Parents are struggling to work full-time and raise decent kids

As lives become busier, families are flailing. Mental health issues are rising, relationships are fraught and children neglected. The 4:4 Life would see each parent work only four days of the week.

Remember the 5:2 diet? Basically you eat normally five days a week but sparingly on the other two. I know about it not because I lost 10 kilos and went down two dress sizes.

No, the numbers 5 and 2 will forever be branded on my brain because I used to work with the woman who wrote it and have been riven with jealousy at her success ever since. Fancy being skinny… and a squillionaire.

Anyway, rather than wallowing in gluckschmerz*, I’ve been wondering for a while now if a similarly neat and straightforward proportion is the answer to the greatest conundrum of our age: work/life balance.

And so I propose the 4:4 Life, a one-size-fits-all solution for families. Let me explain before you assume this is a book-pitch-meets-money-making-gimmick and not the smartest resolution ever to gender disparity.

OK, what if couples decided that individually they would invest equally in work and family? To that end each parent would work four days a week, hence the 4:4 Life. Each partner would have equal opportunity to advance their careers, build their superannuation and spend time with their children. They’d also have time to exercise, shop for food, take the car for a service, rebook swimming lessons and complete the manifold tasks that clutter the weekend and make everyone tetchy.

At the risk of being flogged, I think it’s becoming increasingly difficult for two parents to work fulltime and raise decent kids. Certainly while the kids are young. Yes, yes, productivity and more women in the workplace and pay equality might be the holy grail, but at what cost? Every family I know where both parents work fulltime is stretched to breaking unless they have grandparents nearby, a nanny, a housekeeper or the sort of mega-salaries that allow you to outsource virtually everything.

Of course the issue is more pronounced in large cities where mortgages are high and travel times punishing. And critics will say there are lots of jobs which can’t be done in four days. Well how is it that so many women manage to work part-time?

My mum’s generation initiated the concept of women working and my generation has fulfilled it. But the cultural change of women in the workplace has not been matched by a cultural change at home.

Last year the UN released a report that revealed women globally do 2.5 times more unpaid work than men. In Australia women do 311 minutes of unpaid care and domestic work each day, compared to 172 minutes for men. And this isn’t simply because men do more paid work. The most recent Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey showed that women do more hours of paid employment, housework and childcare combined regardless of who is the main breadwinner or if both partners earn equal amounts.

Look I’m not wishing to alienate male readers with a tit for tat of who does what. Further, this is not about leaning in, leaning out or women “having it all” — a meaningless phrase that needs to be withdrawn from circulation.

Indeed, the woman whose seminal essay on the subject alighted global debate now cringes when she hears it. Instead, Anne-Marie Slaughter, who will speak at Sydney’s All About Women forum next month, is encouraging us to talk not just about “working mothers” but “working fathers”. As she spells out in her new book, Unfinished Business, equality cannot be achieved unless men and women are equally responsible for raising a family and bringing home income.

But it’s not just about equality. For me, it’s also about harmony. As lives have become busier families are flailing. Mental health issues are rising, relationships are becoming more fraught and children barely see their parents relax. Sports clubs struggle to find volunteer coaches because parents are so busy and entitlement among kids is rife, not because they’re awful kids but because community and the care of others has fallen down our list of priorities. Children only learn empathy, and to help and consider others, if it’s modelled by their parents. Yet who has time?

Equality and harmony cannot be achieved unless men and women are equally responsible for raising a family and bringing home income.

The 4:4 works because it puts people, not professions, first. It says to children: “You matter” and it says from one partner to the other: “We share this”. It values health and calm and nurturing above private school fees and foreign holidays. It has the potential to make people feel good about themselves and their choices.

So how do we do it?

First, we need to challenge the atavistic view that men should be at the coalface 40-plus hours a week. Technology has changed the way we work and all of it doesn’t have to be done in an office or an industrial estate 20km from home.

Second, men need to recognise that having a greater presence in their children’s lives and a lesser presence at work will not compromise their masculinity. What could be more manly than a good father raising happy children? And this current generation needs the courage to go first because you can’t be what you can’t see.

Finally, we have to value caring. Of children, of ageing parents, and of ourselves.

*Gluckschmerz: feeling unhappy about the good fortune of others.