Why does the US Right think 60 hours a week is not going to affect family life?

Why is it that the US Right seems to think that people should:

a) Respect the sanctity of marriage

b) Be good, caring and importantly "present and attendant" parents

c) Work 60-80 hours a week

Can they not see the conflict here, that a strong father figure would have to be part of the childs life, in order to be able to play a role in resenting the correct social values.

Apparently "80 hours a week" is normal in the financial sector. To be clear what this means:

Monday - 12 hours
Tuesday - 12 hours
Wednesday - 12 hours
Thursday - 12 hours
Friday - 12 hours
Saturday - 10 hours
Sunday - 10 hours

This does not include commuting time.

What kind of a parent would do this? Am I to summise t hat parents in the financial sector are actually as bad as a parent who leaves his or her spouse and does not have anything to do with the upbringing of the children?

Lets take the other example given of 60 hours a week:

Monday - 12 hours
Tuesday - 12 hours
Wednesday - 12 hours
Thursday - 12 hours
Friday - 12 hours
Saturday - 0 hours
Sunday - 0 hours

This does not include commuting time.

WOW, super! I have kids and I can spend the weekends with them! 2 days out of 7 I can spend with my kids.

This isn't responsible parenting!

 

In that same household, mom is at home with the children for:

Monday: 24 hours
Tuesday: 24 hours
Wednesday: 24 hours
Thursday: 24 hours
Friday: 24 hours
Saturday: 24 hours
Sunday: 24 hours

So the children have 168 hours per week with at least one parent and 88 to 108 hours per week with the other. Even if you subtract sleeping hours, that is a pretty good amount of time for parental guidance and nurturing.

 

That's quite an assumption. Mom may be working just as hard as Dad, say as an attorney working similar hours. Kids are being raised by a paid nanny.

 

Or are just wandering the streets getting into mischief.

 

It is about as valid as the implication that the person was a single parent.

Remember, the thread is about the US right, the group who also believes in the nuclear family and traditional parental roles.

I'd say that in the right's traditional family, having one parent working 60 to 80 hours a week would be better than having both parents working 30 to 40 hours a week.

 

Really? Mom is at home and the father works? So a typical family of two adults and two children can live from one wage?

REALLY?

(LOL)

And the numbers do not include travel time to work and do not include the fact that the more time a person works, the more he or she will need to relax after work.

This is not family life.

- - - Updated - - -

And what kind of family nowadays, is able to live this utopian dream of one parent working? In what dream world does this happen?

 

If one parent worked 60-80hrs a week I'm sure you could get away with 1 parent working, the alternative would be what was mentioned in an earlier post which are the children being raised by a nanny, which would probably cost so much as to make this second income not worth it, hence it is not that common for those with less money to have nannies, ironically it is much more common for people with lots of money to have nannies, go figure.

 

Unless dad is lucky enough to have a well paying job, there's not really any way to make it in American society with just one wage earner when you have children, and that's just assuming no health, educational, developmental, etc complications that require even more money to deal with.

 

The American right "thinks" whatever they are ordered to think by talk radio and Fox News.

 

Depends where you live, in Kansas? Yes, easily. In New York? No, and they'll likely be living in an apartment, rather than a house.

Don't know where you're from, but just to say, most things are cheaper in the U.S. than Europe.

 

I know many people who do exactly that. It just comes down to priorities. If you prioritize having a parent around all of the time to take care of the children, you will make it work. You may have to make sacrifices - no more brand-new cars, living in a smaller home, no more premium cable channels or expensive cell-phone plans, but it can be done. I've seen many families make the transition from two incomes to one when they had children.

For instance, since I've been married, we've effectively lived on just my income. Every bill came out of my paycheck, every living expense came from my income. Even then we budgeted to have a little of that income set aside for savings. My wife's income was split between savings and fun money - so that if we had a kid, or she stopped working we would be ok. It did mean we didn't buy new cars and had to save a little for some things, but it worked fine. It came in really handy when I moved and she took almost a year to get a job. Actually, that was an interesting situation. We were so much more careful with money during that time that we actually set aside almost as much money each month as we did when she was working - it just shows how much you can save if you really put your mind to it. After my last move, my wife has once again been unable to get a job. We still get by just fine, and continue to set aside money every month. If we had kids, the set-aside would be less, but we'd be just fine.

No, a family that pursues the goals of a giant home, two brand new, expensive cars, 5,000 cable channels and an iPhone with an unlimited high-speed data plan will find that they need two incomes just to get by, but a family that can actually follow a budget would have no problem living off one average income.

 

72 hours a week (12 hr/day, six days a week) has been the norm throughout human history. the work days may vary seasonally but it all averages out. Every major culture allows a day of rest.

More work and less goofing off would be beneficial.

 

Can you point to just one person on the US right who thinks anyone should work 60-80 hrs a week

 

In the following reference only 69.% of American children live with both parents

http://singleparents.about.com/od/support/a/US-Census-Single-Parent-Statistics.htm
​

& in the following reference 53% of American households have both parents working.

http://www.ask.com/question/how-many-families-have-both-parents-working
​

That leaves 84% of American children without & in your words not mine:

​

Sad.

