Consider this:
We work less hours than our predecessors, have all the mod cons at our disposal, yet, we always cry we are ‘time poor’, but why?

Imagine getting out of bed, cooking breakfast and the usual stuff, then, loading the cloths into the ‘twin tub’ or worse still, washing them with the ‘wash board’, hanging them out to dry, starching the collars etc.

Then we start making lunch, slicing the bread by hand, that’s if we didn’t have to make it first, then, trying to spread it with rock hard butter.

Then we have to start diner. Peeling and cutting the beans, de-podding the peas, make the stuffing for the chicken, bake something for desert. The list goes on.

Today we have pre prepared vegies, microwaves that can cook in minutes, auto washing machines, dishwashers, non-crease cloths.

We have computers that make writing letters a breeze, even email which saves going to the post office.

We have mobiles that allow us to do business while travelling to and from work, so, why is it that we seem to have less ‘free time’ than our previous generations.

We have day care and after school care at our disposal to look after the kids.

Why is it that we are always ‘time poor’.

How can this be?

Who’s time-poor? Not any of us on OLO! We wouldn’t be blabbering away on this silly forum if we were time-poor…………..would we??

I mean, aren’t there a thousand better things to do than present your views online…. and be knocked around the head for your efforts?

Having said that, I’m awf to the beach for the day! (:>)

Greed!
Our forefathers never had the massive consumption ability we have today. All the wizzbang toys and gadgets, obesity, travel, mortgages etc etc. All deemed as "necessary" in todays society but not even imagined by our ancestors. And the overwork to pay for them. Consumerism drives us ever faster and ever further but at what cost?

The car!
Once people could only live within walking distance of their workplace. In Sydney this led to the inner city becoming a slum. The electric rail and tram network changed this but still restricted people to walking distance plus the time on the train/tram. Once cars come along and the urban sprawl that followed closely behind we have developed the ridiculous situation where people spend up to 4 hours a day travelling to work and back. 20 hours a week wasted in traffic or on trains.

Feminism.
Women used to do a lot of what the OP mentioned. And they did it unpaid as virtual servants to their husbands. Removing women from this bondage and giving them careers has led to the need for child care and outsourcing cooking, cleaning etc. Not suprisingly it is more expensive to have to actually pay for these services rather than them being provided free by housewives and people are having to work harder to be able to afford them.

Knowledge
We are all a lot smarter than our forefathers. We have better schools, new discoveries, the internet, the media etc etc. Keeping abreast of this takes time and I bet we now spend way way more time than our ancestors did reading and learning.

Entertainment is also a lot more prevalent and diverse. How much time do we spend "entertaining" ourselves compared to previous generations? Television, movies, music, drinking, sex, holidays, partying take up much more of our lives than those of our grandparents.

Hi rehctub, interesting post. The first time I came across this expression was in 1985 during a consulting contract for the supermarket chain in the USA called “Vons”. They were trying to profile their customer base for individual stores. For instance, those stores near the Mexican border stocked a broader range of Taco ingredients whilst those in Alaska stocked more vacuum sealed Whale meat (only kidding but you get he drift).
The expression “baby boomers” also has its origins in retail and service delivery profiling.

In order to identify those more likely to buy pre-packed meals (TV dinners), they defined “time rich, cash poor or cash rich, time poor”.

Since then I’ve seen this expression become a political football, a point of derision, a social stigma and a trigger for sectarian vilification. This is sad really because it was only ever intended to increase customer service levels, right product, right place, and right price.

I’m not convinced that the expression has much social validity today because we mostly have more choice and can set our own priorities for how and on what we spend our time. So when you ask the question, “why is it that we are time poor”? It might be more to do with how we set our priorities and our values, and less to do with actually having enough time.

spindoc makes a good point about freedom of choice. If we choose a McMansion, sports car and designer clothes we are more likely to be chained to working long hours or to jobs we don't like.

We do have it in us to slow down, smell the roses if you don't aspire to material wants.

It is not mandatory to join the rat race.

