More Time Together/replies/book - 4/5/00

Wed Apr 5 15:44:33 EDT 2000

from: Smart Marriages 

<< She (Gov of Arizona) is threatening
 to veto the whole package - all TANF expenditures for the state - 
because 
 she is against the marriage portion.  >>

It would be interesting to start seeing politicians taking heat for being 
so 
anti or neutral about marriage.  
Scott Stanley
_________________
Food for thought:  
>Dr. Jean Bonhomme, Men's Health Network(MHN) Board member and founder of the
>Black Men's Health Network, calls for the creation of
>a men's health specialty, a continuing MHN goal.
>
>Dr. Bonhomme:
>. . .Dr. Bonhomme advocates creation of a men's
>health specialty to address male issues. "There's no
>specialty in the health system with a male face on it
>like there is for women," he said.
>"Obstetrics-gynecology attaches a lot of women to the
>health care system"
> 
>Specialization would raise awareness of health
>problems, such as prostate cancer, and make the system
>more user-friendly, he said. "Men would come if they
>saw a health care field that addressed their specific
>needs," he added. . . . .î
_____________________

Featured in the May 2000 Edition of Playboy:

>From Courtship to Courtroom
What Divorce Law Is Doing to Marriage...
By Jed H. Abraham

ISBN: 0-8197-0692-2
Paperback * 169 Pages * $14.95

This riveting, fast-paced book is concerned about the
future of marriage. Author Jed Abraham shows why
many men are hesitant to marry, why women start most
divorces, and why their children are so deeply
troubled.

The chief culprit, says Abraham, is divorce law.

When the average marriage begins to pale, and the
parents contemplate divorce, the mother is welcomed by
the law with an array of incentives to go ahead with
it. These incentives include custody of the children,
child support, alimony, and a significant share of her
husband's property, even when the breakdown of the
marriage is her fault. Conversely, a father can expect
to come out of divorce with corresponding losses of
children, income, and property--and with the full
power of the State marshaled against him to enforce
his compliance. As divorce on these terms has become
commonplace, men find that marriage has become
emotionally and financially too risky. With the
consequent breakdown of marriage as a stable
institution--the odds of divorce are about
50%--children lose the protection and security that
only an intact family can provide, and they react with
aggressive and rebellious behavior.

>From Courtship to Courtroom describes how the law came
to produce these terrible, largely unintended
consequences, and it offers help to beat the steep
odds of divorce. It makes practical suggestions about
selecting the right mate, negotiating pre-nuptial
agreements, and, most importantly, changing the law.
It is a jargon-free, quick read, tinged with satire
and caustic humor. Politically incorrect, but timely,
it challenges some of the most important "family
values" issues that impact the presidential campaign.

For anyone thinking of marriage, or going through
divorce, this book is a must.

Jed Abraham practices divorce law and mediation in
Evanston, Illinois. He holds a BA (Phi Beta Kappa)
from the University of California at Berkeley, an MBA
from New York University, and a JD from Harvard Law
School. He is the principal author of Illinois' joint
custody legislation and has published widely on
divorce law reform in academic and professional
journals and in the popular media.

Available at your local bookseller, online at

www.amazon.com 
www.bn.com

and at

Bloch Publishing Company, Inc.
118 East 28th Street, Suite 501, New York, NY 10016
Website: www.blochpub.com

Critical Acclaim for
>From Courtship to Courtroom
What Divorce Law Is Doing to Marriage...
By Jed Abraham

"If my readers asked me for the one book I would
recommend above all others about divorce...Jed
Abraham's From Courtship to Courtroom is it. Read
it...and inform yourself on every page."
Asa Baber, Men Columnist
Playboy Magazine

"This book challenges fair-minded men and women to
reclaim control of their marriages, the fruits of
their labor, and most of all, the wellbeing of their
children...Thanks for your courage in saying what so
many are feeling."
Professor John Guidubaldi
Kent State University 

"This is an excellent resource for fatherhood
advocates who want to get politically involved."
Carey Roberts, Ph.D.
The Liberator

"The book is neither ponderous nor accusatory but
fast-paced and highly readable--all the more so for
its occasionally caustic humor...If there is one book
that fathers' activists might profitably place in the
hands of legislators--short, sharp, and shocking--this
would be the obvious choice."
Stephen Baskerville, Howard University
Fathering Magazine - FatherMag.com

