Creating a Culture of Work-Family Balance within Businesses (II)
(New Woman, 2006-12-14)
PART
I: THE NEED TO CREATE A CULTURE OF WORK-FAMILY BALANCE
“In
a healthy society, employment should enhance family life, not be
an impediment to it. As the technology and communications revolutions
continue to reshape the American workplace, the time has come
for a new workplace revolution that would build upon the
one Upton Sinclair and others helped usher in a century
ago – a new revolution that enables more family-oriented workers
to meet both their personal and their professional responsibilities. The
time has come to realize that everyone is a loser
when large numbers of Americans feel married to the job.”
(1)
1. The purpose and role of work for
the individual, the family and society
In order to understand the
meaning of work-family balance, it is necessary to have a
clear understanding of the meaning of work and the meaning
of family, and to understand the relationship they have with
one another in order to “balance” them correctly.
a. What is
work?
Work is commonly defined as “activity involving mental or
physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or
a result.”
This definition reveals something fundamental about work: only humans
are capable of work.
Work is not senseless activity, or effort
for effort’s sake, work has a purpose, work has an
end. Having an end means having an intention; having an
intention means having made a choice; having made a choice
means having applied man’s specific faculties of intellect and will.
In work, man freely chooses his end and applies his
capacities to create and employ the necessary means to obtain
it. Thus, work is thus a uniquely human activity.(2)
Work, as defined, is oriented towards a purpose. What is
this purpose? If man is always the subject of work,
then, ultimately, man—his needs, his development, his perfection—is the purpose
of work.
b. Man as the purpose of work
Work is a fact of life; it is part of
being human. Not only because we must work if we
are to physically survive (procuring food, shelter, clothing, and protection
for ourselves and for our family) but also because it
is through work that we become “more human”, that we
perfect our capacities and reach our plenitude and fulfillment as
humans. Work, then, is a duty and a demand of
our human condition since each human being has the personal
responsibility to survive and to be the protagonist of his
own development.
Thus, all work, since it is done by
a human being, and since it has man (the term
“man” is used here to mean “human being”, and refers
to both males and females) as its end is dignified,
valuable, and worthy of respect. Actions that are contrary
to man’s dignity and development (or the dignity and development
of another person) cannot be considered work, even if they
require great effort, even if they are the product of
free choice. (3)
Man is the purpose of work, but
what is the purpose of man? Towards what end must
he direct his work in order to reach his human
plenitude and fulfillment and to not work in vain?
Obviously, assuring
survival (food, shelter and the prolongation of the species) is
fundamental; it is the primary and necessary condition for achieving
any other goal, but in and of itself, “survival” is
an insufficient explanation of the meaning of life.
Man is more
than a physical being, he is spiritual. His spirit opens
him up to realities that transcend the material realm (realities
such as knowledge, truth, beauty, the mystery of God, the
mystery of another human being) and allows him to appreciate
them. For this reason, human work is not limited to
producing or cultivating material goods, nor is the value of
work determined by the amount or value of the material
or “useful” goods it produces.
Man is, above all, a being
made for love. He is a being that seeks to
establish lasting and profound interpersonal relationships and to give himself
(all of himself) for the good of others (for the
good of a specific “other”, for the good of the
society in which he lives, for the good of humanity--both
present and future). Nothing other than love satisfies man, and
nothing other than love suffices to explain the purpose of
his existence.
This last dimension, man as a being made for
love, is of fundamental importance when considering the meaning and
purpose of human work. Work has a profoundly social dimension
since man is a profoundly social being. Social relationships are
essential to his fulfillment; however, creating, cultivating and maintaining these
relationships takes work. In great part, work is all about
social relationships. The up-keep of a society (for large or
for as small as it may be) requires the cooperation
of all members. They must coordinate their efforts to work
towards the common good, the progress and development of their
society. In great part, social relationships are what make work
worthwhile—it makes no sense to have “suppliers” if there are
no “customers”, teachers if there are no students, lawyers if
there are no clients. Not to be overlooked is the
fact that social relationships, for the most part, are what
make work enjoyable and bearable. There are many people who
“love their jobs” not so much because the tasks they
do are particularly pleasant or entertaining or important, but because
of the “great working environment” that surrounds them, the company
of their coworkers, or the love they have for the
people who will benefit from their work.