Best Regards

Lobato1

 

Work, often, on your own bit of land, with your family helping. Any agricultural society - in Europe certainly - would have had its work cut out to find anyone twelve hours work in the winter. The exploiters love this fantasy of total slavery to their demands, but it is complete crap. Mediaeval society had vast numbers of saints days, for instance, and early industrial society insisted on 'Saint Monday' to get over the weekend. Unless they pay you, pack in this bosses' propaganda.

 

Most of human history had serfdom and slavery as well. Using "that's the way it was done for most of human history" is not a good reason unless you support the idea that modern workers should be the de facto indentured servants of their employers.

 

"Any agricultural society - in Europe certainly - would have had its work cut out to find anyone twelve hours work in the winter."

Taxcutter says:
Does "vary seasonally" not translate into Welsh? Sure, there are periods where people don't work as much, and periods where they work more.

Seasonal variation was why slavery was dying in states like KY, VA, NC and TN in the late 1840s and 1850s. Most of the crops raised in thos states needed short but intense amounts of labor. With an avalanche of immigration, it was cheaper to hire paid labor for a few weeks a year than keep slaves year-round. Farther south - in the cotton belt - the reverse was true.

 

I stayed home while my kids were little. My husband did work 70-80 hours a week not counting deployments. We did not have the luxury of living near extended family. We were solid middle-class. We didn't get to take real vacations. Leave time was always spent visiting family or moving to the next post. If I had worked, any money I made would have been spent on eating out and daycare. BTW, my husband didn't get paid overtime.

My son now works 70-80 hours a week not counting when he's on call. He is a surgeon. I hope when he has kids, he will be able to be at home most weekends.

Another job that easily takes 80 hours a week or more is starting up and running a small business. You know, the kind that are the backbone of the economy.

Kids do need time with their parents, but the most important thing a parent can do is set a good example. Part of that is a good work ethic.

 

Stay-at-home moms are becoming more and more rare.

Nowadays, double income families are the norm. Some of this is by choice, but in a lot of other cases, it's just a matter of survival.

 

Allow me to promptly interject and enlighten this clueless Euro OP.

First off, as has been pointed out, if you do have a family you need not have both parents working. The average wage in the US is around $20/hr, 42,000 per year or so at 40 hours per week. So we'll go with that as the base point. If you work 60 hours per week at that rate -->60k+. If you can't support a family off that you're doing something wrong.

Now let's say you're a low end worker (which isn't realistic see below) but since Leffe is dumb and likes to make false arguments, we'll say that you're a low end worker. You then work 60 hours per week @ $10 per hour (if you're working min wage with a family that's your fault, you made one of 2 bad decisions or both see below). That's about $31k per year, which again is enough to live off of as long as you're not living in NYC.

Now that Leffe, who likes to make false arguments, has been schooled in that sense let's highlight what a realistic situation is (for people who live in reality). If you are the someone willing to work 60 hours, most the time you have been doing such since exiting high school. This means you went to some college, probably majored in a realistic profession that pays okay or better, and are now reaping the benefits. You exit college with an engineering or math-related degree and make about $45k per year based no average but we'll just lower it to $35k. You probably don't have a family yet but again to prove how dumb Leffe is we'll say you do have a family at 22; you can still live off $35k. It's tight but you can do it. Now, if you work 60 hours a week at a real job here then you're probably going to be steadily increasing your salary. So in 5 years it'll be about $42k and by the time you're 33 it'll probably be $50k+ based on averages. At the age of 33 you can certainly support a large family easily, and if you want to you can cut your work hours.

That is how people usually pull it off. But again, I provided worst case scenarios so Leffe can't make excuses complaining about how impossible it is to have 1 person working while the other parent stays home. These worst case scenarios are for if you a. had a family before you could even come close to supporting it and b. account for you somehow working near minimum wage.

 

Sad, but it is very true. In many cases it is by choice (or by foolish decisions, which I still consider to be by choice). This trend is part of why the childhood and teen behavior problems are on the rise. Not enough parental supervision and nurturing to actually learn the right way to behave combined with a lack of parental support they need to develop that comfort and trust they should have.

Luckily there are still a few parents who are willing to give up the toys that come from two incomes, willing to stick with their marital commitment, and willing to give their children the time they need. Those parents may be in the minority, but those are the lucky children - the ones most likely to do well in life.

 

How is this relevant to right vs. left. The financial sector is fairly evenly matched politically. Wall Street gave much more to Obama than either McCain or Romney.

I like the strawman you created of the Republican financial worker.

 

The OP is nonsense until he sites a source for "the right" asking for an 80 hour workweek.

 

The right has done nothing but scream about "union thugs" since the bottom fell out of their piddle-down economy.

Who do you think got us an 8-hour work day instead of 12?

Get rid of the unions and their ability to coerce an 8-hour day and you can bet your nads that the capitalists will push for 12.

 

Honestly, screw that! It's not healthy to work 60-80 hours a week! I've done it and can attest that it destroys your life. There is absolutely no need for it, it's terrible for your health (mental and physical) and terrible for your family and your relationship with your spouse.

In a survey of the dying, the number one regret was not spending enough time with family. I do not want to be on my death bed saying the same.