I sometimes wonder just how time poor we really are compared to earlier generations. People tend to watch a lot of TV and sport – you can’t do that without ample free time. If you walk around town, day or night, you see hundreds of people dining in restaurants. On weekends, you see parks full of people. Cinemas and gyms are always busy. Pubs are well-frequented, as is the Internet.

Maybe the nature of leisure has changed. Most relaxation nowadays has become inextricably linked with busy-ness, crowds and spending money. If we have a few spare hours on a Sunday, we’ll probably choose to go to the movies rather spend a quiet afternoon at home. So we don’t get as much opportunity for those many humble, peaceful, free-of-charge, stay-at-home experiences that our ancestors did.

mikk

Your comments on feminism remind me of that old saying: ‘Men work from dawn to setting sun, but a woman’s work is never done.'

Mikk,I don't know where you get your ideas on the past, perhaps you are only a kid, & think that the 80s is the past.

When I was a kid, in the 40s, & 50s life was much more social, & believe me we not only were , but are still, much smarter.

The pubs & clubs shut at 6.00 PM, & entertaining was much more prevalent.

There would be a card night, & a music night in my parents group every week, with the music in the home of the 3 or 4 with a paino. I loved the nights at the one with a pianola, as the music, & therefor the singing was different. Card nights, with a slap up supper for the kids were great too.

The tennis club, & the bowls clubs had dances twice a month, alternate weeks, & everyone went to the moves once a week, or more. I don't remember anyone being "glassed" in those days of no pubs after 6 PM either.

Believe me, the schools were much better. Most kids only went till they were 15, but the teachers, with 50+ in the class, made sure they all did the work. We even had real exams to make sure we knew, & our parents got the exam papers to check on us, & the teachers.

These kids were better educated at 15, than most of todays kids are at 17.

My parents never had to take over the schools job, due to poor teaching standards. We have had to do that with 2 of our kids, one with reading in primary, & one with maths, & physics in senior high.

The big difference was that one wage supported the family. My mother had laa the home/house work done, & still managed a tennis, & a bowls afternoon each week.

I had a couple of years in Rabhal, New Guinea, in the 70s, where, with no TV, this life style still existed. It was great. If you haven't tried it, don't knock it. You have no idea what you've missed.

Everyone has the same amount of time.

HasBeen, you're not smarter at all.

Singing around the piano is the lamest excuse for entertainment I've ever heard of. It's vomit inducing cringe-worthy sickly sentimental crap. What are you a walking 'Family Values' cliché?

'slap up supper'. What are you on.

As Rik Mayall once said,

'Oh, yes! I suppose things were pretty marvellous in 'the good old days'. Four year old kiddies digging coal! Three year old kiddies er, digging coal as well as the four year old kiddies.'

Tell you what, next time you're having a bridge night and all you wrinklies toss your keys in the fruit bowl, count me out!

Hasbeen where did anything you mention refute anything I said in my initial post?

Im sure all you fogeys had a great time in the olden days at your card nights and singalongs but it hardly compares to todays entertainment choices and sheer magnitude of its part in society today does it. Just television on its own dwarfs all the entertainments you mentioned put together. Not to mention Hollywood, print media, newspapers, magazines etc, books, theatre, bands and live music, natural entertainment like beaches, bushwalking, camping, boats, jetskis, surfing etc, the internet, computer games, social networking etc etc. None of this existed in anywhere near the ubiquity it does now back in your day did it?

The point I was making, and on reflection and discussion with others possibly the most important part of why we are so time poor today, is that we spend so much more time entertaining ourselves than previous generations. Just watching television takes up a good percentage of many peoples day let alone all the other things we do for entertainment.

As for being smarter that is just silly.

Houellebecq That has to be one of my favorite quote from (p)rik. Loved the young ones and anything Rik Mayall ever did.

This is an interesting post.. thank you for sharing

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“Feminism.
Women used to do a lot of what the OP mentioned. And they did it unpaid as virtual servants to their husbands. Removing women from this bondage and giving them careers has led to the need for child care and outsourcing cooking, cleaning etc. Not suprisingly it is more expensive to have to actually pay for these services rather than them being provided free by housewives and people are having to work harder to be able to afford them.”

