*Get a Life* - but where? At work? At home? How?

PART 1 TIME AT WORK

In a recent powerful essay in the Atlantic, Derek Thompson quotes Maynard Keynes’ 1930 essay Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren. Keynes predicted that as efficiency increases, we’ll be able to make what we need more and more quickly, and so the 21st century would, he claimed, involve a 15 hour work week – effectively inverting the current 5-2 balance between our working days and weekend. He was, of course wrong – mainly because he did not foresee that the economy would come to be driven by what we want, not what we need; and when properly fed by the market, our wants are endless.

So we have, as a society decided to work when we don't have to. That’s a new phenomenon - throughout history, money has traditionally been a means to a leisured end; as Thompson says, the landed gentry of pre-industrial Europe dined, danced and gossiped, while serfs toiled without end. Well, the serfs have not disappeared, sadly (though many have been off-shored), but it seems the wealthy (likely any reader of this blog, and certainly this writer) now see work very differently. And it may not just be adults - striking evidence comes from the US Pew Research Center, which indicates that when asked, teens prioritise enjoyable jobs and careers over getting married, having children, helping other people, or having a lot of money. Work seems, in other words, to be the main thing in people’s lives. This seems to be regrettable, to put it mildly.

Yes, but how?

I have always seen the drive to have meaningful work as a positive thing – and actually one that in our modern economy is in danger of being squeezed out. I’ve written extensively about that, usually prompted by conversations with students whose knowledge of their favoured careers did not extend far beyond the likely remuneration. But Thompson’s article has made me think again – he suggests that we’ve created the idea that the meaning of life should be found in work. He wonders if that’s the fundamental problem, suggesting that our desks were never meant to be our altars. The modern labour force evolved to serve the needs of consumers and capitalists, not to.. [provide] transcendence at the office.

The idea that many types of work simply cannot deliver real meaning was echoed by Charles Duhigg in his recent Wealthy, Successful and Miserable NYT article. At a Harvard Business School re-union, Duhigg was struck by the widespread lingering sense of professional disappointment among his peers. He quotes one pension fund manager who knows that his work helps thousands of retired people lead the lives they want, but still laments that it’s pretty hard to see that altruism from [a] window office in a Manhattan skyscraper.

It seems to me that the logic of Thompson and Duhigg’s arguments is not the usual find a a job you love as well as paying the bills. It’s far more profound. I’m not sure I agree (but then, perhaps I am the very thing they criticize) – but they are essentially saying work is over-rated – look elsewhere for your meaning, for the thing that gets you up in the morning, that satisfies your need to make a contribution.

That argument seems to be persuasive to an increasing number of people who are going under the banner of FIRE - financially independent, retired early. They seem pretty clear that work is only ever a means to an end, and they seek to make their working lives as short as possible so as to get onto more important things. I’m not sure whether to admire them or pity them; their clarity of purpose is enviable, but I can’t help thinking that they may be missing out on something important. However, following that thinking immediately makes one ask what then is more important? and of course time with family immediately comes to mind.

PART 2 TIME WITH FAMILY

Time with family – sounds good, but we need to ask what type of time? I’m continuing to draw on ideas from Julie Lythcott-Haims’ How to Raise an Adult, which I have written about before.  Her thrust, which resonated with me as a parent and an educator, is that in our love and commitment to our children, we are in danger of sacrificing their long-term growth as autonomous adults in favour of short-term markers of success such as academic grades, sporting success, leadership roles – and CV fillers, in general.

Lythcott-Haimes recounts the advice from a grandmother to a mother who was showing her commitment to her kids by being overly-present in their lives: I have no idea why you’re standing out there… You aren’t showing your kids anything. If you want to show that athletics are important, you should be going on a run yourself. Or if you want to show them what is valuable to you, go home and read a book, or get together with some of your own friends, or go to a play and then come home and talk about it. Why don’t you go do some stuff of your own? That’s you getting a life. Your kids will observe that and think, ‘Okay, that’s how you get a life.’ And they’ll want to go get one. But the way it is, they’re going to get to be twenty-five and think, ‘I never saw grown-ups living a life. I only saw them doing stuff for me, driving around, standing somewhere on a Saturday morning.’

This really struck me. If our kids see us parents as their heroes, then what do they see? Anxious, stressed, grade-driven adults who are half-servant (dropping off, picking up, organising, fixing, funding) and half-master (pushing, driving, directing)? Who have nothing of our own in our lives? Or do we have projects of our own; ways of having fun; endeavours we believe in; people we care for; communities we connect with; causes for which we can fight? Haims writes it well: ...instead of showing kids that a parent’s primary purpose and function is to hover over a kid and facilitate all of their interactions and activities, we need to show them - through the choices we make, the activities we undertake, and the principles we value - what it actually means to lead a fulfilling adult life.

I see the advice as liberating us parents to be our best selves, knowing that the most powerful way to help our kids is not to have only them at the centre of our lives. Rather like the flying advice to put on our own oxygen mask first, we need to look after ourselves so that we can look after our kids better. Clinician Will Friedman quotes Psychologist Carl Jung: Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent. In short, if we do not have one already, we need to get a life.

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Parts 1 and 2 might seem very different; and perhaps, the whole notion of work-life balance condemns them to separate realms. But in the end I think there’s an important convergence. They both tell us that it may not be wise to seek a good, meaningful life in only one place. Neither our work nor our children should carry that burden alone. Get a Life, the title here, might make it sound like a life is something we can acquire and own; but that’s not true of either our work or our children. We need to look more broadly.

References

Duhigg, C (2019) Wealthy, Successful and Miserable New York Times

Lythcott-Haims, J (2015) How to Raise an Adult St. Martin's Griffin; Reprint edition

Stokel-Walker, C (2018) FIRE: The movement to life frugally and reture decades early.  BBC News

Thompson, D (2019) Workism is making Americans Miserable The Atlantic

Menasce Horowitz, J. and Graf, N. (2019) Most U.S. Teens See Anxiety and Depression as a Major Problem Among Their Peers Pew Research Centre.

Friedmann W. J. (2019) The Greatest Gift a Parent Can Bestow Upon Their Children