Bible Bookstore

Sunday, June 14, 1998

By AMY MCRARY / Scripps Howard News Service

Bonnie Miller-McLemore has an idea for more family time, but she admits her idea isn't likely to become reality any time soon.

The idea is pretty radical, considering it would change the world of work for most two-job working families. The idea is to have working parents share a 60-hour week to replace their individual 40-hour work weeks.

Such a work week, divided between the partners as perhaps 40-20 or 30-30, would give each adult more time with the family and with each other. And time, as working parents like Miller-McLemore well know, is always in short supply.

The idea is among those proposed in a 1997 book, "From Culture Wars to Common Ground: Religion and the American Family Debate" co-authored by Miller-McLemore, an associate professor at Vanderbilt University's Divinity School .

Miller-McLemore, mother of three, had an interest in the balance of what she calls public and personal time before. In 1994, she wrote "Also A Mother: Work and Family as Theological Dilemma."

In her earlier book, Miller-McLemore argued for a modified work week so both parents could share the responsibilities of family and work. What she found when working on both books is that American society has underestimated the amount of work and time required in the home.

While a shortened work week doesn't seem likely in the near future, Miller-McLemore does see some "mini, baby steps" toward family interests in today's political arena. Discussion over allowing parents freedom to leave work for such things as school conferences is one such move. But economic and social conditions, from full-time health benefits to salaries to mind sets, would have to change before cutting 10 hours off an average work week.

An associate professor of pastoral theology and counseling, Miller-McLemore says a 60-hour shared work week would help both parents. "We call it an ethic of equal regard." The idea is not only to share parenting duties, but also to help men connect more with their children. "I think men and women are feeling really stretched today."

The tendency today, Miller-McLemore says, is for the woman to take on most household duties in a two-career family. "Women tend to be more on top of the domestic details -- after all, we have had decades of socialization. And it is really hard to put some of those expectations on hold. We have to be easier on ourselves, not too guilty about the ways we compromise."

The idea of equal regard needs to start with individual families instead of through broad social chances. "I actually think that some of this is detailed renegotiations of the minutia of daily life," says Miller-McLemore. "I don't think some things will change unless we make changes in our own families, so our own children can see different roles in terms of male participation."

Shared household responsibilities need to happen between husband and wife before children, she says, and be re-examined periodically. Miller-McLemore's professional interest in work and family is paralleled by her life as a working mother. She and husband Mark Miller-McLemore have three sons, ages 7, 9 and 12. Mark Miller-McLemore is an assistant professor and administrator at Vanderbilt Divinity School. While both work 40-hour weeks, they also have flexible work hours and rotate duties.

They are fortunate, she says, to have flexible schedules that allow them to work at night or on weekends and take time off for school events. "But we are far from having it solved. We often live in a constant state of chaos and of feeling overwhelmed and overburdened by the responsibilities we have, both in our day work and our home work ... Most of the time, though, our kids seem to flourish with our attempt to have an equal presence at home and at work."

Before they had children, the couple divided household responsibilities and continue to rotate duties like cooking and laundry. They do hire help to clean their house. They also give their children monthly rotating chores, such as feeding the pet and emptying the dishwasher.

The family holds monthly meetings to rotate chores. The meeting is usually followed by a family time such as watching a rented movie together. They also try to have dinner as a family, though that may mean eating after evening baseball games and delaying the children's bedtime.

"You have to look at the big picture," says Bonnie Miller-McLemore. "We can say, 'This is a crazy life.' But 10 years from now, my kids will be 17, 19 and 22, and that's a different stage ... So sometimes even if I am feeling really strained, I tell myself this is really a brief period of life. So I can lose some work time and take more time with my kids."

(Amy McCrary writes for the Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee.)