Time Pressure – Feeling the Squeeze?
posted Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 7:52 am
feeling time pressured?
Have you been feeling time pressured lately? The Australian Institute of Family Studies defines this feeling as ‘feeling rushed or pressed for time’. Studies show that time pressure increases with parenthood, but significantly more so for mothers (in general) compared to fathers. Fathers, however are more time pressured than men without children. It seems that mothers in paid work, especially those doing long part-time or full-time hours are under the most pressure of all. Not only are they feeling the squeeze from their jobs, unpaid duties including housework, child & often elder-care, but they are also primarily responsible for making their paid work fit around their children’s schedules (dr appointments, school, childcare, extra-curricula activities…). In short, many mothers are coping with a role oveload - trying to do to many jobs at once – leading to time pressure, stress, and ultimately burnout.
It was interesting to read Blue Milk in ‘Sorted at home mother’ reflect on how pleasant it is to have the time to devote to one main task (taking care of an infant and young child) which is exhausting enough, without feeling you are being torn between the worlds of paid and unpaid work. But for many mothers, the brief respite that maternity leave may bring from the pressures of the workplace, end all too quickly and then it is back to the pressure cooker.
I am really intersting to hear when you have most felt the squeeze in your life? How is your overall time pressure rating? Do you feel more time pressured at home or the work place, and why? How do you ease the squeeze? What support networks help with time pressure?
In our family at present it is the father who is the time stressed one. He is working five days a week during school hours, collecting the kid and doing nearly all the kid wrangling and keeping-the-house-going stuff as well. I am in a position of relative luxury of going to work full time and being the supplementary sort of house person. We don’t really have any networks to help but I guess we try and prioritise what we think is important. And no one does much ironing.
Pen said this on November 7th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
That’s really interesting, because it seems that full on – full time work may be the only way to innoculate oneself from time squeezes on the home front. While flexibility is great, the partner with the most has to take on more time demands. I guess in a perfect world – if both partners could get equally flexible jobs that could ease the squeeze? This semester my partner Mr G has also taken over the kid wrangling, including ballet lessons, shopping, and school drop offs and pick ups because I have been flat strap at uni, which is on the other side of town.
admin said this on November 14th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I think when we both had more flexibility we just both got frantic, looking back. We tried to do a lot more together. One of the things that has been sacrificed with one working full time is actually spending time on the same things. For instance, it was quite frequent that both of us would go to medical appointments or kindy events for the kid. Or we’d all go shopping together and do those kinds of chores together. Which made it a bit less like a chore, I think. These days our time together is much more likely to be focused ‘leisure time’ like going to the park or the museum or kicking around home doing things that we enjoy. The chores get more parceled out piecemeal. Don’t know which way was better.
Good luck with the flat strap at uni – hope you get a bit of a break during summer.
Pen said this on November 17th, 2009 at 5:51 pm