Library / Work–Family Conflict
Read this when
The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home
Come home from work to a second job nobody sees? This book gave it a name.
Who it's for
The book gave a name to an exhaustion many working parents feel but struggle to explain, and naming it is often the first relief.
Resentful / Exhausted→Understood / Empowered
Feelings it meets
What it is
Based on intensive interviews with fifty dual-earner couples and observation inside a dozen homes in the 1970s and 1980s, Hochschild documents the 'second shift': the housework and childcare that waits after a paid workday, and which in most of these homes still fell mainly to women.
Where to find it
Paperback (Penguin, updated 2012 edition), ebook and libraries.
Before you start
Heads up: Real couples' marital strain and resentment.
Age: Not rated (adult nonfiction; suggested 16+)
He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds, no. 184
