FAMILIES STRUGGLING FOR TIME - The greatest stumbling block for modern families is trying to find a balance between traditional, quiet family time and the more hectic rush to get the kids to organized sports, piano and dance classes. Modern pressures leave the family with few choices and even fewer solutions.

Has time changed? This is the first thing we need to know. It would, after all, provide an easy villain and the quickest explanation for who stole all of our time and made our lives so out of control.

Unfortunately, no culprit here. Still 24 hours, still seven days a week.

So how did we get here? How did we get to the point where we're running around like mad people from dawn till dusk, shoving the kids off to pre-school care to get to work on time, rushing back to throw them into the car for hockey practice, ballet and Kumon math, taking advantage of our "down time" at 10:15 at night by folding laundry with a cup of tea or glass of wine in hand while watching The West Wing.

What happened to family life? You know, suppers together, family outings, just hanging together?

Time has changed in families. The clock may tick the seconds off the same as always but how families are using that time has changed dramatically in the past two decades. That's not just the gut feeling of parents.

Research by Sandra L. Hofferth of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan shows the pattern of family life has changed most starkly in two areas: Children have less free time and the free time they do enjoy is increasingly structured.

Hofferth took measurements of family life over a 16-year period between 1981 and 1997, detailing the mean weekly hours children ages three through 11 spent on major activities. She found:

* Playing time dropped by 25 per cent, television viewing dropped by 13 per cent, church-going dropped by 40 per cent and outdoor activities such as walking, hiking and camping dropped by 50 per cent.

* The time children spent in organized sports activities almost doubled, household work (mostly accompanying parents on errands and shopping trips) more than doubled, and time spent in passive leisure activities, such as going to a movie or watching a sports event (as in your sister's soccer game), increased five-fold (from one-half hour to just over three hours).

Hofferth's research also showed that mealtimes declined by about one hour per week. That's not a surprise to most of us who try to squeeze something nutritious into the kiddies' bodies between car rides to and from activities. Friends of mine, parents of three active school-age children, jokingly say their current mantra is "Hurry up and get into the car kids, your supper is getting cold."

Will that be the epitaph written for parents of this generation?

Up until this point paid work has taken the brunt of the blame. Employees are often working longer hours, it's taking more than one income to keep up a decent standard of living for most families and there have been dramatic changes in the number of women in the paid labour force. Today, the majority of women with children are employed outside the home.

The Canadian Council on Social Development reported in its most recent Progress of Canadian Children that more families are having trouble balancing their work and family responsibilities. Between 1991 and 1998, the proportion of workers with dependents who reported excess tension due to work/family conflicts increased from 38 to 44 per cent.

The Vanier Institute of the Family's 2000 report said one-third of mothers and one-quarter of fathers experienced stress from trying to balance work and home. The report said absences from work due to family responsibilities cost employers at least $2.7 billion a year and cost the country $425 million in annual extra trips to doctors.

OK. So let's slow the work pace down. Say, have one family member at home full-time or work only part-time in the paid labour force. What picture have we now?

One that's not much improved, according to Bill Doherty, a professor of social science at the University of Minnesota, who penned a book called Take Back Your Kids: Confident Parenting in Turbulent Times. Doherty says that might slow down the pace about 25 per cent. But don't think for a second a stay-at-home mom or dad finds the pace leisurely either.

So then, what is robbing us of our family time? The current culprit of choice is outside activities -- mostly children's outside-the-home, outside-of-school activities. The swim club, the dance classes, the hockey practices and far-afield games, gymnastics, art, piano, soccer, karate, acting, belly-dancing.... You name it, our kids are in it. And if you've got more than one child, may the force be with you. It means driving, scheduling, begging friends for rides and dragging other children along for the game. It means families must work around everyone else's schedule -- ice time, gym time, teacher time and pool time. And often working parents and in-school kids means these times have to be scheduled after five-o'clock. There goes supper. There goes the evening.

And why are we doing this? The explanations are many. First, we've been told to. Children's experts and parenting books have been advising for some time that children need to find activities they can be good at, they need to build successes and self-esteem. And research on brain development through the past two decades has indicated children can and should learn a great deal at an early age. Exposure is good.

