I woke up in my mother’s arms just as she handed me across the threshold of our next-door neighbor’s front doorway. I recognized Donna’s different scent and feel, and the midnight dark and quiet in her entryway. Donna and my mother exchanged hushed words. Then, the front door closed on my mother’s fading presence.
Donna placed me on her living room couch, atop a blanket thrown over pleather cushions. The blanket slid when I moved and the cushions creaked as Donna sat at my hip. I asked about my neighbor-friends, Donna’s son and daughter. Donna said they were asleep and that I should be too, and shushed me. I asked her where my mom had gone.
“Your mom went to meet the police at your house. They’re checking on a noise she heard.”
I stretched and twisted my neck to look out the nearby window which faced the street. I expected to see the trees outside flash red from the lights on a police car, but the trees remained dark.
“Why?” I asked.
Donna hesitated. “Your mother thought she heard someone in your house. Now, go back to sleep.”
I should be with my mother, I thought. I can help. My frustration rose. I do not belong here.
I lifted my shoulder from the cushion. “I want to go home.” Donna shushed me again and pressed my shoulder down. My eyes stung. This would not be happening if my dad was home, and not on another business trip.
What is Everyone Missing about Work-Life Balance?
If you type work-life balance into an online search engine, you’ll see results that include a definition, such as: “the ideal balance that a working individual may achieve regarding time spent at work and time given to one’s personal life”. The idea behind the multitude of online articles with helpful tips on the topic, as you know, is to help you and I pair our careers with a level of dedication to our personal lives that supports a life with no regrets, either professional or personal.
My curiosity isn’t satisfied with this definition, however. If it were that simple, then my co-workers and I would have achieved a sense of balanced well-being as soon as we reached professional goals and spent each season’s holidays with our loved ones. But this is not the case. For my co-workers and I, late nights at work and the exchange of work emails on weekends and holidays often occur, along with all the related stress. Obviously, we are missing something which prevents us from achieving work-life balance, and given the popularity of all the work-life “how-to” articles online, so is everyone else. In truth, I am surprised to find myself in my father’s shoes.
***
I don’t remember falling asleep on Donna’s couch. I woke up again as my mom placed me in my own bed. Our house was dark, but welcoming and peaceful. My mom pulled the blankets up around my neck, sat next to me, and described what happened.
“The police were very nice. They looked all around the house and didn’t find anyone.”
I gripped my blankets and burrowed my head into my pillow, inhaling the reassuring and familiar scent. “But you heard a noise?”
“I thought I heard someone sneeze. The police and I figured out that it must’ve been the dog.” My mom’s smile beamed at me through the dark.
I smiled, too. “It was Toby? That’s funny.” I couldn’t wait to tell my dad, the often-traveling businessman, when he called home. Maybe he would call home on his new “car phone,” a wondrous new invention.
The Struggle for Work-Life Balance is Nothing New
Back when most Americans were farmers, we didn’t fret about work-life balance. We rose and rested with the sun. Then, indoor electricity drew the dark aside. Inventors created machines that enabled mass production of saleable goods. We no longer had to live by the sun, or by an earth which yielded to us on a whim. We could trade up for dependence on a living that was more predictable and reliable, though no less demanding. We could become part of efficiency and innovation, and a new technological landscape. The cost was only all of our waking hours.
Did the factory workers of the Industrial Revolution worry about work-life balance? Back then a standard factory shift lasted 14–16 hours, six days a week, in conditions that were less than humane. In the early 1800s, factory workers had no time for worry as they dodged injury and exhaustion, I thought, while striving to make a better life for themselves and their families. But in reality, factory workers in Illinois in 1867 pushed the state legislature to guarantee eight-hour days, and won.
However, the legislation included a loophole that enabled employers to contract with their workers for longer hours. This loophole led to a mass strike on May 1 of that year, which spread across the nation, and the day became known as May Day. Despite this upheaval, real change remained out of reach for another six decades.
The true change began on May 1, 1926, when business mogul Henry Ford announced that his company would implement a five-day, 40-hour work-week. “It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege,” Mr Ford said of the move. At length, the change would encompass all of the company’s employees, and not just its factory workers. In the face of critics, productivity at the company increased as workers met Mr Ford’s expectation that they would get more done in less time. It is probable that this was Mr Ford’s plan all along.
Mr Ford’s bold move, and the proven positive results, caused a ripple effect of change among the world’s manufacturers. A third of Americans’ daily lives would be spent at work. Another third would be spent asleep. The last third was for “leisure” — for family time and personal pursuits. How we spent that last third would be up to us.
What Throws Us Off Balance?
What were most Americans before we were farmers? We were settlers, and before that we were voyagers — pilgrims, traders, and explorers. Our history shows us that we are rarely content. We must strive, and do the unlikely thing. We choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. This is our nature, and this will not change. Now, add to that restless nature a handheld device which connects us to limitless knowledge and to everyone everywhere. But technology, and our new and evolving ability to be perpetually connected, is not to blame here.
It’s us.
As I understand it, when automobiles were first invented, they had no seat belts. They were metal contraptions with no safety measures. The technology behind automobiles provided us with fantastic freedom and power, and that was our first perspective. Safety-consciousness evolved alongside — or even slightly behind, and certainly not ahead of — our use of automobiles.
Americans work, on average, 47 hours per week — and that’s a conservative estimate. I expect this reported number to creep up in the next decade, as our interconnectedness draws us deeper into our careers, and the digital economy picks up even more speed. I also expect, beyond the next decade, that we will look back and see this as the time when our natures took the lead, again, in our relationship with new technology and our professions.
History shows us that working more hours doesn’t increase productivity. Working more hours leads to chronic exhaustion, and a myriad of related diseases. It took our past relatives about 60 years, between 1867 and 1926, to figure that out. I figure it should take us about half that long in this new digital and mind-expanding age. So, if the smartphone made it into our hands in the early 1990s, then any day now another significant change geared at achieving work-life balance will take place. It’s just a question of where the change will start, and who will lead it.