Waldorf in the Home

In families where both parents work, parents and children live virtually apart at least five days a week, reuniting for a few hours at night. Time together tends to be in motion-taking children to lessons, classes, sports and shopping. The researchers are concluding that we're moving from a child-centered society to a child-dominated society: most family decisions and purchases are geared toward the kids' activities, and parents don't have a life after the children go to bed.

There is almost no unstructured time in family life. In just one of the 32 families did the father make a habit of taking an evening stroll with his son and daughter. Qualities that have fallen by the wayside include playtime, conversation, courtesy and intimacy.

In this study, at least one parent was likely to be up and gone before the children awoke. By mapping the location of each family member throughout the home every 10 minutes, researchers found that families gathered in the same room just 16 percent of the time. In five homes, the entire family was never in the same room while scientists were observing.

For Elinor Ochs, a linguistic anthropologist and the study's director, the most worrisome trend is how indifferently people treat each other, especially when they reunite at the end of the day. "Everywhere in the word, in all societies, there is some kind of greeting. But here, the kids aren't greeting the parents and the parents are allowing it to go on. They are tiptoeing around their children."

Ochs further observed, "We've schedule and outsourced a lot of our relationships ... There isn't much room for the flow of life, those little moments when things happen spontaneously."

[This summary was made from an Associated Press article by Joseph B. Verrengia, "Modern life strained, challenging. Studies: Most family decisions, purchases are geared toward kids" published in the Boulder Daily Camera, March 20, 2005, p. 7B.]