In the popular imagination, life in a dual-income family is "Stressed, Tired, Rushed," as a recent New York Times headline put it. A just-released Pew Research Center survey found that 56% of working parents say the balancing act is difficult.
Look at the upper ranks of professions, where the hours are long, and it seems the situation must be more dire. At one of my workshops recently, a woman mentioned a rule of thumb that any given couple (particularly those with kids) could work 100 hours a week (total) before things fell apart. In theory, that would mean that only only person per couple could have a big job. If someone’s working 80 hours, the other person could only work 20.
