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Looking for Moms with Leisure Time
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bschulte
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Hey everybody. I'm working on a story for The Washington Post. Sociologists who do time diary studies say that everyone, including mothers who work both inside the home and outside the home for pay, have 30 hours of leisure time each week - an increase from the 1960s.
I've been keeping track of my own time in a time diary to see if I can find those elusive 30 hours, because it sure doesn't FEEL like I have it. What I want to know is - who does? Is there any mother out there, you, or someone you know or have heard of, who you can introduce me to so that I can learn how to do it, or do it better? Because I feel like my hair is on fire and I'm juggling knives, yelling at my kids, taking too long on stories and running yellow lights most days and not doing anything particularly well. Email me your stories of Moms who have or have figured out how to make time for leisure. Thanks! Brigid Schulte: schulteb@washpost.com |
Anonymous
| [crickets] |
bschulte
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| crickets? |
Anonymous
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Ha.
Ha ha ha. Free time. Do you mean like when I plop down in bed exhausted at the end of the day? Cause maybe if you add up the hours I spend sleeping each week it might hit 30. Otherwise, no way. |
Anonymous
| Crickets chirping because nobody has any free time. |
Anonymous
| What is the definition of leisure time? Does it include doing fun things with your kids? |
Anonymous
This is a great question. I consider watching some TV leisure time, but I'm usually folding laundry or something else productive while watching. Going to the grocery story by myself is also leisure in my book. Is leisure time doing something just for yourself? If so, no where close to 30 hours. Maybe 2-3 a weeek, max (including time on DCUM!) |
bschulte
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I think that's part of the problem - how to define leisure. In the classical sense, leisure meant doing something slowly, that you enjoyed, it was the "pause that refreshes" that left you feeling energized and renewed.
In the time diaries studies, many sociologists equate "free time" - what they call 'uncommitted time" - with leisure. So if doing fun things with your kids feels like leisure, then yes, it's leisure. The same time studies have also found that once mothers entered the workforce, they traded personal leisure time for leisure time with their kids - and in that way are actually spending MORE quality time with their kids now, even mothers who work full time outside the home, than mothers did in the 1960s. |
Anonymous
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Yes, what exactly is liesure time? Up at 6:30, rushing to get myself ready for work, DS dressed and ready for daycare. Out the door at 8:30, at work by 9AM. Leave work around 4:15, get son from daycare, arrive home at 5:15. Scramble to get food into DS because he is hungry NOW. He finishes eating around 6PM, but in the meantime, I'm struggling to cook dinner for DH and I. In the meantime, the house is comming unraveled because I have told my 3yr old that there is NO TV tonight, so he is taking out all of his toys and now the house is a disaster and I'm still working on my nutritious home cooked meal. DH arrives home around 7PM and we sit down to eat, while DS snacks on our meal. Dinner is over by 7:30 and DH cleans the kictchen in which I've created a disaster, while I go and bathe our son and get him into his PJs. This takes until 8PM. Now DH takes over for the book and tucking in, and in the meantime I'm trying to clean the toys up...which is just so fun being 8months pregnant with a super sore back.
After our ONE child is asleep, it is now 8:30. We have the choice to do some bills, laundry, get ready for tomorrow, or just flop down in front of the television for an hour and a half. 50% of the time it is TV and the other half is the chores. So at most that gives us 4 hours of leisure time during the week? If unwinding in front of the TV counts? For weekends, HA HA, we are in the middle of a massive renovation project on a second home that consumes our entire weekend from friday night until Sunday. I'm lucky to fit in grocery shopping. I'm suprised we have not all starved to death. |
Anonymous
| I think there is a difference between "leisure time" and "me time." Yes, as soon as I get home from work I change into "play clothes" -- but as far as "me" time? I think I have about an hour (if I'm lucky) after kiddo is in bed, chores (done in front of TV) are finished, and I'm in pjs. And that hour is a battle to keep my eyes open. |
Anonymous
| I managed to play on a tennis team this summer and I currently go to a tennis clinic over the weekend. Took some MAJOR negotiation with my husband, but I did it. |
Anonymous
| If time spent playing with the kiddo is leisure time, then I get maybe 5-10 hrs a wk (I'm not counting chore or errand-type stuff done with her). If leisure time = time spent doing whatever I want, something enjoyable or at least productive and not essential (e.g., organizing photographs), then maybe 1-2 hrs a wk? And those hours are on the weekend. I don't think hours spent in front of the TV because I am too exhausted to do anything else should really count as leisure time - they're really just one step away from sleeping. In fact, I would just go to sleep but it's usually too early and would disrupt my sleep clock. |
Anonymous
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I do not know any parent-- mother or father-- who has 30 hours of leisure time per week.
Maybe an at-home parent of school aged children who also has cleaning help? |
Anonymous
| I'm a working mom and I work out for about an hour every day and read in bed for about an hour or two after the kids have gone to bed. That's my leisure time, and I'm thankful for it. On weekends, I get a bit more, but we have lots of sports activities and other stuff going on as well. Life is busy, but still fun. |
Anonymous
| My kids are in school from 8-2. From 8:30-1:30 I do what ever I need/want to do, mostly watch TV or sleep. I do not do any housework, cooking, laundry until after I have picked them up from school. I go to bed around 11pm, they're asleep by 8:30, so I also have about 2 1/2-3 hours at night to myself as well. |