Word: homely
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...surprised mortals, among them an obscure shepherd or two. It is no wonder that Aphrodite should continue to be so seductive even to this day. Underachieving, oversexed men -- and for that matter overachieving, undersexed men -- keep pounding at this hussy's door, and she is always at home...
Technology alone, however, bears only part of the responsibility for the time famine. All the promises of limitless leisure relied on America's retaining its blinding lead in the world's markets and unfolding prosperity at home. No one quite bargained for the Middle-Class Squeeze, what Paula Rayman, a sociologist at Wellesley College's Stone Center, calls "falling behind while getting ahead." The prices of houses have soared, inflation erodes paychecks, wages are stagnant, and medical and tuition costs continue to skyrocket. So now it can take two paychecks to fund what many imagined was a middle-class life...
Keeping a home and raising 2.4 children, as anyone who has ever done it knows, is a full-time job. The increasing rarity of the full-time homemaker has done more to eat away everyone's leisure time than any other factor. If both mother and father are working to make ends meet, as is the case in 57% of U.S. families, someone still has to find the time to make lunches and pediatrician appointments, shop, cook, fix the washer, do the laundry, take the children to choir practice. Single-parent households are squeezed even more...
Like the ever expanding white-collar workday, this stage of family evolution defies all the expectations of a generation ago. For years, stress research tended to focus on men, and so the office or factory floor was viewed as the primary source of tension. The home, on the other hand, was a sanctuary, a benign environment in which one recuperated from problems at work. The experts know better...
...Jonathan, 4. "And there's maybe 30 minutes every day," says Ron, "when we don't discuss having another child. But where would the extra minutes come from?" Lynne runs the red-hot Manhattan Theater Club; Ron is a partner in a midsize law firm. They live in a home where the telephone cords stretch into every room, and the nanny starts work at 7:30 a.m. "You can imagine what getting out the door in the morning is like," says Ron. Are there regrets? He ponders, "Can we take the added pressure that a second child would bring...