The timebind

The idea of more time for family life seems to have died, gone to heaven, and become an angel of an idea.

The social world that draws a person's allegiance also imparts a pattern to time. The more attached we are to the world of work the more it's dealines, its cycles, ita pauses and interruptions shape our lives and the more family time is forced to accommodate to the pressures of work.

Parents often feel they owe their children a time-debt and make up for it by indulging them with treats or softened rules in exchange for missed time together.

Such is the world we live in where the social worlds of home and work reverse. Many have grown up in this world where one knows not an alternative. Can one possible reverse the balance of work and non-work even if one wanted to?

[parts summarised from Hochschilds' "The Timebind"]