If you haven't read the NY Times story on the UCLA study that involved videotaping 32 LA families during almost every waking moment for a week, I suggest you do so. It's enlightening and also may lighten your mental load that you're parenting wrong. If you've got kids and a husband and a job, the story will most likely affirm your everyday trials and tribulations juggling it all (and feeling like a failure. You're in good company). A few telling stats: Moms spend 27 percent of their time doing housework, while dads clock in at 18 percent. Moms spent 19 percent of their time talking with family members or on the phone; 11 percent taking breathers that the study called "leisure." Dads racked up 20 percent chatting, 23 percent leisure. And this caught my attention: Videos revealed homes chock a block with toys, books, clothes, stuff and more of stuff, but backyards, which are often the most uncluttered of all spaces, were the least used (in sunny LA). We're guilty of this at my house. Too much TV, not enough back (or front) yard time. In the study, family members also would spit into vials to measure their levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. And get this: The more women engaged with their husbands in the evening, the faster their cortisol dropped. The men's levels tapered more slowly when talking to a spouse. (I wonder what spacing out to The Daily Show does to cortisol levels?) And being obsessed with home org (not that my place is very organized), my fave detail from the piece was that the clutter on fridge doors tended to predict the amount of clutter elsewhere. Oy vey. I'm in trouble.
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