The multiple meanings of time binds

Abstract

Most literature on family-work conflict assumes the centrality of work as a source of meaning, and critiques the economic injustices of the market economy (low wages and long work hours) while skirting the issue of the cultural hegemony of the marketplace. I argue that work-family conflict is best understood from the larger theoretical perspective of the hegemony of individualism and families' attempts to resist it. Using data from interviews with parents and teenagers in five upper- middle-class families of affiliated Jews in California, I argue that paid work is not the "master meaning maker" that we might expect, given our understanding of work, professions, and the marketplace as the new hegemonic ideology. Instead, time bind conflicts in families are a symptom of competing allegiances to four sources of identity : the expressive self, the utilitarian self, the extended family, and the community of memory. The utilitarian family expresses its identity through the cultivation of children's talents and through conflicts over the extent to which the children are realizing their potential. The expressive family builds solidarity around the emotional growth of children and fights about the timing and tone of self-expression. The familistic family finds intimacy and conflict in the fulfillment of obligations to fellow family members. The communal family comes together through Judaism and debates the extent to which it will participate in community life.