THE PART~TIME SOLUTION

...Such attitudes are hardly particular to certain professions or to environments like Washington, Philadelphia, and New York...

...But as countless parents have learned, the current system, in which no one has time to spare for anything, is costly in its own ways...

...It hasn't been easy, since it has required that both her husband and her professional colleagues make adjustments: Her husband, also a doctor, often must work his taxing schedule around hers, and her fellow doctors occasionally must see some of her patients and pinch-hit for her when she can't be in the hospital...

...And for the growing number of families experiencing economic strains, there are no options other than both wage earners putting in 40- and 50-hour weeks...

...While I like to complain about having to rush, rush, rush between office and home, it is actually a terrific combination: After a frustrating four hours at the typewriter, nothing looks better than an hour of housework accompanied by a chatty threeyearold...

...That many present and potential teachers would like to work part-time apparently is irrelevant to those who represent the full-time work force...

...For many it's deeply satisfying...

...But in some key ways it hasn't been...

...For the first time I am involved in neighborhood organizations and other activities where the payoffs aren't wrapped up in professional status and salary...

...There's nothing inherently wrong, of course, with working like a dog and making countless sacrifices in order to get ahead...

...These officials apparently have never heard of the volunteer fire departments in rural communities throughout this country, which often show an esprit de corps that their urban full-time counterparts would do well to match...

...But imagine the advantages of waiting till mid-life, when the kids are off on their own, to finally invest the time and energy to be a master teacher, round-the-clock doctor or full partner in the law firm...

...For many couples forced to live like this, all the shortcomings of various child-care arrangements—from understaffed day-care centers to third world housekeepers who plop the kids in front of the television—parenting can be a bittersweet business indeed...

...and while they are fortunate in having landed one of the last low-interest mortgages in D.C., they also live modestly...

...But volunteer fire departments in rural communities show an esprit de corps their urban counterparts should envy...

...She turned down a part-time job teaching law, which would have enabled her to spend more time with her 18-month-old, not only because it would mean a big pay cut but because it would mean sacrificing a prestigious, hard-won position at the top of the career ladder...

...And while I did things a bit differently, delaying childrearing until my thirties, I always assumed that, when the time came, I would arrange my life the way my mother did, except everything for me would be, well, easier...

...Our needs for material goods are low," says Arlene...

...The important but littlerecognized fringe benefits that come from working as a team and tossing ideas around, as well as the sense of accomplishment I often get from working, have greatly improved my outlook on life...

...Tradition gets in the way, too...

...Such resistance to change is one reason unions are perceived by many critics as reactionary...

...These are not reasons, however, for denying such part-timers a chance to work...

...In speaking with people like them, I've come to believe that many young parents—men and women alike—are trying to cram too much into lives that are already stretched thin between jobs and families...

...Not least of the payoffs would be in mothers who were able to contribute in the workplace, and fathers who could play a greater role in their children's lives...

...On the other hand, there have been enormous payoffs...

...I used to hold it against them, but I am beginning to understand that they are anxious with good reason...

...She had been a reporter before marriage, and she was able to land a job with a metropolitan daily near the suburban town where we lived...

...This can be a happy experience for some parents—justas some full-time workers have to drag themselves away from the office at 7 p.m...

...By now I can hear the chorus of voices saying part-time employment may be a solution for some but not for them...

...It isn't perfect...

...It would mean being out of the office when an important client calls, having less opportunity for upward mobility, and having less influence in the workplace...

...The irony is that in helping to uphold a two-tier system, some unions are making it that much easier for employers to divide and conquer...

...It would be naive to argue that all part-timers are happy about the arrangement...

...At least some unions, by contrast, have recognized the trend toward alternative work arrangements, and are capitalizing on it...

...Shortly after my daughter was born three years ago my high hopes ran smack into a wall of resistance among countless employers I approached looking for part-time work...

...Ironically, two months later, I got a call from the director's wife, who introduced herself by saying that she had an infant at home and badly wanted a part-time job...

...I'm not saying it can't work...

...My brother and I—and later our two siblings—used to make a big deal out of occasionally accompanying her on her daily rounds, which began in front of the local police blotter and ended up in the crowded, gritty newsroom...

...The federal Office of Management and Budget has issued a personnel policy that comes close to ordering government managers to increase parttime job opportunities, and you can bet this had more to do with concerns about efficiency than with the administration's save-the-family rhetoric...

...She says the for-profit clinic where she works calls her a "gold mine" because she manages to get a great deal done when she's there—parrly because she doesn't have a moment to spare and partly because she brings an extra reserve of energy to her job...

...A spokesperson for the Washington, D. C., fire department says parttime work would hurt rapport among the crews...

...Her husband, she said, suggested she call me for advice...

