And yet people in certain European countries and tons of other parts in the world with different work attitudes can have tons of free time, despite having children et al.
Which ones are those? I'm from an European country and one of the biggest sources of internal stress for me is just noticing how much of my life gets wasted by having to have a job.
>Which ones are those? I'm from an European country and one of the biggest sources of internal stress for me is just noticing how much of my life gets wasted by having to have a job.
Check out most small towns (200K or less) and villages in places like France, Italy, Spain, Greece, etc -- the one's I know off.
>Didn't mean to imply that. I was just whining about my own life ;).
Heh, I added that part to refer to the original parent's question.
From what I've seen (and lived myself) in such places, work is mostly something you do, quite casually, for 8 hours or so, and then (or even in between work, e.g. with "siesta" etc) there's lot of socializing, slower everyday pace, etc. And everybody knows everyone else. People are not "ambitious" in the stereotypical "make it big" US idea.
That said, this also holds in "smalltown USA" too -- well, except for the unfortunate souls who work as employees in nationwide firms like Walmart, et al. But for those with own businesses, farms, etc, it's mostly like that.
Of course in larger cities you can easily work 14 hour days for shit pay.
they have more free time in small towns because usually your grandparents and parents and in-laws live close by and will help with babysitting (often people these days are only children, so plenty of parents/grandparents available to help), cleaning and cooking, not to mention that in general you live within ~10 minutes commute of your workplace.
North America is a lot more "everybody fends for themselves" than Europe, I mean, here parents will charge rent to their kids and nobody bats an eye, so forget about free babysitting and/or your mom coming over to clean your place and leaving your fridge stocked with leftovers. Not to mention living in sprawly cities with huge commutes in general...
Well, they have free time for "everything else" too.
E.g. kids can just go out and play or go to afternoon classes themselves, they don't have to be constantly supervised by their parents or be driven everywhere, so they get more freedom, and parents gets more self time, for one example.