Family and Work: The Family's Perspective

14 The Process of Making Work and Family Work

14.1 Balance
14.2 Listening to the Children
14.3 Conclusions

14.1 Balance

Galinsky argued eloquently against using the word "balance" to represent the process whereby parents try to achieve some level of satisfaction about the way that they are working. She argued that "balance" implies an "either/or connection", "assuming that if you give to work you take away from family life". Galinsky preferred the word "navigating" because it refers to "an ongoing process, not an ideal state", which acknowledges the dynamic "interchanges among individual, work, family, and community rather than treating them as separate spheres".

The issue of how to label the process of what it is that parents are doing when they make decisions about employment was raised with parents in this study. Parents were asked how they thought about the process, and whether the word "balancing" captured that process for them. Most of the parents who were interviewed in this study spontaneously talked about balancing work and family. Those who did not still tended to endorse it as the best option. A few mentioned juggling, or managing, and one talked about a jigsaw.

Juggling is just trying to fit everything in and balancing is actually choosing which one you want to actually do.

Balance means different things to different people. I mean, balance to me sort of means, is everyone happy. Is everyone getting what they need? Does it mean that Mum is never home and Dad is never home. Are the kids being cared for? Are they happy? Is this working? That's when you are balanced. It doesn't mean that Mum's working or Dad's working, it basically means, is the house working, at the house level?

It is a balance, but you have to work out the equaliser. It's not perhaps an even balance and it would seldom stay nicely balanced at half/half. You have to work out with your job and with your lifestyle which way to go. It changes with age. At one stage it is right down, then it tips the other way. As you get older, they are more self-sufficient, it changes totally. It doesn't actually balance, it sort of teeters from one point to the other. It changes because of yourself and the family circumstances and what you want out of life.

I tend to think of it as juggling because it's not so discrete that you can put things in balance and separate and try to find an equilibrium. I think juggling because you are always going to have 2 or 3 things up in the air at once that you are dealing with.

Juggling meant working it so that everything got done and you somehow managed to fit it all in. Balancing means you work out what's important and you sometimes let things slide. When I was juggling there was no time for me, and balancing makes sure there is time for me as well.
[How do you know when it's out of balance?]
When life is no fun anymore. When there's more times that you have that are stressful than are nice.

I read an article once and it said that it shouldn't be a balancing act. It was by someone who didn't have kids. It was a researcher who was saying, "you should be able to do it, it shouldn't be that balanced". But it is. It is how much work do you do, and how much family time you do.

Well, it's just what you accept. It's what you accept as being a good balance. Everyone has a different idea I think. In the end it's about - is the family…is everyone happy, is everything well? And am I still working, am I happy in my work?

Well I think of it as juggling, because I always think of the circus clown and a bit of fun and "oops, dropped a ball, who cares, I've got another couple to go around". Try not to make it too serious – so I guess that's why I call it juggling, because I just don't want to get too heavy about it.

I think it's more complicated than that. I just have a sense that if work is the very dominant feature in the living arrangement and how you live on a day-to-day basis, then you don't really have the time to put into a relationship. And it's the relationship stuff that's really important. It might not be 50/50 - it might be 20/80 for some people. But it's at whatever point the relationship feels like it's healthy.

It's like fighting for your rights in that family unit. Trying to position yourself in a way where you're not hurting anyone by your actions, because we're the adults in this. They are just the children. They have no choice. We have a choice, so balance, yeah, it's an OK word.

It means trying to walk this little tightrope or fine line between recreation time for myself, time for my family, and family activities, time for friends and time for faith, to attend church or bible studies, that sort of thing, and then time for earning money. So it is trying to be holistic I guess on what I see as important in life.

I think when you go through life you're trading off. It's more like a kind of trade off and you're always trading off. (My wife's) probably traded off substantial career advancement by having children. How you actually calculate that sum, the value of the children versus the value of the foregone career, I don't know.

Balancing is what it's all about. It's about constantly striving for that balance and it is a tension between one and other things. And most of the time it sort of rolls along reasonably comfortably, but when anything exceptional , such as work becomes very busy or there's sickness or there's school holidays or when the dog gets sick, that's when it gets hard. That's when you really, really have to work at the balance.

I used to try and do a lot of that (balancing), and I think that's where my problem was. Because juggling and balancing was always trying to do the right thing by everything and everyone else. I don't know, I found a sense of peace, where it was, like, no, my priority is my boys. And I'm lucky because I can work hours around what's important to me and at the moment (my son's) settling. (He's) got high school (next year) so I need to be there for my children.

I think balance is a good word. Trying to find the balance. The mental process I'm going through now. Trying to find the balance of my own needs. Of financial needs and the needs of the growing family. With my children and also my husband.

