![]() ![]() But probably some of this increase is due to self-help that we have been forced to administer, post-pandemic, and, regardless, can the Census Bureau accurately capture the nuances of what “sleeping” looks like with three children under the age of six and a half? I’m not sure I need a national survey to illuminate my diminishing leisure time, and the depressing ways I choose to spend it (Duh.) Sure, according to the study we’re also investing more time in “personal care activities”, a bucket which largely includes sleeping but also “grooming”, though I’ll be the first to admit that I no longer have to expend any time filing my nails because they are basically nubbins (thank you, anxiety!). Instead of leisuring, since 2003 we’re working more and caring for small children more. When I read an article by a Bloomberg columnist, who crunched the ATUS numbers to pull that stat to the forefront, I thought, If no one else in my life ever really sees me, at least the Bureau of Labor Statistics does.Īsk any geriatric elder like myself, and it’s no real shocker why this is the case. To pluck just one of many: Americans across all ages spend vastly more time watching television than doing literally any other leisure activity, including socializing, playing sports, reading, or “relaxing and thinking”, that Shangri-La of all time-use buckets, and one last successfully engaged in by Cicero.īut the worrying one for me pertained to those of us between 35 and 44 years old, the so-called “elder millennials” (a phrase I cannot read without flashing back to the moment when my obstetrician labeled my pregnancy “geriatric”, instantaneously evoking the image of my husband holding my walker as I nursed): apparently, we spend the least amount of leisure time of any other age cohort, and the least ever reported for our cohort since the survey was first released in 2003. The latest report, using data from 2021, reports all sorts of depressing statistics. The study by the US Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics measures how people spend their days – working, exercising, housekeeping, eating and the like. My place on this “smile curve” took on new urgency when I came across the data from this year’s American Time Use Survey. But, I recently learned, we millennials may find ourselves uniquely screwed as we approach that low point in the curve. This has been the case for anyone in mid-life for some time, with some studies pinpointing our most unhappy year to be precisely 47.2. Though I consider myself decently happy – my kids are adorable and often astonishing, I have a strong marriage and enjoy my career, plus I no longer have to face lunchtime anxiety in the school cafeteria – I am, it seems, statistically fated to languish in the nadir, next to other sad, anxious, sleepless swamp creatures also living in the squeeze, with ageing parents and young children, and a veritable potpourri of stressful situations to sprinkle throughout my days. ![]()
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