...Despite the giant social upheaval during the intervening years, we were being told that we had only two options: working full-time or staying at home full-time— take it or leave it...

...And I thought often of Rick and Arlene, a couple who began splitting child-care responsibilities shortly after their son was born four years ago...

...But I've tried it and wouldn't want to do it again...

...Unlike parents who drop out of the work force altogether, I don't have to anticipate the excruciating experience of trying to reenter the world of work after a lengthy absence...

...but for many, such tensions add an explosive element to the task business schools call time management...

...It's a matter of overcoming a prejudice against parttimers that is by no means unique to professions like medicine and law, where a kind of tribal mentality forces participants to adhere to traditional ways...

...Yet virtually every woman I know with young children and a full-time job wishes she could work part-time...

...But working part-time has not meant giving up on her larger goal of excelling at her work...

...Washington's powerful United Food and Commercial Workers local has negotiated contracts with two major supermarket chains that offer a dizzying array of protections aimed at part-time workers...

...You're simply more likely to encounter them among young urban professionals, the same ones who strike up dinnerparty conversation by quizzing their friends about work, and who in this way and many others are acculturated to put career goals first...

...People who work part-time are commonly viewed as less committed, less driven—somehow "flakier" because they have an identity outside the workplace...

...Most of us have been raised to believe that it is crucial to get ahead during our twenties and thirties...

...It's no wonder some well-paid, full-time teachers, for example, may feel threatened by an eager-beaver who's working away for less than half the salary...

...When a client wants to schedule time during those two days, he simply suggests another time...

...the owner of a small business, for example, probably has to work overtime to maintain control over the operation...

...More immediately, there are many times when my supervisor is forced to schedule my work assignments around the competing demands of my family, and that puts extra pressure on both her and my coworkers...

...And it's hardly surprising that the teachers' unions, among others, are apprehensive about the increasing number of people—many of them parents—who are lining up at the school supervisors' doors, looking for part-time jobs...

...People who work part-time are commonly viewed as less committed, less driven— somehow "flakier" because they have an identity outside the workplace...

...For those who remain skeptical, I point to the case of a young doctor I spoke with who has two small children and works "half time" (30 to 35 hours a week) in Seattle...

...we drive a ten-year-old car...

...I doubt I'll ever make vice president...

...We'd sit around the kitchen table munching crackers while she cross-examined us about school...

...The fact is that even the most committed architect, lawyer, or doctor is often tied up when clients call...

...Many of us have been brought up to believe that if you're a Truly Important Person, you must be on the job around the clock...

...No one I know wants to revert to the era when community volunteers were almost exclusively women...

...I had a discouraging conversation with a spokesperson for the Washington, D.C., fire department, who protested that hiring part-time firefighters would be out of the question because they could never build sufficient rapport with their crews...

...In fact, some six million workers in America are working parttime against their own wishes, an AFL-CIO official I spoke with contended, adding that as long as unions are under pressure to expand the number of full-time job opportunities, voluntary part-timers are likely to get the short shrift...

...I don't mean installing Mom at home full-time with the kids...

...Some say it's like being a performer—once you get on stage, that's almost enough...

...It's a problem most parents are grappling with individually, but it is rapidly becoming a problem for society as a whole...

...The point is that society as a whole should benefit...

...On the other hand, many of those who balk at the notion of working part-time remind me of people who think twice about going on vacation because they're afraid coworkers will find out they're not indispensable after all...

...It might be unfair to argue that any job can be done part-time...

...It isn't hard to imagine what this has done to solidarity in the newsroom...

...Being a good mother or even a good friend seems equally important...

...Indeed, hearing her speak about the exhausting demands placed on full-time doctors makes me think that if given a choice I'd rather be seen by a doctor who isn't on the job 65 hours a week...

...One exception is a friend who just has become a partner in a Philadelphia law firm...

...He predicted that I'd get the same answer at the D.C...

...And the general reaction of the legal profession toward young people who might want, say, to defer partnership 20 or so years is similarly symbolic of many employers' attitudes...

...But for others there are alternatives...

...On weekends they face the Tyranny of the Errand—two days during which the family sandwiches housework and grocery shopping and buying shoes for the kids in between nap time and time with friends...

...Whatever their motives, employers are bound to increase part-time job opportunities in the future...

...It seemed as if the two of us hadn't really come that far since the mid-fifties...

...They have also tacitly put career advancement at least temporarily on hold...

...I like to think that if a doctor can perform in topnotch fashion part-time, anyone can...

...Consider the sobering example I was offered by one government personnel official, for example, of a part-time clerk who does the same work as her full-time colleagues in half the hours...

...others can use part-time jobs as a way to pay school tuition, or to subsidize careers in the arts, or even as a way to gain entry in the work force...