Good point.

Cause I was just reading through thinking how I don’t feel “time poor” and often I am looking for stuff to do but I am at home and can do everything. Yeah hear me roar, and then in the weekend hubby has about two hours tops of maybe cutting grass or sorting the stupid pool out but these two things are only because I don’t want to do them… they are icky.[smile]

He gets up and does breakfast in the weekend and when I potter out we can never really work out what to do and end up kicking balls around with the kids. Certainly makes for happy relaxed little children though.

Anyone try and remove me from this bondage will be doing it with me kicking and screaming.

That's an easy one. Too busy working more to pay taxes that cover life/blood sucking politicians, rates that cover life/blood sucking councilors and lets not forget the dole bludgers and soon to introduced F.B.T!

I'm sure I could think of more things we have to work harder for that do absolutely nothing good for us and give others plenty for nothing!

The Pied Piper

Good for you. Nowadays we have the choice unlike our mothers and grandmothers. I bet your hubby thinks you do more "icky" things than he does LOL

I'm not quite as old as Hasbeen (praise the Gods of Good Music) but growing up in the sixties and seventies was pretty good. The vast majority of kids my age lived in one breadwinner homes, and that breadwinner only worked 40-45 hours a week. Sure, mum stayed home and did the -unpaid- housework, but she still found time for tennis a couple of times a week, and we had wonderful gardens.
Now, most families have 2 breadwinners working 80-100 hours a week. The simple truth is, wages haven't kept up with inflation over the past 40 years. This demonstrates empirically that it hasn't been wage rises causing inflation, but simply too much money in the system.
And the bulk of that money has lodged in the top end of town.
Where in the 70's top CEO's were getting 10-30 times more than the median wage, now it's more like 1000 times.
And because of all that money, the purchasing power of everyone's dollars, rich or poor, is that much less, so we have to work harder and longer, despite all the labour saving gadgets we've developed.
We work, to make rich mongrels richer.

Mikk: “Good for you. Nowadays we have the choice unlike our mothers and grandmothers. I bet your hubby thinks you do more "icky" things than he does LOL”

Yeah I guess so – icky is probably in the eye of the beholder. Hey I listened to a few hours of youtube last night including “I am woman” – someone better do a remake. My mum worked and for me I just cannot imagine getting up and putting on high heels. Generally I wake up and take them off.[smirk]

Grim: “We work, to make rich mongrels richer.”

This world is going strangely sideways the more I think about it Grim. The working people I know have big shopping lists with “want” written at the top. Me too though, I have several lists.

I remember holidays were about going to do something fun where now they seem to be about exhausted people trying to chill.

Kids in pre-school and day-care to such an extent mums are looked on as disadvantaging their children if they don’t shove them in one to “socialize” oh and the best one I heard recently “build immunity”. Wouldn’t it be cheaper for the tax payer to get random people to sneeze on your kid in the street?

It would have to be the right people doing the sneezing, PP.
How long at TAFE do you think, to become a fully qualified immuniser?
Then you'd have to have police checks and child safety checks (don't sneeze too close, and definitely no touching), carry an ID tag (registered sneezer) pay for a license...

Grim:”It would have to be the right people doing the sneezing, PP.
How long at TAFE do you think, to become a fully qualified immuniser?
Then you'd have to have police checks and child safety checks (don't sneeze too close, and definitely no touching), carry an ID tag (registered sneezer) pay for a license...”

Oh and you’d have to tested for all the nasty diseases and probably not allowed to sneeze on anyone if you’ve had a tattoo in the last 12 months. Probably do regular refresher courses. Why is everything so complicated?

And of course time consuming.

Now and again there comes an insistence from DoCS that a foster child goes to pre-school. This I don’t understand given the socializing and communicable disease they have the full benefit of in my home. My time costs the taxpayer zero while day-care/pre-school placements are subsidized up to 100% in some cases.

So while some people may feel “time rich” they are certainly paying for others peoples and departments decisions to use up unnecessary and expensive time.