September 16 – Do you think we’ve made our lives more complicated by trying to make thing more convenient?
You might have noticed I have missed a few days. Sorry about that. I will try to keep up with the other great bloggers in this challenge.
For some reason my mind has wondered from this question to the question of the work week, did you know it is getting less and less. Why is it that I thought it was getting later? I think my Generation might have it as easy as some say, we might be a bit blind. Maybe though it is just me. I am a happy wife in a nice home with a great husband who works all together too hard and is away from home more than 40 hours a week. Once he was away for 15 months even. I dream though of a shorter work week for him when he is here and not deployed. How wonderful would that be?
Wiki enlightened me to this:
Most countries in the developed world have made great progress in lowering working hours. For example in the U.S in the late 19th century it was estimated that the average work week was over 60 hours per week.[13] Today the average hours worked in the U.S is around 33.[14] The front runners for lowest average weekly work hours are the Netherlands with 27. hours[15], and France with 30 hours.[16] At current rates the Netherlands is set to become the first country to achieve an average work week under 20 hours.[17]”
Can you picture being able to live off a 20 hour a work week? In our country most house holds need two 40 hour a week jobs to make it.
Getting to the question though, I think there is a trade off, we have lights at night, things open late, so we stay up, we work, we burn the candle at both ends as they say. We over commit. We watch too much media and it can eat our souls or put less poetically, it can cause depressions studies say. We are always connected to so many things by way of our cell phones and internet. Family time is no longer sacred and there are few ways to get away from the stress, the drama, the work. People check e-mails at dinner, text while driving, and break up over facebook posts. There is a cost and I don’t think most of us have found a balance yet. In fact I don’t think most of us have noticed there are issues as we know no other way.
I think part of attachment parenting, crunchy parenting, is feeling our toes in dirt, grounded. We want to raise our children knowing how to communicate with technology but also how to be good little tree climbers.
I hope I help my children find a balance. Some days though I am fairly sure I haven’t found it yet though myself. I feel it though, within reach every time I cuddle one of my children or my husband holds me.