Couple that advice with dwindling resources in schools and resulting decreased activity in art, music and some sports and you've got pressure to expose children to activities during after-school hours.

Secondly, parents of the past two decades are a different breed than has been witnessed before.

They waited longer to have children and experienced a higher education and pressured work world before taking on the role of raising children. So they bring to this new role the same zealous energy as they did to their careers.

"I believe it's the competitive, market-oriented adult culture going down into childhood," says Doherty. "Parents are seeing themselves as product-developers with children, trying to give children all possible opportunities so that they are enriched and can compete in the modern world."

But aren't we all just trying to do our best? Aren't the swimming lessons, the piano, the hockey about providing opportunities for success and growth? Aren't we supposed to get the music lessons in at an early age to enhance math skills?

Wasn't Gretzky great at an early age? Aren't Olympic athletes young?

There is, after all, no malice, no intent to torture.

"It's really about parents wanting to do their best, but not advocating then for the importance of family time and unstructured time," says Doherty.

He questions our thinking on this, our priorities. "It's interesting that we've come to define opportunity as something that happens outside of the home."

The question then becomes, why did we have a family? Was it to raise corporate presidents, Olympic athletes and stars? Or was it to create a home where its members enrich the lives of the others in some way?

If it's the latter, then time plays a vital role.

"What is it that families can give each other, if not time?" asks Alan Mirabelli, of the Vanier Institute of the Family.

He argues that time is the foundation of family. Love, security, self-esteem. They cannot be created nor nurtured without time.

"Time is the way that families talk about what's important for them. It's the source of their greatest lament, that they don't have enough family time," says Kerry Daly, director of the Centre for Families, Work and Wellbeing at the University of Guelph and author of Families and Time: Keeping Pace in a Hurried Culture.

So why don't we change?

"I think people are still being swept along in a current that's too strong for them. They're not sure how to turn around and swim the other way," says Daly.

So here's what we need. Heroes. Time heroes. Parents who will somehow buck all the pressure and just say "stop." "I will not take Johnny to Peterborough and Windsor this weekend for hockey games. Pick one." "I will not send Susie to swim practice every day. Two practices are enough." Parents who will say no to their kids when they ask for one more activity that's going to take up the family movie night or Sunday worship time.

Parents have somehow embraced to the extreme the concept of providing opportunities for their children, believing that if a little is good, more must be better. But balance is what experts are now recommending. A balance that makes choices for families as well as children. Some say the cost of what we are doing today is just too high.

"I think we are doing damage. I think we're robbing kids of their lives," says Alvin Rosenfeld, who recently co-authored Hyper-Parenting: Are you Hurting Your Child by Trying Too Hard?

Hofferth, in her study of family time, did not find any real impact on children as a result of the change in how they're spending their time. But she is concerned about decreased time in conversation and on family meals.

"Meal-time is an important time when children and parents can find out what happened over the day. This is not the only time children and parents spend talking, but since just sitting and talking as the main activity also declined dramatically between 1981 and 1997, there may be a basis for concern."

Doherty doesn't recommend kids be pulled from all programs. But he says parents have got to start demanding programs that are more family-friendly. Recreation centres should organize activities that either include the whole family, or offer a wide age range at one time so families can go to the same place at the same time, and meet at the end for some family time.

One example is a U.S. church congregation which recognized the time stresses on family life and reacted by creating a family night. All of its programs were held that night, as well as a large family-style dinner, allowing families to first eat together, then enjoy their own activities.

And if you're looking for heroes, turn to Wayzata, Minnesota, a small school district on the outskirts of Minneapolis. With the help of Doherty, parents there organized Family Life 1st, a group dedicated to reclaiming family time.

"Many families complain of overscheduled, frantic lives .... In the pursuit of more opportunities for children in sports and other worthwhile activities, many parents have surrendered their family schedules to the escalating demands of outside activities. There is a widespread sense among families that they have lost their balance," says information from the Family Life 1st Website. "... More outside choices, without a conscious focus on maintaining internal bonds, leads to hyperactive, emotionally depleted families."

Greg Baufield is a member of this group and is working on a "seal of approval" for organizations that recognize family time is important and structure their activities with that in mind.

* For further reading, check out these Websites: www.hyper-parenting.com and www.familylife1st.org