The fact that in families like the Tallingers conflicts between activities are inevitable doesn’t necessarily reduce the tension or frustration they produce. Last-minute changes, whether in the timing of children’s events, or weather-related adjustments in school openings or closings, or hastily scheduled work meetings for either Mr. or Ms. Tallinger (or both), sometimes threaten to topple the whole architecture of the family’s master schedule. For example, on Wednesday, May 18, Garrett is told at his Intercounty soccer practice that a game has been scheduled for the coming Sunday. Neither parent is home; a high-school boy is baby-sitting. Mr. Tallinger comes home from work at 9:30, and Ms. Tallinger arrives about ten minutes later and begins preparing to take the baby-sitter home. As they all stand in the kitchen, Mr. Tallinger tells his wife the news:
Don said to Louise, “He has a game on the twenty-second.” He showed her the soccer calendar. Louise replied, “It wasn’t scheduled.” Don sounded upset. He said, “I know. It changed.” Louise walked over to the kitchen calendar hanging on the wall next to the telephone. She said, “What time is it at?” Don, without looking at the paper, said, “Four.” Louise said, “So he could make it.” Don, sounding more frustrated than I have ever heard him, said to the baby-sitter, “He has two soccer games, a baseball game, and a graduation party on the same day.” Louise said (looking at the location), “It’s too far away.”
Conflicts like these escalate the “invisible labor” parents undertake as they keep the children fed, the house organized, and the different deadlines of multiple schedules reconciled. As the number of women working outside the home continues to grow, so too does the already formidable pressure on parents, particularly mothers. Arlie Hochschild has termed the work of women in taking care of the home “the second shift.” She and others also have shown that despite increases in the amount of time men contribute to household work and child care, they still concentrate their home efforts on outdoor work (e.g., mowing the lawn, painting, or repairing the house). Mr. Tallinger was a very involved father and often played ball with the children outside. However, as in many families, when she was present, Ms. Tallinger took a leadership role in cooking, clothing, and coordinating the children’s lives. He helped her.
Women’s work at home, on the other hand, continues to be inside and deadline oriented (e.g., making meals, getting children ready for child care or school, and putting children to bed). Although researchers have documented many aspects of “invisible labor” at home, existing studies do not examine the impact of children’s activities on those who work “the second shift.” Unlike mealtimes or bedtimes, organized activities for children usually have starting and stopping times that are rigidly enforced. Parents are expected to deliver and pick up their children punctually. Safety concerns drive most of these rules and parents try very hard to comply. Over and over again, in our observations, parents showed up within a minute or two of when the activity let out. Regularly meeting those often arbitrarily set deadlines can take an emotional as well as a physical toll.
Mr. and Ms. Tallinger manage the pace of family life differently. For example, one weekday afternoon, Mr. Tallinger drives hurriedly up the driveway at 5:40 P.M. He jumps from the car, searches for his keys, opens the front door, and, almost immediately, sternly tells the boys to do their homework. When Ms. Tallinger arrives home, around 6:00 P.M., she seems more relaxed than her husband. Even when she is clearly under pressure, with multiple questions from the children and looming deadlines, Ms. Tallinger is typically less tense than Mr. Tallinger when she is alone with the children.
Moreover, pressures related to family life are not borne equally by Mr. Tallinger and Ms. Tallinger. Although Mr. Tallinger participates actively in his children’s lives, his job keeps him away from home two to three days per week. When she worked full time, Ms. Tallinger typically assumed more of a leadership role in monitoring, feeding, and helping the children with daily life tasks. Still, Mr. Tallinger was an unusually competent father and played an active role in child care when Ms. Tallinger traveled for work.
It is also Ms. Tallinger who makes the career adjustments when faced with family conflicts. Near the end of the study, Ms. Tallinger decided to quit her job. Looking for an opportunity closer to home, so that she could be around as an “anchor” for the children, she eventually took a job as a high-level manager for a local nonprofit organization, one with minimal travel requirements. She describes this action as a decision to “put my career on the shelf.”
Still, in some areas of home labor, Mr. Tallinger contributes far more than what we observed among fathers in other middle-class homes. He regularly and competently gets the children off to school on mornings when his wife has an early meeting or is out of town. One morning when Ms. Tallinger leaves early, he stays behind to take the children to school and to attend “Donuts with Dad,” an event sponsored by the parent-teachers organization. The boys are in the basement, playing. They have stuffed pillows under their shirts to make themselves look more like hockey goalies:
All of a sudden [Don] calls down from upstairs in a semi-mad voice, “Spencer—did you feed Ivan and Farley? Garrett did you feed the fish?” Spencer says, “I fed Ivan.” Both move quickly to head up the stairs; they walk up with the fat pillows under their chests. As they start to move, [Don] calls down, “Feed Farley. And Garrett—feed the fish.” I follow them upstairs. Garrett goes in the den to feed the fish.
After Garrett feeds the fish, he walks into the kitchen (with the fat pillow still under his shirt) and stands near the table. His father is shuffling papers; the all-news radio station is playing loudly. Mr. Tallinger (not commenting on the pillow) begins a series of reminders:
[Don] says, “You are going to take the bus?” Garrett says, “Yes.” “. . . What time does the bus come? . . . Do you have a key?” Garrett nods but looks in his backpack. [Don] nods and then says, “Don’t miss the bus.”
During this interaction, Mr. Tallinger appears rushed and irritable as he tries to remember various tasks. Sam and Spencer whine and complain as they wait by the front door for their father to take them to school. Their father, passing through the hallway, stops to reprimand Sam. “Sam! Cut it out,” he orders.
In the families we observed, fathers were neither as knowledgeable of nor as involved in child care as Mr. Tallinger. But even he did not seem to define children’s home-related responsibilities as labor that was equally his. When both parents were present, most family labor fell to Ms. Tallinger. She was the one who found and ironed the boys’ pants the day of the piano recital and who arranged the recital refreshments (strawberries and poppy seed muffins), who bought the children’s teachers Christmas and end-of-year gifts, and who wrote the teachers notes to thank them for their efforts during the year. Significantly, this pattern of gendered labor met the expectations of both children and school personneclass="underline" Mothers, not fathers, were expected to sign permission slips and help children with routine life tasks.
A CULTIVATED CHILDHOOD: GARRETT’S VIEW
Garrett is not an especially demonstrative child, but it is clear that he enjoys his activities, particularly those related to sports, and thinks that without them, his life would be “boring.” Unlike Tyrec Taylor, a working-class boy who is discussed in the next chapter, Garrett does not complain about having to go to practices or games. If he has to miss a game, he is visibly disappointed. During an interview, Garrett reports that he especially enjoys competitive games. About basketball, for example, he notes that he likes “defense . . . pushing guys around.” Forest traveling soccer and Intercounty soccer, where the teams are skillful and there are “bigger fields, bigger goals,” rank high with him. By contrast, gym class soccer “gets boring after awhile.” When asked by the interviewer, Garrett admits that days when he has two soccer games and a baseball game or three other activities are “tiring,” but he notes, “It’s not too much.” Reflecting, he amends, “Not for me. Maybe for my dad [because] he has to take me and he has to watch me in the heat . . . He has to take me back and forth.”