How are America’s two-career familes coping? In a word: barely (Great AP article)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002213788_family20.html
I couldn't stop reading this article about a UCLA study that has spent 4 years analysing 32 Los Angeles families. The conclusions are absolutely amazing. Things like: * A man walks into the bedroom after work as his wife folds laundry. There is no kiss, or even a hello. Instead, they resume their breakfast argument virtually in midsentence about who left food on the counter to spoil. * Ochs laments how few people have any unstructured time. In just one of the 32 families did the father ? a freelance film animator ? make a habit of taking an evening stroll with his son and daughter. * How much stuff do people own? So much that only two families have room to park their cars in the garage. The world has never seen consumption on this scale, Arnold says. "And every week we see more stuff arriving. People can't stop." * Ochs says families gathered in the same room just 16 percent of the time. In five homes, the entire family was never in the same room while scientists were observing. Not once.
posted at 12:13 am
on Mar. 24, 2005
