Publisher Description
Can working parents in America—or anywhere—ever find true leisure time?
According to the Leisure Studies Department at the University of Iowa, true leisure is “that place in which we realize our humanity.” If that’s true, argues Brigid Schulte, then we’re doing dangerously little realizing of our humanity. In Overwhelmed, Schulte, a staff writer for The Washington Post, asks: Are our brains, our partners, our culture, and our bosses making it impossible for us to experience anything but “contaminated time?”
Schulte first asked this question in a 2010 feature for The Washington Post Magazine: “How did researchers compile this statistic that said we were rolling in leisure—over four hours a day? Did any of us feel that we actually had downtime? Was there anything useful in their research—anything we could do?”
Overwhelmed is a map of the stresses that have ripped our leisure to shreds, and a look at how to put the pieces back together. Schulte speaks to neuroscientists, sociologists, and hundreds of working parents to tease out the factors contributing to our collective sense of being overwhelmed, seeking insights, answers, and inspiration. She investigates progressive offices trying to invent a new kind of workplace; she travels across Europe to get a sense of how other countries accommodate working parents; she finds younger couples who claim to have figured out an ideal division of chores, childcare, and meaningful paid work. Overwhelmed is the story of what she found out.
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“Why is life so insanely busy, and whatever happened to leisure time? Tavia Gilbert narrates Schulte’s
provocative answers to these questions and more, inhabiting the author’s
presence as the sometimes puzzled, sometimes frazzled woman seeks to understand
the quandary on a personal and professional level…Gilbert’s narration makes
the author’s story funny and insightful. Her pacing is also excellent, allowing
the implications of Schulte’s meticulous research to sink in and inform today’s
harried families.”—
AudioFile