Managing is more a word I use. I don't quite know what the difference is. I guess I see balancing as this either/or, this kind of switch thing. I think it is more integrated, though it invariably does end up more of a balance, because if you come home because the children are sick, then you are not doing the work…But I don't emotionally think of it in that balancing way. I think of it more a sort of collaborative, almost, partnership with work and family I suppose.

I don't think you can always balance some things, because your work needs might outweigh one week the needs of yourself, which also impacts on the kids. But not balancing, no. I think it's a give and take, and a communication thing. Nothing is ideal, and this is what I try to point out to them in life – you'll never coast along without a health problem and without financial problems, social problems, events. And that's not balancing; it's accommodating, understanding…I don't use the word balance because I see balance as being even. Life is not even. You have peaks and troughs.

Balance is probably pretty good. It's more of a jigsaw, and I find that the pieces just luckily fit together. If the pieces don't fit together, you sort it out and change it so that they do. It works fairly well…You might have a jigsaw where you've got 20 pieces, but either of those pieces could go in different spots. It's just a case of jiggling them so they fit.

Consistent with research, for many families in this study, mothers appeared to be more likely to make major changes to work than fathers. For many parents the balance that they were achieving operated at both a personal level and a family level. Despite this double-level of influence, decisions seemed to be being made on an individual level, with one parent making changes that were more likely to have long-term negative consequences for their careers. A few couples indicated that they were involved in more of a partnership of decision-making and action.

(We've been lucky because) we've been able to balance it as well as we have. We just see what goes on in other families and see the poor kids that go to after care before and after school. And both parents off to work all day. They may have little choice and the poor kids have to, so. (In some families) there is only one person working, and I don't know if that's so great either. One parent works all day and they never see that person, and the one person that is home, they see all the time, so we've been lucky – (my wife) works 4 days a week, so she's home one day and I think we manage to achieve a better balance than most families.
(both parents work part-time)

Parents were also asked how they would know whether they had the balance right. Most talked about members of the family feeling stressed and unhappy. Some said they might not notice until there was a critical incident.

I love my work, but my kids come first, my family comes first, so basically I would drop everything. The only problem is that sometimes I might get blinded by my work and not see my problem until it's manifested itself either via an argument that we will end up having over something, or something happens like a bad report.
(father, works full-time)

People start losing it, the children become unhappy, the bills are not paid, people start ringing and saying "Why haven't you done this?" You know it's out of balance when it all starts falling apart…when it's out of balance, it's just like when the washing machine gets out of balance – cachoonk, cachoonk! And shudders to a stop and you think "Oh, god!"

Some talked about listening to their children in deciding what impact their work decisions were having.

14.2 Listening to the Children

I've often said to them "would you like Mummy to give up work?" Sometimes they'll come back with a one-liner and say "yeah, that would be nice". And I say "Why?", and then they've got no answer…and then they'll say "Oh, no, no Mum. Work, work, work. We need to go on holidays. Oh, Mum, mum, mum, work, work, work." You know, "we need to have this, we need to have that". They're kids, you know. But they are supportive and I don't think it's just the financial thing. They know that Mummy's happy at work as well.
(single mother, works part-time)

The signs (of imbalance) are the experience that the parent has in terms of how they feel about it and they'll know whether they feel comfortable or not straight away pretty much. And listening to the kids about what their experience is. And if they don't verbalise it, you need to ask them how they feel because sometimes they won't tell you straight out necessarily…I think it's really important to acknowledge the feelings they have, because they're as legitimate as your own… It's important that the kid feels that their feelings are acknowledged and that you try and do something about it, because otherwise it's a bit like, "well, you're a non-entity, and you don't matter, and your needs don't matter".
(single mother, works full-time)

[What advice would you give to other parents doing paid work while bringing up children?]
Just make sure you find out what the children want and what they're feeling. I don't think that working long hours as such is damaging for children, but they have to know that they've got a voice in the family. I think that they're much more accepting if they feel that they've been listened to, even if they don't get what they want…I think a lot of parents don't want to give choices to their children and they don't want the children's desires or want to be voiced openly because they might feel guilty that the children aren't getting what they want.
(single mother, works part-time)

14.3 Conclusions

The word 'balance' clearly still resonates strongly in Australian families. Families are making judgments about whether what they are doing works or not and these judgments are not based only on beliefs about long-term outcomes. Parents are trying to judge whether children's experiences of living are happy and whether their own experiences make them feel happy and comfortable. It appears that the notion of happiness and enjoyment of life should not be under-rated as a motivation for decisions and actions.

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