New research confirms that women simply end up ‘double burdened’, as I know all too well. The only answer is a proper job
Research from Germany has catapulted me into a state of almost hallucinogenic reminiscence. It found that working from home, the modern stamp of the perfect work-life balance, is not that great for parents. Men do OK, increasing their childcare scarcely at all, but putting in between two and four hours of extra work. Women face a “double-burden” of doing three more hours of childcare a day, yet the same amount of work, which in practice amounts to losing the evening to sitting on a laptop, panicking that nobody in the office believes they’re doing anything at all. If having it all really means doing it all, living the dream boils down to never sleeping.
This takes me back to 2008, when I was doing a childcare swap with my sister, and writing a column about Boris Johnson and his London mayoral ambitions in the 40 minutes that two eight-month-olds would stay asleep. I said he was a moneyed creep, a liar, a bigot and a snob. You’re wondering how that took 40 minutes, but there were illustrative bits in between and they take time. The next day, I was thinking, what if I’m wrong? What if it is fine to be the mayor of this evolved and tolerant city, when the list of people you can’t tolerate is longer than any to-do list you’ve ever completed? What if politics has moved on and I didn’t notice, because I was watching In the Night Garden and pureeing beetroot?
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2CagAan
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