Home alone: September 23, 1996 issue of New Thinking

September 23, 1996 New Thinking:
Home alone

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September 23, 1996

Home alone

By Gerry McGovern

More and more of us are working at least part of our week at home, and it looks like this trend will continue as we move forward into the digital age.

Many complain that as a result of working at home the line between work and personal life is blurring, and that ironically, we end up having less time to ourselves and with our family.

I think there is a way to avoid this scenario. It requires a new approach to the type of work we do, how we do it, why we do it and how we see ourselves in relation to our work.

Think of the relationship a child today has with their parents. Let’s assume that both parents are working at jobs away from home. The parents come home in the evening. It is not unusual for the father to sit down at the TV, while the mother pops something into the microwave. After the evening meal, the dishes are put into the dishwasher, and then it’s back to the TV.

The parents may be working very hard during the day, but the children don’t see that. They see a father who spends his time on a couch and a mother who heats up, rather than makes the dinner. They only relate to their parents as workers in an abstract way.

Okay, back to agricultural age work patterns. Parents worked very hard then, but they didn’t worry too much about having time with their children, because their children were there working with them, learning how to do things, connecting with their parents.

If we could fashion digital age work so that it was a family process, then I feel we could achieve a number of positive objectives. Firstly, children would be immersed in a total educational process, as they learn from their parents various skills. Secondly, the children would be helping their parents at work and thus everyone would be better off. Thirdly, the family should become closer as a unit, since it is spending more time together in an active and productive way.

Such an approach will not resolve emotional needs, but the fact that families can spend more time together is surely more positive than a process which gives them very little time.

Family farms were family entrepreneurs. The digital age increasingly looks like an age where entrepreneurship is vital for survival. The secure, pensionable job that was a hallmark of the Industrial Age is becoming less and less secure.

On the farms of old, there was no such thing as the right to work. The land was there; if you worked it well, you made a living. If you didn’t, you didn’t. As I’ve said before, information is the land of the digital age. Many crops can be grown on it. Many products and services can fatten on it.

Strong, cohesive families made a success of the land around where I came from. Children learned from the university of life. If we could follow such an approach in the digital age, then we could make a living, give our children skills and mould a family.

Things might not work out so perfectly, but it is a model that is worth investigating.

Gerry McGovern

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If we could fashion digital age work so that it was a family process, then we could achieve a number of positive objectives.