What's happening to American families?

Are we becoming a country of people who live apart from each other, even when under the same roof? Check out Julie Leung's Blog HERE. The story comes from the Seattle Times. "In 1,600 hours of digital video, scientists captured moments of unfiltered joy — but also of sorrow, anger and frustration. The UCLA study isn't ranking families from best to worst. Instead, scientists are asking how families are coping. In a word, barely.
For the study's director, Elinor Ochs, a linguistic anthropologist, the most worrisome trend is how indifferently people treat each other, especially when they reunite at the day's end." Read the article HERE.

The article Julie Leung blogs about reminds me of an Australian book I read over the past summer, "The Work/Life Collision" By Barbara Pocock, The Federation Press, 2003. Pocock, director of the Centre for Labour Research at Adelaide University, says more generous and flexible leave arrangements are needed so that people can meet their increasing obligations to care for others. She said that partly because of the influx of mothers into paid employment, one in four workers also had to care either for children or disabled or frail relatives.

"We have a leave regime built around the needs of men," Ms Pocock said. "Long service leave was seen as more important than a paid break for workers who had just had a baby." She interviewed 250 Australians about the impact of work on their relationships and on their communities. You can read book reviews here . I got it from my local library via the InterLibrary Loan program. My copy was borrowed from the US Library of Congress!

There's also somthing of a "companion piece" in "When Mothers Work: Loving Our children Without Sacrificing Our Selves" By Joan K. Peters. AND, "food for thought" from Jeff Sandquist's BLOG, "The 5 F's of Life".

A quick thank-u to Mack D. Male!