Men-struggle-within-modern-marriage

[wayno]

Think about men's leisure time - or what's left of it. If men ever dare to reflect wistfully on past glory days of patriarchy, high on the list would be the freedom enjoyed by the man of the house to come and go as he pleased. Gone are the days when married men were free to drop off at the pub for a beer or three on the way home from work. Or spend most weekends playing golf, or at the dogs, or tinkering under a car. Men's discretionary leisure time has been shrinking for years, the New England University sociology professor, Michael Bittman, says. He discovered it fell by more than two hours a week between 1974 and 1987. Bureau of Statistics time-use data shows a further drop between 1992 and 2006 of about 45 minutes, with the latest figures showing men average 37 minutes free time a day compared with 30 minutes for women

http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/78145 ... n-marriage

[Tony]

Thanks Wayne,

Another brilliant article by Bettina Arndt, after 31 years of marriage it is so true.

Thanks for posting the link.

Tony

[wayno]

I want more time to bushwalk WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[forest]

Just take the wife with you............ On a really hard trip in the rain.

Then when you wanna go walking you can always invite her ?? I'm sure she will jump at the chance of more wet, hard slogging work in the mud.

Of course that plan could go either way if the weathers fine and the scenery is fantastic. Nothing wrong with that either.

[Tony]

I want more time to bushwalk WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Hi Wayne,

I know what you mean, due to getting injured in a running race on Friday, I was having a quiet day yesterday, I was doing some planning for my next bushwalk, when my wife comes in and starts talking about a list of large scale house maintenance jobs she wants me to do over summer, oh! she just does not understand me (or does she ???).

My daughter finishes uni in a few weeks and as she will start work in February, as planned, I am currently considering retirement which might free some time up.

Tony

[gayet]

Gentlemen

the latest figures showing men average 37 minutes free time a day compared with 30 minutes for women

Please note that you have more free time for your liesure than women do anyway. Stop complaining!

[geoskid]

Gentlemen

the latest figures showing men average 37 minutes free time a day compared with 30 minutes for women

Please note that you have more free time for your liesure than women do anyway. Stop complaining!

Don't the women normally fill in survey forms like that?
I think the definition of free-time used in the survey would differ greatly from mine. We are not in prison or under dictatorial rule. We have a choice about how busy our lives are.

I've always refused to wear a leash, and I don't try to put one on my wife either. No muzzles either. Any restrictions are self imposed. I know when the balance is out, and that is self correcting, because "What is good for the Goose..." I think it's the only(?) way of getting (and giving) the real deal.

[FatCanyoner]

Gone are the days when married men were free to drop off at the pub for a beer or three on the way home from work. Or spend most weekends playing golf, or at the dogs, or tinkering under a car.

You guys all married the wrong women! Considering I have a wife, three kids and a fairly intense full time job, I still manage to get out into the bush more than many of the uni students I know.

[Strider]

Gone are the days when married men were free to drop off at the pub for a beer or three on the way home from work. Or spend most weekends playing golf, or at the dogs, or tinkering under a car.

You guys all married the wrong women! Considering I have a wife, three kids and a fairly intense full time job, I still manage to get out into the bush more than many of the uni students I know.

You say that as though uni students have free time!

[doogs]

Sucks to be you guys
I am married..and I work 25 hours per week, do a 3/4 study load at university and have 2 young children. I still find lots of time to go bushwalking and I go to the pub on a regular basis.

[neilmny]

Gentlemen

the latest figures showing men average 37 minutes free time a day compared with 30 minutes for women

Please note that you have more free time for your liesure than women do anyway. Stop complaining!

Interesting concept that. I note that the coffee shops and cafes are full of women during business hours very few men.
You guys just married the wrong girl. We do almost everything together, bushwalking, kayaking, fishing, travelling around Australia.
Plenty of free time......but we are empty nesters.

[MrWalker]

I just thought I should mention that my wife is very happy to drop me off at the start of a walk and pick me up at the end, so that I can do long, one-way trips instead of having to double back to the start. She does enjoy bushwalking too, but not at my pace, so she does a bit of exploring at the start or end of the trip while waiting for me.

[Graham51]

If you really think about this it's a lot of nonsense. 30/37 minutes free time per day? Yet another survey says we spend an average of 3 hours per day in front of the television. (I think it was about that.) So isn't that free time? And as my son pointed out this morning 30 minutes per day for a year is about 180 hours which is between 7 and 8 days. So one extended bushwalking trip and you've used up all of your free time for the year. Does that make sense? Do these resarchers know what they're talking about? I reckon they could find something useful and meaningful to do with their time. Or even better, scrap the research and have some more free time!

[wayno]

im guessing the respondents had young kids and or were work a holics?

[climberman]

Sucks to be you guys
I am married..and I work 25 hours per week, do a 3/4 study load at university and have 2 young children. I still find lots of time to go bushwalking and I go to the pub on a regular basis.

Judging by your profile pic it's aged you a bit though.

[neilmny]

Sucks to be you guys
I am married..and I work 25 hours per week, do a 3/4 study load at university and have 2 young children. I still find lots of time to go bushwalking and I go to the pub on a regular basis.

Judging by your profile pic it's aged you a bit though.

Nah that's pretty normal for a Tasmanian
( I can say that because I'm a half blood )

[geoskid]

The categories of time from the ABS site makes it easier to understand why reported free time is so small, - 'Commited Time' :

"Aas (1982) proposed a typology which identified four categories of time:

1.Necessary time: includes activities which serve basic physiological needs such as sleeping, eating, personal care, health and hygiene.