_________________

This is interesting.  First we read that we're having more kids
- birth rates are up for second and third chidlren - then we read that 
only children are becoming the norm. And, the piece after this one talks 
about having more time with our kids
than ever before.  - diane 

MSNBC March 31, 2000
Only children on the rise  PHILADELPHIA March 31 - Being an only child 
can be both a blessing and a curse. It¹s estimated that a third of all 
couples are having just one child. More families than ever will soon be 
dealing with the perceived pitfalls of ³onlies.²

MIRANDA HAS A basketball court to herself, a room, time and her parents 
to herself. 
³You learn to share at school and stuff,² Miranda said, ³but you didn¹t 
have to share at home.² 
Though she is an only child, recent research shows that Miranda is not 
alone. When it comes to kids in the family, one is a growing number. The 
US Census Bureau expects the trend to continue. 

An estimated 20 percent of children under the age of 18 are ³onlies.² 

Experts say they are turning out just fine. ³Children from single 
children homes are just as well adjusted as children who come from 
households where there are five, ten kids in the home,² said child 
psychologist Jennifer Kelley.

 The rise in two career families, later marriages, and an elevated 
divorce rate has contributed to a down size in the number of kids under 
many roofs. 

³It may be better to have one child and have that child have relations 
with other people,² Kelly said, ³than for you to have another child just 
for that peer and not to be able to afford and give it the energy that 
the child needs.² 

Parents deciding to have only one child should take extra steps at an 
early age to ensure that their child¹s social skills, independence, and 
understanding of sharing are up to par. 

³Make sure that they have lots of opportunities to be around other 
children, not just for an hour or two, but to interact with them over 
long periods of time,² Miranda¹s mother, Sarah Brownlee, said. 

Convenience is key. 

With her friends Andrew and Robert across the street, Miranda doesn¹t 
have to go very far for close friends. ³I have like a brotherly-like 
relationship with a boy across the street,² Said Miranda, ³His name is 
Andrew, and we play together, and we hang out and stuff.²

**************

More Time Together 
 A new nationwide study finds mothers these days spend a bit more time 
with
their children than moms did in 1965, while today's dads spend nearly 
twice
as much time with their kids. 

