Creating a Culture of Work-Family Balance within Businesses (IV)
(New Woman, 2007-01-11)
PART
I: THE NEED TO CREATE A CULTURE OF WORK-FAMILY BALANCE
(continuation)
3. Negative Effects of Lack of Work-family Balance
Here we will
consider the negative consequences that arise from a lack of
work-family balance or from a lack of work-family balance properly
understood.
a. Personal Stress and Stress on Family Life
An article
printed in The Nation, May 22, 2006 relates the story
of “a typical morning” for one working mother:
Everything about
Renee's morning is structured for speed and efficiency. At 5:45,
with her young son, Wade, and husband, Alan, still sleeping,
Renee drags herself out of bed and sleepwalks to the
shower. She brushes her teeth while the shower is warming,
making sweeping circles on the mirror with her hand so
she can see her reflection. Renee's movements, though she's thoroughly
tired, are crisp, hurried and automatic--she's repeated the routine daily
for several years.
Renee knows exactly how long each of
her morning tasks will take, to the minute. That, for
instance, between 6 and 6:12 she needs to put on
her makeup, get herself dressed, get her son's clothes out
and ready for the day, and get downstairs to the
kitchen to start breakfast.
All this is done with an
eye on the clock and a subtle, yet constant, worry
about time. Her mind loops over the potential delays that
could be ahead: "Is there going to be traffic? Am
I going to get stuck behind a school bus? Is
my son going to act normal when I drop him
off or is he going to be stuck to my
leg? Am I going to get a parking space in
the office garage or am I going to have to
run five blocks through the city to get to work
on time?" And if there isn't any garage parking, which
happens often, then in order to be on time for
work Renee has to run up six flights of stairs
in heels because she doesn't have extra time to waste
waiting for an elevator. She's done this climb more than
once. (1)
The IESE Business School published a study in
2003 which, in part, focused on the impact women’s incorporation
into the business world has had on family life in
Spain. It showed that on average Spanish men dedicate only
3.4% of their time per week to their children. Women
dedicate 26% of their time weekly. 60% of the women
said they felt they were not dedicating enough of their
time to their children, and of these 60%, 58.9% said
the reason was their job. (2)
This same study revealed
that as the number of women entering the work force
increased, the divorce rate also rose. While it is hard
to make a direct cause and effect link between the
two factors, a recent study by the Creighton University Center
for Marriage and Family reveals that tensions caused by a
lack of a proper work-family balance, particularly when both husband
and wife worked outside the home, is one of the
most frequent causes of marital conflict.
b. Low fertility rate
In
the developed world, the number of women who enter the
workforce has continued to climb. (3) So has the
age at which men and women marry and begin to
have children. Over this same span of time, the average
number of children couples have has declined. None of the
25 member countries in the European Union meet the 2.1
children per woman birth rate needed to maintain current population
levels.
In this context, a low birth rate is a challenge
for the public authorities. In addition to the question of
who will be around to care for an ever growing
population of elderly, never in history has there been economic
growth without population growth. Surveys have revealed the gap which
exists between the number of children Europeans would like (2.3)
and the number that they actually have (1.5) (4) .
c. Reduced parental presence
We have mentioned it before, but it
is worth repeating: every parent has the responsibility to raise
their children, and every child has the right to be
raised by their parents. This point is non-negotiable, and we
must treat it as such when we look for solutions
and make proposals to favor work-family balance.
Nothing can substitute or
equal the kind of parenting parents themselves give to their
children. Perhaps this is the most pressing issue in the
work-family balance dilemma, the fact that parenting takes time, lots
of time, but that without their parents’ active presence and
guidance in their upbringing, it will be difficult for children
to develop into happy, healthy, well-balanced teenagers and adults.
Rather than
focusing our attention on the “bad” things that can happen
to children and teenagers when their parents aren’t around (since
each family’s situation is particular, it would be unfair to
generalize), we ought to focus on the good that can
go undone in family life when the members of the
family rarely interact as a family. Communication, both verbal and
non-verbal is essential to family life; it is what gives
us a sense of belonging, of being valued, of knowing
we mean something to another, of feeling loved. But communication
doesn’t just “happen” by the fact that a family shares
a last name and the same address; it is something
that must be built, sought out, forged. This requires that
parents especially take the interest and make the time necessary
to be with their children, to interest themselves in their
children’s interests, to talk with them, to become familiar with
their children’s reality. Building communication and profound family relationships is
not something that can always be fit into a schedule
or crammed into a block of “quality time.”
-------------------
(1) Blades, J. and Rowe-Finkbeiner, K., “The Motherhood Manifesto”,
The Nation, May 22, 2006