In addressing social
relationships, one stands out for its unique importance—both personally and
socially: the family. The family is the basic social unit
and fulfills the most basic and indispensable social function: generating,
raising and educating the new members of society. For this
reason, it deserves a privileged and protected place in social
organization. Its public social function not withstanding, the family is
where man can find his greatest fulfillment in love because
it is where he can make a total gift of
himself to another (his spouse) and where this same gift
becomes prolonged in another (his children).
“Family” produces an interesting
effect on the person, particularly on the man and woman
who initiate the family by their marriage. “Family” makes someone
and something more important than oneself, both on a social
level (a change in marital status, with the social rights
and responsibilities this entails) as well as on a psychological
and affective level. “Family” re-dimensions and reorients a person’s life
in a radical way. While I never cease to be
me, but I can no longer consider myself to be
just me any longer; my life is indissolubly interwoven into
the lives of others: of my spouse and of my
children. Personal projects of self-realization, individual ambitions, the pursuit of
my happiness alone cease to be possibilities; my happiness, my
realization, my ambitions cannot be separated (let alone achieved) or
considered apart from the happiness, realization and ambitions of my
family.
Family life requires the sacrifice of self-renunciation, but it is
a liberating sacrifice, one that (paradoxically?) produces the greatest self-satisfaction.
Love for others completes me deeply; exclusive love for self
rots me to the very core, a core that is
directed towards mutual personal love.
If man’s ultimate end is
love, if it is by loving others that he achieves
his greatest perfection and fulfillment, and if it is in
the family that he can live this interpersonal love to
the full, we can conclude that just as man (his
survival and development) is the purpose and end of work,
then the family (its survival and development) is another purpose
and end of work—and one of equal or greater importance.
c. The family as the purpose of work
It
is interesting to note that just as the individual man
is the subject of work, the family is also a
subject of work. Forming and maintaining a family takes work,
and lots of it. Work makes family life possible.
It takes hard work to procure the necessary resources (both
material and non-material) necessary for its sustenance and integral development.
It takes hard work to raise and educate children. It
takes hard work to love each other and to build
up communication among family members. It takes hard work in
order to make leisure time (which is so important to
family life) possible. The work of the family is done
both externally (working the goods outside the home to bring
them in) as well as internally (working the goods inside
the home to bring them out), but both are done
with the same end in mind: the good and progress
of the family as a family.
True work-family balance, then,
is the balance that is achieved when we place the
good and development of the family as the purpose of
work and consequently, structure and adapt our work towards this
end.
What has happened at present—the work-family balance crisis—is the
result of inverting the order of values and priorities. Work
has become the end, man and the family have become
the means. Workers are expected to structure and adapt their
family life in order to meet the needs of their
work, regardless of whether or not family needs can also
be met in the process.
------------------------------
(1) Alliance for Marriage, Not Married to the Job,
2005 Annual Report
(2) Effort deprived of either or both intellect
and free will can be considered as a simple following
of instinct (as is the case of animals) or slave
labor, but not as work.
(3) Which is why “prostitute” can
never be considered, let alone, recognized as a legitimate profession
any more than “burglar” or “extortionist” can be.
Creating a Culture of Work-Family Balance within Businesses (III) ( New Woman, 2006-12-21 )
Creating a Culture of Work-Family Balance within Businesses (II) ( New Woman, 2006-12-14 )
Creating a Culture of Work-Family Balance within Businesses (I) ( New Woman, 2006-11-30 )
Words of Tom Wappel (Liberal MP) Defending Traditional Marriage in Canadian House of Commons ( Tom Wappel, LifeSiteNews.com, 2006-11-24 )
What's up with British youth? ( Carolyn Moynihan, www.mercatornet.com, 2006-11-24 )
