While I waited under the hair dryer at the salon, I picked up the article again. After all I was confined to that hot air blowing on me, I could read the article in its entirety.
I remembered something while reading, sitting under the hair dryer is so calming. You don’t have any kids screaming at you, the noise is so loud you can’t hear the phone buzzing in your purse and you are FORCED to stay put. I thought, just imagine how much I could get done if I could just sit under a hair dryer for a few minutes every day.
Okay back to the article, I was so excited to finally find the solution to my time deficiency and get those 30 hours of leisure time, even if I didn’t believe that it does exist.
I read Schulte’s article with the hope that it does. If you want to read her article before I continue writing go check out The Test of Time: A busy working mother tries to figure out where all her time is going.
Shulte’s was challenged by John Robinson a 74-year-old Sociologist at the University of Maryland who states, “Women have at least 30 hours or more of leisure time every week. In fact, women have more leisure time now then they did in the 1960’s, even though more women are working outside the home.” He is known for his time-use studies and promised Schulte’s he could prove that she had 30 hours of free time.
To do so she had to keep a time journal tracking everything she had done.
“According to Robinson’s research on how people spend the 168 hours in a week, fathers and mothers are moving toward “androgyny” and have about equal workloads if you count both paid and unpaid work. Despite predictions that mothers would spend 40 percent less time with their children once they entered the workforce, Robinson has found that, compared with 1965, mothers now spend nearly three hours more time every week caring for their children, even though most women now work. People do indeed have plenty of time for leisure.”
According to Robinson finding leisure time is an “ACT OF WILL.”
Really is it that simple? I mean I’m practically working two jobs here – waking up every morning to go to a full-time job, then coming home and playing the “stay at home mom” role. Add my other business ventures and that’s probably an entirely different role with equal commitments.
“Ben Hunnicutt argues that Americans devote their lives to work. It’s work that defines who we are and how we find our purpose in life.” Hunnicutt heads the leisure studies department at the University of Iowa.
This statement hit home, because the entire reason why I launched my store, why I work full-time, why I started blogging was to have more TIME with my family and more time to follow my dreams. I never wanted to be one of those people that live to work.
It took Schulte’s several months to finish her time tracking notebook. Check out tomorrow’s post to find out what Robinson reveals.
Leisure Time for Moms Series
1. busy moms have 30 hours of leisure time