...Parents who are crazy with overwork and the kind of guilt that springs from inadequate time with the kids aren't equipped to put time and energy into the community, whether it's volunteering for the local environmental group, mounting voter registration drives, or helping out at the local day-care center or at Sunday school...

...At the same time, my attitudes toward work have changed: I no longer place an inflated value on what I produce at the office...

...Striking a middle ground, making a compromise between personal and professional demands, appeared to be almost as radical as the notion of working mothers 30 years ago...

...Luckily they are all supportive, tolerant people...

...Parents benefit when they can strike a balance between the demands of a career and home...

...police department, and he was right...

...All this can be true, and yet it tells only part of the story...

...He added, "I didn't know what to expect, and I really liked it ." Their combined incomes from two parttime jobs is small by Washington standards...

...But even when full-time parenting seemed utterly frustrating, I didn't envy parents who both work full-time—who arrive home bushed and put dinner on the table with toddlers clinging to them for attention...

...At the Baltimore Sun, for example, this year's strenuous negotiations between management and the Newspaper Guild resulted in both sides agreeing to leave the growing part-time work force at the paper out of the contract...

...When I suggested that the fulltime job they'd offered me could be split by two mothers—or rather two parents—they were dumbfounded...

...Because part-timers are notoriously productive and greatly increase management's flexibility, many employers are eager to have them—and eager to exclude them from the union...

...Part-time jobs increase the number of job openings overall...

...Ask any part-time journalist, teacher, or other professional what it's like to work part-time and you'll realize that many are so damn grateful for the opportunity they're not about to make big demands on the employer...

...You can't feel solidarity with your fellow teachers, an official of the National Education Association told me, if you check out of the school at noon...

...Because retail stores badly need parttimers to help out on busy shifts, this may be a case of union and management using mutual selfinterest to assist workers who for one reason or another don't want to put in a 40-hour week...

...They now also have a 22-month-old daughter, and both parents work part-time...

...One of the family's longest running jokes involves the time my younger brother begged to have his bedroom painted a sickly mint-green`like the police station ." Luckily my mother worked part-time...

...No one, it seems, need know his secret...

...Like many part-timers, Pat encountered prejudice in her profession but rapidly overcame it by becoming very efficient on the job...

...This is exactly the scenario I envisioned for myself long before the contemporary women's movement launched the notion of working mothers...

...To change it in the long run will require a concerted effort to educate not only individuals but various institutions, ranging from corporate' and government employers to unions and professional associations...

...This seems particularly true in her field, family practice, where I'm also beginning to think real-life experience must add a kind of depth and perspective that workaholic doctors rarely get...

...Deborah Baldwin is associate editor of Common Cause Magazine...

...that system eventually backfired and with good reason...

...An architect I spoke with who is staying at home full-time with two young children commented that you can't work part-time in her profession because "clients need to be able to get a hold of you" at any hour of the day...

...We both felt from the beginning that we wanted to share responsibility for child care," Rick said...

...At the same time my lawyer friends are symbolic of how wrapped up people's identities can get in their jobs...

...We don't have a clothes drier...

...A similar bias runs through the union movement...

...She might cover school board meetings and the like in the evenings, but she was at home in the afternoons...

...If I sound preachy it's at least partly because I at long last managed to land a part-time job and have become so enamored of the arrangement that I plan to hold onto it as long as I can...

...I spoke with a self-employed economics consultant, for example, who takes care of his four-year-old two days a week while his wife, a social worker, is away from home...

...I am spending less time in the office and enjoying it more...

...I got a similar reaction from the director of a congressional research group who said he wanted to hire me full-time but flatly refused to pursue the possibility of a part-time or flexitime arrangement—even one that would allow me to balance short working hours at the beginning of the regular newsletter production with long hours toward the end...

...He compared firefighting with playing baseball or football—you're either on the team or you can't play...

...Pat maintains that her performance has, if anything, improved since hammering out the arrangement...

...Not surprisingly, few men, including my friend's husband, also an attorney, are willing to step off the career ladder, even temporarily, in order to give more time to childrearing...

...It's true, of course, that part-timers generally are not among the most militant employees...

...A typical response was the one I got when I was interviewed jointly by two radio producers who, as it turned out, had children as well...

...I still wince in memory of those days of isolation, when I would strike up conversations with total strangers in the supermarket or chat on the phone enthusiastically with pollsters...

...Similarly, because I often balance my short weekday hours by putting in time at odd moments on weekends and evenings, my husband has had to develop the characteristics of a one-man SWAT team, able to arrive home after a pressure-cooker day at the office and pick up a crying child and partly processed laundry and dishes where I've left off...

...On days when she and I are locked in the kind of witless, draining battle only a child can provoke, nothing looks better than the sight of my hard-driving boss, whose demands typically pale in comparison...