Lost in Time
From a whitepaper by Doug Bowers, Cooking Trends Echo Changing Roles of Women:
“A century ago, domestic labor took the equivalent of a full work week, mostly related to food.
According to a survey at the time, a typical women spent 44 hours a week preparing meals and cleaning up after them. Another 7 hours each went to cleaning and doing laundry. When child care was added in, women had little time left for leisure.”
Here’s my math:
168 hours a week
-56 assuming I’m getting 8 hours of sleep a night
-40 in the office
- 3 freelance work
- 5 commuting
- 7 showering, getting dressed, doing hair, etc.
-15 eating meals
- 5 driving kids to and from extracurriculars
-1.5 church
- 5 laundry (I think)
- 5 cleaning and other household stuff
- 3 shopping (grocery and other)
- 7 meal preparation (not always cooking, as my kids will point out)
That leaves 15.5 hours a week for caring for kids, doctors’ appointments, haircuts, waiting in lines, reading, blogging, watching “Lost” and general goofing around.
So why do I feel like I’m out of time?
When I was very very young, I visited my great-grandmother on the farm. She drew water out of the well. She cooked on a wood stove. She sewed everything they wore, except overalls.
A huge amount of her time was spent on food. They grew it, raised it, searched the woods for it. They killed it, preserved it, dried it, prepared it, and ate it. Any leftovers (or things we would consider waste) went to the animals.
Could I go back to that time and be happy? Maybe. Could I do as well as my great grandmother did? I really doubt it.
Man, me either. I think of those women often and it cuts down the whining in a big way.