2.Contracted time: includes paid work and regular education. Activities within this category have explicit contracts which control the periods of time in which they are performed. These activities, therefore, constrain the distribution of other activities over the rest of the day.

3.Committed time: describes activities to which a person has committed him/herself because of previous acts or behaviours or community participation such as having children, setting up a household or doing voluntary work. The consequent housework, care of children, shopping or provision of help to others are committed activities. In most cases, services could be bought to provide the same activity (eg an exchange could be made of time for money). The unpaid work activities which are identified in the satellite national accounts are all committed time activities.

4.Free time: the amount of time left when the previous three types of time have been taken out of a person's day. Many free time activities are considered as leisure, but not all. Leisure time is subjective and depends on a particular person's point of view. In fact, many activities included in committed time can be considered to be leisure time activities by some people (eg gardening, furniture making). The only way to obtain more free time is for contracts and commitments to be changed as the total time available in a day is constant."

Also, that worrying difference of 7mins Free time can be explained by the extra Necessary time women spend in the bathroom.
If I counted as Commited time all the time I spend Caring for my boys on Bushwalks, I'd have no Free time.
Geez, I work hard.

[doogs]

Sucks to be you guys
I am married..and I work 25 hours per week, do a 3/4 study load at university and have 2 young children. I still find lots of time to go bushwalking and I go to the pub on a regular basis.

Judging by your profile pic it's aged you a bit though.

At least I'm smiling

[Hallu]

I'm not sure how it would play for the men if the women came back home late after a couple of beers... We'd probably think they're cheating on us or something... Anyway, I'm currently single, and I still yearn for more free time, mainly because I don't have enough annual leave to do everything I want to... I'm even considering flying to Sydney or Tasmania over a single week end do overnight walks in the area... It's actually more feasible than driving from Melbourne to the Alps or the mallee country. And the extra free time you get (compared a married guy) during the week doesn't matter, you can't go bushwalking on a week night...

[phan_TOM]

I am married..and I work 25 hours per week, do a 3/4 study load at university and have 2 young children. I still find lots of time to go bushwalking and I go to the pub on a regular basis.

Seems some women can't wait to get there husbands out of the house

[Strider]

Sounds like Doogs is an Arts student

[doogs]

I am married..and I work 25 hours per week, do a 3/4 study load at university and have 2 young children. I still find lots of time to go bushwalking and I go to the pub on a regular basis.

Seems some women can't wait to get there husbands out of the house

Nah, I just choose to live somewhere that's very very easy to combine family life and bushwalking. Well that's what I tell myself anyway...

Sounds like Doogs is an Arts student

How dare you and coming from someone named after a fantasy character too..

[South_Aussie_Hiker]

I am currently considering retirement which might free some time up.

My father in law, and just recently my own father both have told me in no uncertain terms that thinking you will have more free time once retired is just not true.

They have both found that because they aren't working, their time gets committed to other things - looking after grandchildren, doing jobs they've been putting off for years, etc etc.

Both have commented they've never been so busy with so little free time, since the day they retired!

[TerraMer]

I'm not sure how it would play for the men if the women came back home late after a couple of beers... We'd probably think they're cheating on us or something... Anyway, I'm currently single, and I still yearn for more free time... And the extra free time you get (compared a married guy) during the week doesn't matter, you can't go bushwalking on a week night...

LOL!
Single woman here. I love my many hours of leisure time and guilt free bushwalking. I wouldn't dream of cluttering my life up with whinging men who can't get themselves organised to do what they enjoy. Had a guy once who kept blaming me for his lack of free time to go diving and skiing even though I encouraged him every week to go away

[ggorgeman]

That's not a smile, that's a grimace......there's a difference

Sucks to be you guys
I am married..and I work 25 hours per week, do a 3/4 study load at university and have 2 young children. I still find lots of time to go bushwalking and I go to the pub on a regular basis.

Judging by your profile pic it's aged you a bit though.

At least I'm smiling

[Tony]

I am currently considering retirement which might free some time up.

My father in law, and just recently my own father both have told me in no uncertain terms that thinking you will have more free time once retired is just not true.

They have both found that because they aren't working, their time gets committed to other things - looking after grandchildren, doing jobs they've been putting off for years, etc etc.

Both have commented they've never been so busy with so little free time, since the day they retired!

Hi South_Aussie_Hiker,

I know what you mean, I have a lot of friends that have retired in the last five years and half have said that they do not know how they used to have time for work the other half after a while could not wait to get back to work.

I am not sure which camp I will be in when I finally retire, one thing is for sure, my wife has already started a retirement jobs list, I am planning more travelling, bushwalks and more cycling.

Tony

[Strider]

How dare you and coming from someone named after a fantasy character too..

Who?

stride/strīd/

Verb:
Walk with long, decisive steps in a specified direction: "he strode across the road".

Noun:
A long, decisive step.

Synonyms:
verb. step - pace
noun. step - pace

[ILUVSWTAS]

How dare you and coming from someone named after a fantasy character too..

Who?

stride/strīd/

Verb:
Walk with long, decisive steps in a specified direction: "he strode across the road".

Noun:
A long, decisive step.

Synonyms:
verb. step - pace
noun. step - pace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strider_%28arcade_game%29

[doogs]

I was thinking more of this guy: http://www.tonnerdoll.com/lord-rings/st ... nger-north

[ILUVSWTAS]

I was thinking more of this guy: http://www.tonnerdoll.com/lord-rings/st ... nger-north

Ah of course. LOTR guy!!