By MARY MCNAMARA, MARTIN MILLER, LA Times Staff Writers
March 27, 2000

     Parents still obsessing about the quality-versus-quantity time
conundrum can relax. 
     Both working and stay-at-home moms spend slightly more time caring 
for
their children than their own mothers did, and dads spend almost twice as
much time as their fathers did, according to a University of Maryland
researcher and family demographer. 
     Mothers spent an average of 5.8 waking hours a day with their 
children
in 1998, compared with 5.6 in 1965, despite the fact that the percentage 
of
mothers employed outside the home has nearly doubled in the last 30 years,
according to a new study of more than 1,200 people across the country. 
     Meanwhile, the time fathers spent with their children almost doubled,
from 2.7 hours in 1965 to four hours a day in 1998. 
     "For a long time, family researchers have been looking for negative
effects of maternal employment on children," said Suzanne Bianchi, a
coauthor of the study. Bianchi was in Los Angeles over the weekend for a
gathering of the Population Assn. of America, of which she is president.
"And some studies have found effects for specific time periods or
groups--the first year of life or middle-class sons--but always very small
and not necessarily borne out by the overall literature." 
     How can this be? Well, for the mothers in the audience, the answers
may seem obvious: Modern mothers in general do less housework (as much as
six fewer hours a week), and employed mothers report getting five to six
fewer hours of sleep and having 12 fewer hours of free time than their
non-employed peers do. 
     Although a study quantifying their experience may not buy them any
more downtime, Los Angeles mothers appreciate the validation. 
     "I'm glad to hear about it," said Carla Ford, a lawyer for the U.S.
Attorney's office in downtown Los Angeles and mother of 2-year-old 
Nicholas. 
     Ford leaves for her 50- to 60-hour-a-week job about 7 a.m. Her
husband, Michael Kinberg, is a screenwriter and works from their Los
Angeles home; by the time Ford returns home, he is usually preparing 
dinner
so she can spend time with Nicholas. 
     "We play on the computer or with his blocks," Ford said. "It's great
[that] when I come through the door, I don't have to put on my apron." 
     Bianchi's results come as no surprise to Cindy Wilson, an office
manager of a law firm and the mother of two kids, who says children change
a person's priorities, including sleep patterns and leisure choices. 
     "I think any parent immediately becomes less self-absorbed," said
Wilson, who lives in Palos Verdes Estates with her husband, Chris, and two
children, Kristina, 13, and Scott, 10. Her dedication to family time has
taken on a slightly heroic cast, since a favorite family outing is 5K 
runs. 
     "I walk them, and I enjoy the scenery," she said. 
     Margo Lyons, an administrative assistant at UCLA Medical Center and
the mother of girls ages 11 and 25, said her daughters come first. 
     "My kids have always been my priority," the Chatsworth resident said.
"I never feel like I give up things to be with them. . . . We do 
everything
together." 
     Other working mothers say they sacrifice home-cooked meals and
squeaky-clean kitchen floors to ensure that their at-home time is spent
with their kids. 
     "The decline in housework is very dramatic," Bianchi said. "The time
spent with children is not. Women decide what their priorities are, what 
is
most precious, and at the top of the precious list is time with their
children." 
     Extra effort on the part of parents is not the only factor at work,
however. Just as important, Bianchi said, is the decrease in average 
family
size and an increase in mothers' educational levels. 
     "The working mother in 1965 was more likely to be high-school
educated, with four or five kids," Bianchi said. "So first of all, her
attention was more divided. And the research indicates that the more 
highly
educated the mother, the more time they spend directly with their 
children." 
     Working mothers do spend less time with their children than their
stay-at-home counterparts, although the discrepancy is not as large as 
many
might think--about 15% over a typical 18 years. 
     These findings emerged from a study Bianchi and colleague John
Robinson conducted to discover what, exactly, Americans do in their
non-work time. Using a 1965 time-diary study done by researchers at the
University of Wisconsin as both a model and a comparison, they did
telephone interviews with 1,200 men and women around the country, asking
them to "walk through" their previous day, describing exactly what they 
did
at what time, and who was with them when they did it. The time-diary
approach is considered more reliable in charting people's actual 
activities
than merely asking them how much time they spent doing this or that, which
often elicits responses that overestimate time, Bianchi said. 
     "Time with children is especially hard," she said "because so much of
it comes in snippets. And people can unintentionally skew the numbers if
they know you are asking about children, because of the emotional
attachment." 

* * *     But Bianchi, whose work has long dealt with family and gender
issues, was particularly eager to ascertain the figures dealing directly
with mothers and children. 
     Her determination was sharpened, she said, by a commencement speech
President Clinton gave last year at Grambling State University in
Louisiana. Quoting a new study by his Council of Economic Advisers, 
Clinton
claimed that parents now spend 22 fewer hours each week at home. 
     "The implication was that these were fewer hours parents would spend
with their children," Bianchi said. "They were simply subtracting the
additional hours spent in the workplace from an assumed number of hours
spent with children. We have these assumptions, and I was interested in
finding out exactly what was happening in that time." 
     One thing she discovered is that we may have overestimated the time
mothers spent with their children in the past. 
     Citing a 1996 study done by researchers at Cornell and the University
of Utah, Bianchi claims that the time mothers spent with their children 
was
virtually unchanged from the 1920s until the 1970s, when it began showing 
a
slight increase, probably because of decreased family size. Even though
most of these women were stay-at-home mothers, Bianchi said, much of their
time was spent in very real domestic work--young children were often cared
for by an older sibling or grandparent. 
     "I am a baby boom child," she said. "And my mother looks at my 
husband
and me and says, 'I wish I could have done the things you do with your
three.' Which is shocking to me since she was a stay-at-home mom, but then
she had six of us." 
     Bianchi does not believe that her studies are by any means
definitive--her limited data do not enable her to draw any conclusions
about the effects of race or culture on family trends--factors she 
believes
are probably very important. She and Robinson are in the midst of another,
similar study with a broader participation base, and she hopes her
presentation at last week's conference will help generate interest in 
these
issues. 
     She said her findings do seem to be borne out by similar studies at
universities around the world. 
     But she also wants to take the discussion one step further. 
     "The bigger question that I haven't answered is: So what? How
correlated is time [spent] with children with how well they turn out? That
will be a very difficult thing to measure." 

* * *     Mary McNamara can be reached at mary.mcnamara at latimes.com, 
Martin
Miller at martin.miller at latimes.com.

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