemporary American society are for the most part incompatable.
So many of you - staff, faculty and students - have asked me in conversations - "how are we supposed to do it all" and "how can I (pick one) 'get tenure,' or 'graduate,' or even 'survive my job' when I am pulled in so many directions?" and "there are only so many hours in the day" and "I feel like I'm not doing anything well." I'd say, something has got to change. And I think one thing that can change is how we define (and create) a "family friendly workplace" in American society. Reading about the issue is meant to be only the first step. Then we need to talk - a lot - and brainstorm - and investigate possibilities and avenues for change - and then we have to collectively push for that change to occur - maybe just locally, maybe something bigger. No one can do it alone. No one group can do it alone - not faculty, not students, and certainly not staff, who are the most vulnerable among us in terms of job security.

I'm already hearing from people who are trying to give me back their book (interestingly, most are professors), telling me that they are so busy w/work and family that they don't have time to participate. I am very sympathetic. But I will not accept any book returns. Even if everyone can not read all of their book, or post a entry in the blog, or even go to all of the scheduled meetings, if we have time to vent about how tired and stressed we are, if we have time to lose sleep worrying about how we are going to get it all done (and come on, who of us hasn't done this?), then can't we take an hour once a week and scan a chapter relevant to us, or comment on someone else's blog entry, maybe just validate that person's experience? Here is what I'm worried about...everyone who took a book seemed to agree that the system doesn't work now, but if no one makes an effort to change things, then we are stuck! Maybe that is the way the status quo is maintained - keep the population so exhausted and overwhelmed that they can't put up a fight. But if we all do just a little - even it if nothing more than supporting the creation of new ideas - than maybe change is possible.

Remember, we aren't struggling because we have made poor choices, or we aren't organized enough (the authors make this clear). It is because ideals of work and family were constructed under the assumption that all families were financially able to live a middle class lifestyle with only one income earner, that that income earner would be male, and that a woman - whose labor in the domestic realm is made invisible by defining it as "labors of love" (you know, if you are doing it out of love, then it isn't really work) - would be available to take care of all the work of day to day life, often with the assistance of poorly paid domestic help (often immigrants and/or women of color), "freeing" the worker from any such cares and making "him" 100%+ available to his employer. One problem (among many) with these ideals is that they do not represent the reality for most families or workers. Furthermore, these ideals, first emerging in the late 1880's and epitomized by the ideal 1950s nuclear family, arose in a context of social inequality and/or exploitation that was reproduced by this devision of labor.

That is not to say that this is just a woman's issue, or that men, or whites, or "white males," are the "bad guy." In contemporary society, men who are trying to take on more involved roles in their families face negative sanctions including lost wages, lost opportunities, or even unemployment. Also, as members of contemporary families, men are not necessarily immune from the stress, lack of sleep, and lack of time for nurturing their relationships. Women as a group may be more vulnerable due to continued gender inequalities, there are costs to men as well. It is also the case that work and family ideals presume heterosexuality, leaving us to wonder where do they leave gays and lesbians.

Lots to think about. I hope that more of you will share your thoughts, or comment on the thoughts of others. Trust me, this blog will get real boring if I am the primary writer!