Balancing Family Life with Work

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Balancing Family and Work Life Stephanie Grace SOC 402 Nicole Hanner March 3, 2013 INTRODUCTION America is a driven society. Today more single parents or dual working parents are providing for their children or elderly parents at the highest level in history. The American dream of owning a home, going on a family vacation or even just providing for a family is harder than ever to reach. Many of Americans do not have the ability or knowledge to successfully balance family and work life. The purpose of my paper is to discuss what factors have preceded this change, what can be done to have a healthy balance of family and work life, and what individuals must do to keep a healthy balance. I will discuss and look at the sides of both the employer and employee and what changes organizations are making as they become aware of this paradigm shift in this work load and encourage a healthy work and family balance. TRADITIONAL WORK Traditionally the career path of the 1950’s was designed for male only breadwinners and is still intact and used today. (Giraffe, 2011) Women stayed home to raise a family or an extended family lived together providing familial support. The bread winner entered their career, worked full time every year, and retired later in life. Time was not needed to be taken off of your career to have a family or worry about child care responsibilities. This career path and workforce institution has become archaic and does not fit the needs of today’s workforce much less the working parent’s needs. Family time is suffering as the needs of our jobs become a priority. The schedule of trying to be a bread winner and spend time with family is so consuming it is realistically impossible CREATION OF THE PROBLEM “The quality of fit between an individual's work and family life is a primary issue for families today and a major challenge confronting the

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