The Work/Life Balance Con

One suspects that the band of gremlins who define cultural trends invented work/life balance in order to produce more egalitarian marriages. That is, marriages where both partners would put in an equal amount of time working and an equal amount of time doing housework and caring for children.

As it happens, it does not work out that way, but you cannot fault the gremlins for trying. 

Now, Callum Borchers assesses the success of the work/life balance hustle in the Wall Street Journal, and he discovers that young people value it but do not practice it. They have absorbed the culturally acceptable dogma, but ignore it in their everyday lives. One suspects that young people are sufficiently intelligent to have figured out that those workers who practice work/life balance will fall behind in the promotion and bonus derby.

So, they talk the talk, but do not walk the walk.

Borchers explained:

Though today’s young professionals say they generally don’t value hard work as highly as their predecessors, according to a recent Wall Street Journal-NORC survey, many nevertheless fixate on success. Work-obsessed 20- and 30-somethings say the recession of the aughts and the pandemic have contributed to a sense that their financial and life goals could be unattainable if they don’t chase wins while they can.

Apparently, however much young people say they want work/life balance, they also understand that if they want to succeed they need to put in overtime. 

Borchers concludes:

Plenty of people feign work-life balance, several other young professionals told me. They make a show of setting limits or post recreational photos on social media to suggest that they have robust personal lives when, in reality, they’re just as consumed by their jobs as everyone else. 

Now, Borchers does not talk about people who have young children at home. Surely, this changes the equation. Happily, for our reflections, feminist Jessica Grose proposes a whiny complaint about the unequal division of household labor. She does it in her New York Times newsletter today.

Grose recommends that men do more housework and spend more time caring for children. The feminist left has been promoting this idea for decades now and the only outcome is that there are fewer marriages and fewer two-parent homes. In truth, America is leading the world in broken homes, though no one seems capable of connecting this fact with feminist militancy about making men do more housework.

Of course, Grose stacks the deck in her own special feminist way. She does not recognize that the men who do less housework and perform less childcare might be working longer hours in the office. She does not accept that they want to excel at work and even garner more promotions and bonuses. She has no sense that men might think that being breadwinners matters.

Not at all. She believes that these husbands are really spending the extra time indulging in leisure pursuits. 

Grose blames it on gendered norms. And she shows that in every country where governments have tried to free up men to do more housework, they simply do not take the bait. How it happens that zealous ideologues could not have predicted this outcome is beyond me.

She reports:

… new data from Pew Research Center showing that despite increases in female earnings and labor force participation over the years, women in different-sex relationships still do more household work and caregiving, and men in those relationships who work outside the home don’t pick up the slack.

So, the problem is male pride. The problem is that men do not identify as homemakers. Men do not much care about the organization of a home. Women do. Men are less capable of caring for children. Women are more capable. How old do you have to be to have figured this out?

The result-- young feminist mothers find themselves faced with two choices. Take control of the household and allow husband to work harder at his career. Or else, whine and complain about his extra leisure time and end up with a single parent home.

Grose does not like this outcome, but the research she reports all points in this direction. It almost feels that she is beating her head against reality, not against entrenched gender norms-- assuming that there is very much of a difference between the two. 

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