A friend sent me a link to this great articlewritten by a busy working mom who goes out to try and test out a theory that working mothers have 30 hours of leisure time each week. Apparently John Robinson, a sociologist who has made a career of time studies, claims that even though many more moms now work than a few decades ago, we still have 30 hours of leisure time each week.

This sounded insanely wrong to me when I read it and (sorry to give away the punch line) the article’s author didn’t find her 30 weekly hours either, even aftertracking how she spends her time. It was funny to read some of her observations and realize that many of us crazy busy working moms think of things similarly. For example, she described her 30 minutes of exercise a day as leisure time. I do the same for my time at the gym. But c’mon, is it really leisure? John Robinson disagrees, and if I am honest about it, so do I. It IS something I am doing for me, but it’s not relaxing in the same way that a leisurely walk or a few hours reading can be.
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I was fascinated to read this article in the New York Times suggesting that the rise of women breadwinners has led to happier and more stable marriages. According to the Pew Research Center report, in 22% of couples women are now the main breadwinners, up from 7% in 1970. And in 1/3 of all couples women are better educated than their husbands.

First of all, wow. Second of all, according to the New York Times article, this gender role reversal is having a surprising effect — it’s making marriages happier.

Here are some interesting points from the article that support the idea that when both the wife and the husband work, their marriage is more stable:
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When my daughter was born I was determined to breastfeed her for at least six months. I’d read that this is what’s recommended and that there is some good evidence that it will help build up her defenses against some unpleasant stuff later, like ear infections and meningitis. So even though breastfeeding turned out to be painful and rather unpleasant for me, I stuck to it for the first three months. (No, it didn’t help that too many people, including my wonderful but not extremely understanding mom claimed to be shocked that breastfeeding could be unpleasant, making me feel like I was missing out on some magic bonding experience with my kiddo.)

After three months my maternity leave was over and I went back to work. By this time I’d already been using the breast pump so I decided to give regular breast pumping a go to see if I could make it to my six month mark. It was really annoying and really challenging — by the end, each pumping session was taking more than half an hour for me to get enough milk for a feeding — but I made it.

I felt really proud of myself but I was also fully aware that I was in a privileged situation. My company paid for a three-month maternity leave, which is not common by any means in the US. At work, I had a large private office in which I could pump, instead of having to do it in the bathroom, as many of my friends were forced to do. I had a schedule flexible enough to find time to pump and no one at work, including my boss, ever questioned why I needed three half hour breaks during the day.
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I don’t hate my job. But c’mon, it is a job, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t find something annoying or frustrating or tiring or boring or really depressing about their work. There are definitely days when I bitch endlessly or complain or envision myself in another work environment, minus anything that is annoying me at my job at the moment. We all do this.

Except lately I’ve been feeling really guilty and naive any time I think negatively about my job. With 10% unemployment, millions of people are out of work who would probably be very happy with my job or any job, for that matter. It feels petty to complain about a gossipy colleague when a friend has just been laid off or to wish I had a more creative work environment when another friend has been looking for work for a year.

But the reality is that those of us who are working often do dislike — or, in the most extreme cases, hate — our jobs. I’ve written here before about reasons why you might not want to quite a job you hate. And if you choose to stick it out, you have to find a way to survive without becoming completely miserable. Because spending a huge chunk of your day miserable is 1. horrible, 2. not productive, and 3. just not fun. Here’s an article I read recently with some helpful (although a bit simplistic, if you ask me) tips about how to survive a job you hate.

Some highlights:
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Over the past few months I’ve had many conversations with friends about where we are in our careers and there seems to be a consistent theme for everyone: Uncertainty. Some are not sure they are doing what they really care or are interested about. Some are questioning the intensity of their work schedules. A few of my friends are completely re-envisioning what they want to be doing with their lives, including dramatically changing careers. I think partly this is due to age — we’re all in our mid 30s/40s and it’s the time to re-evaluate where we are in life and career. I also think the economic crisis of the last year is giving lots of people pause about what it means to have a job and what type of job they want to have.

As for me, it’s a little tough to describe where I am, career-wise, but for the sake of full disclosure, I will try. I’ve been working for almost 12 years now (wow, that seems kind of long) and have had tried three different — but very much related — career paths: Consulting, venture capital, and small tech start-ups. Each one taught me a ton and each one had things about it that I absolutely loved and absolutely hated. Overall, I do feel that I’ve discovered several things that I love to do, professionally, and that in itself I consider lucky since I know many older people who still say they are not sure what they’d like to do, job-wise.
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