Work-family discord

Conflicts between employment and home

Nature

Working parents often face a pernicious conflict between time for earning and time for caring. Fathers who work long hours to earn a good living find themselves excluded from their children's lives. The roles of the workplace can often cause conflict at home.

Incidence

Males in the USA experienced a doubling from 1985 to 1988 of certain work-family conflicts. Most centred around the switch from dealing with children instead of managers, adjusting to children's agendas, dealing with the frustrations of disorganization in the home, and lack of time to establish good relationships with their family. Discouraged by family pressures, many men dive even deeper into work. Employed people in the USA spend 163 hours more per year on the job than they did in 1969, and those who are parents spend 40% less time with their children than in 1965.

Claim

Many fathers are so accustomed to appearing confident and ain command that they are afraid to look fallible or vulnerable at home. It's important to be a leader at work, and most of the time that means being right. But at home it means he sometimes jumps to conclusions too fast, acts like a boss, makes plans, judgements and issues orders.