Evading the Time Bind

Due to long work days, duties of raising a family and responsibility of maintaining a home, parent are finding that there just is not enough time in a day. Families across the country are trying to figure out ways in which they can work, raise a family, and have a life. Horschild goes over the ways many people create more time for themselves.

Emotional Asceticism:
One way parents made more time for themselves was through self-care. Parents left their children at home alone for large periods of time during the day. Many fathers justified by stating it would make their children "tougher. " Some mothers agreed but felt guilty for actually doing it. Horschild believe a lot of women were reluctant. Though many may think these parents were leaving their children alone based on financial restraints, they were not. Many of the people who responded preferred to leave their kids home alone were men and women in managerial occupations. Parents coped with leaving their children alone at home by forcing themselves to feel like leaving them alone would make them independent. The benefit this gives to parents is that they cut time raising their children and have more time to focus on their work. This trend of leaving children is not an uncommon method to evade the time bind of being a working parent; 12 million children are left home alone while their parents are working.

Some psychotherapist promote the "self-care" and feed into justifying parents to do it. Many books put the responsibility on the children to free up time for parents. The book, "Teaching your child to be Home Alone. The book tells the children that they are not being considerate to their parents and that they should do more. Such books relieve the guilt parents feel when they leave their children home alone. One problem that parents overlook, however, is the danger children are in home alone. More than half of the children interviewed in the Horschild's study did not know how to react in an emergency.

Another way parents circumvent the time bind is through consumerism. Parents, especially mothers, are now "shopping for time." New products and concepts are being developed to extract less time from family life for a cost. Today, there are after school programs, camps, and even business that even bring kids lunch for breakfast. These consumer products takes the burden off the parents and gives them more time to work. The consequence of this is that mothers are now becoming the manger of parenthood instead of actual participants. Though many parents point fingers at parents who commodity their child rearing, most parents do it.

The last method Horschild talks about is the potential self. The potential self imagines what he/she could do if they had the time to do it. Parents split their identity into actual selves (what they do) and potential selves(what the would do). An example Horschild used in her research was father who told his daughter they would go on a camping trip. He bought the gear for the trip and always said they were going to go but never was able to get around to it. This putting off of events provides people with some closure. While thinking about it he feels good but the event never happens because it is always just an idea and never becomes a reality in the near future.

Time binding is definitely a issue in our society. We must find a way to slow down and really appreciate where we are and who is around us. Personally, I think we need to reconfigure how we work. Work is now leaving the office and is taking over most adults lives.