Working Moms and Personal, ummm, Stuff (aka Grooming)

Work Wednesday

This whole work-life balance thing is starting to get too personal. Personal in a physical, bodily, corporeal way.

Personal as in grooming. Showering, shaving, rinsing, brushing, tweezing, polishing, dressing, primping and (especially for those of us around or over 40) smoothing, shaping, and concealing.  And all that other personal stuff.  Despite all the hype in women's mags about the latest beauty tips and products, the latest work-life research shows that grooming is undergoing a general (and generational) decline. At least for married-with-children types. Including me. (Though More, which I actually receive, has a feature this month on "Goof-Proof Age-Defying Eye Makeup" that's tempting as I approach my forty-something birthday next month.)

According to an extensive meta-analysis of time-allocation research by Suzanne Bianchi of the University of California, Los Angeles, parents are spending more time than ever with their kids at the expense of activities like sleeping, cooking meals, relaxing, doing housework, and . . . grooming. While this trend is true for all parents regardless of employment status, the time trade-offs working parents make to spend more quality time with their kids in our intensive parenting culture are more marked. For example, the UCLA study reports that married women in dual earner families get, on average, three hours less sleep and nine hours less leisure time than married women in single earner families. See my previous posts on working moms and sleep and leisure time for a personal take on these numbers. The one upside -- working moms do 10 less hours of housework (not including meal prep) a week than their non-employed counterparts, while husbands in dual-earner families do more.

Back to grooming. Although I've been accused  (by my spouse) of taking overly-long showers (which I view more as therapy than personal hygiene) my daily grooming regimen otherwise is fairly quick.  After I get my husband and son out the door, and while my daughter's eating her breakfast downstairs, I'm left with 10 or 20 minutes (shower aside) to get ready for work. The toothbrush, a little deodorant, a lot of (lightly tinted) moisturizer, some mascara and lipstick and I'm done. It's not glamorous, but at least I now know I'm not alone in my slapdash routine. 

The UCLA analysis shows that between 1965 and 2008, married mothers increased the amount of time they spent on childcare from 10.2 to 13.9 hours per week. (Note that the study defined childcare narrowly as time a parent spends directly taking care of a child's needs or interacting with a child through activities such as play and reading, and not all time a parent spends with her child during a week doing things like grocery shopping, making dinner, etc. That number is, of course, significantly higher.)  During the same time period, women's grooming time fell from 10.1 to 8.2 hours a week. (That two-hour differential certainly accomodated the weekly trips to the beauty salon that I remember from my childhood.) Married fathers also increased the time they spent on childcare  -- from an average of 2.5 hours in 1965 to 7 hours a week in 2008 -- while reducing their grooming activities from 8.5 to 7.0 hours a week. That's a whole lot of slovenly people parents!

Of course, we're not all unkempt. Hair styles, clothing fashions, and other grooming standards are all more casual than they were in the 1960's.  (My mom spent a fair amount of time training her curly hair into a beehive circa 1966 while I spend no more than three minutes a day styling my naturally wavy hair.) And, as in many other areas of life, there are an abundance of time-saving personal grooming products and innovations that have been developed since the sixties.  (Compare the time my mom spent sitting under the hair dryer in the 1960's with the time she spends blow drying her hair today.) 

Of course, this post isn't really about grooming.  It, like the UCLA study, is about all the activities parents forego to meet today's work and family demands. And, particularly in the case of the UCLA paper, to highlight the need for flexible work policies. Still, I might just get up a little earlier tomorrow morning to primp and preen before I go to the office. Or (more likely) I might not.

Image by Vivianna_Love via flickr.com.

Comments

[rmd]

So true! Thankfully the busy holiday season coincides with winter, so there is no need for leg shaving (hooray for boots and tights). LOVE this post.

[Ellen]

Love this post Stacy! Concealer+mascara+a little eyeshadow+blush and 3 minutes to dry my hair in the winter and I'm off!

[Julie]

Thank you for your candor, as well as the Interesting data out of UCLA. A fascinating and amusing blog. I used to work full-time and now work very part-time hours. Truthfully, I spend much less time on personal grooming now than I did when I was working full-time. I probably care about it as much. Nevertheless, something about going to an office every day made me want to make myself up more. Everything is more relaxed about me now, including the amount of time I spend on that.

[Cindy Goodman]

Great post! Some weeks, I realize I'm letting my personal grooming suffer but I shrug it off and tell myself it's all about balance. Maybe my nail polish is half worn off but at least I made it to my kid's soccer game!

[Karen]

Someday, I keep telling myself, I will actually wear nail polish, which to me has always seemed like the exemplar of a polished, put-together, professional look. Someday, when I don't have dishes to wash and laundry to fold and groceries to schlep into the house. And as the skunk line sets in before I have time to get to this month's hair dying session, let me tell you how much I relate!!

[Stacy]

So . . . after this post, my husband bought me a gift certificate for a mani-pedi. Thank you, honey!

[Grooming]

Nice article. As said i prefer to spend some time with kids rather than grooming. In my case I have everyone out of the door and then start my ritual.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dolxfld6uQE I hardly take time. Half an hour for everything including bath. Anyways glad i'm able to manage eveything.