The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
I would argue that not having a parent at home in the evening (because they are commuting) is the opposite of child-centric. Yes, they get a nice suburban home and parks, but what about parental bonding?
I grew up in a family that had to move around a lot, to the point where I attended 3 different elementary schools, 2 different junior highs and 1 high school. We were not rich but poor. And I SO WISH I had grown up in same neighborhood so that I could've have made some friends in my childhood.
You can go live in different towns/cities when you are older. For kids, I highly recommend for kids to have stable environment with mostly same friends at least until college time.
Anyway, you might feel disconnected. I actually was disconnected, multiple times, from my friends, environment, and had no other possibility but to start from scratch. So I don't even understand why you feel the need to compare, to be honest.
you're not doing anybody any favor dragging kids around the world because of your crappy career goals, it's just being selfish.
If you want to be super good parent, take them each year for a month long vacation somewhere far and exotic (ie very different than their usual environment), that's more than enough.
My dad worked in the oil business in the 80s and 90s and spent months at a time in places like Saudi, Norway, etc. In hindsight, I would never have wanted to move around with him as a kid. Sure I would have liked him at home more, but at least we all knew where home was.
we want our daughters to have exactly that, it's great to see our 2-year-old make friends that she could reasonably expect to finish High School with, and that might even last a lifetime
> a more child-centered approach to parenting
What other approaches to parenting are there? Cat-oriented?
In a capitalist world, bonding isn't something you can consume or trade on the market. It therefore has no value, and no importance.
You can argue about whether or not it'd be better for the kids to uproot once and have mom or dad at home every night, but they are at least central to the decision which implies a much higher degree of importance than you're suggesting.
1) It's not too far,
2) It's exercise - what's not to like?
3) It's always, ALWAYS, the same length of time. Which allows you to plan.
4) It's not too far.
My least favourite commute is on the British motorways, one day it could take the minimum amount of time, the next it could be 4 times longer. This amount of variation adds to working stress levels. It's really difficult to plan to get something 'out of the way' in the morning when you don't even know if you'll be there in time.
(btw, I walked to work this morning.)
we moved slightly farther so it is closer to a ~ 30m walk, and now cycling is more efficient since it is closer to ~ 12m.
i agree that people vastly underestimate the value of this in their lives. (you have to experience it to know what you're missing)
you never really truly appreciate what impact your commute has until you have a 5 minutes walking commute.
I did this at some point for around 1 year. It was awesome.
3) above did not apply though. I had to cross a really busy street (i.e. car traffic) and the pedestrian traffic light took around 2.5 minutes (I kid you not). Depending on that damn traffic light my commute time could be 4 minutes or 6+ minutes. Recall being really annoyed, to the point of hating the traffic light.
No wonder he spends most of the week away!
and yes, 10 kids is can be overwhelming. hell, even 2-3 kids can be overwhelming.
A 20-25 minute bike ride is actually better than a shorter commute because you get just enough exercise every day.
I love the freedom to come and go when I please, and not be held up by seemingly random infrastructure failures that can ruin your whole evening.
I've actually found myself extending the bike route to get a bit more exercise in (when it's not lashing that is).
It could really change the structure of living in cities.
Anyway, I think telecommuting is going to be the norm pretty soon. Commutes would themselves be rare. They might be a lot longer though.
Holograms. Imagine sitting next to a hologram, in a meeting or just in an office setting. This would be amazing, and is coming (I hope).
and now you will be able to work all these additional hours. Your employer will even generously provide you with the good mobile connection, or even with the whole connected autonomous car :)
But it's really annoying and it feels mostly like wasted or very unproductive time.
I would argue that the train is still a better place to work than the car because it has much less abrupt accelerations. I would get motion sick working in a car when driving through a city.
Anyway, the mobile Internet connection still sucks, and in addition the data plans usually are only about 100MB per month. In the morning, I usually try to sleep somehow, but I cannot really, and it fells far less restful than in bed. In the evening, I often try to work but the productivity very much depends on the task. Some task require a constant good SSH connection (Mosh makes it a bit better) and you have to edit files and switch forth and back remotely through apps. If you sometimes have to wait a minute or even if it's only seconds to complete some keystrokes, you get insane. Sometimes I read some research papers, but you don't have a big desk in front of you where you can put other papers, a notebook + computer to look up other things while reading, or make notes, etc - the place is just not there. Also, it's often very loud and other people talking constantly directly next to you. You can try with earplugs or music - but it's just not as productive as you would be in a silent environment.
That is in Germany, the RE4 train from Wuppertal to Aachen and back.
I would move to Aachen and I will move when my girlfriend is finally finished with her education in Düsseldorf + Krefeld (again other cities...).
He said that he use to drive, but that was killing his motivation. He told me is biggest fear is his reliance on the public transport with strikes and transport reliability. Fortunately, both are quite rare in Germany when compared to other countries.
4h commutes ARE normal in the bay area. the transit system is the worst in the world asz compared to general income and overall development of the country
Charles Montgomery wrote a book, The Happy City, about how urban design affects people. He cited multiple studies that showed that long commutes are very detrimental to people's happiness. Long commutes dramatically increase divorce rates for example.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/01/secrets-world...
I still wouldn't consider anything over an hour-long commute, simply because it'd be taking way too much time from the rest of my life.
Structuring your life quality, and structuring out cities for life quality, should become the norm. We should be eager to sacrifice work efficiency.
Unfortunately our civilization took this wrong race-to-the-bottom turn where instead of ten 30 hrs/week jobs we have four 70 hrs/week jobs. This is wrong and unsustainable, and we're going to lose a lot of people to a combination of burning out, family failures, suicides and other bad stuff.
In the century XXI, we should fight the network effect, not embrace it.
I wonder if flying this much is ever a wise decision in light of the health risks: http://www.fastcompany.com/3050543/hit-the-ground-running/wh...
Last week I had to travel, to work abroad for that week. To be there on Monday morning, I flew Sunday just after lunch. I missed around 25% of my weekend and all the "after-work" time and activities I usually have. I just moved (within the same city, a few days before traveling), and my girlfriend had to finish the packing, cleaning and all that fun stuff by herself.
It was not a big deal actually, as it doesn't happen frequently, but - with this post - it got me thinking. Shouldn't we make a bigger deal of it? The fact that companies expects this kind of commitment - very outside working hours - reveals so much about the inequality in the employee-employer relationship.
And I'm not even mentioning the fact that I work on a country where I'm paid x, but was traveling to work in a country where my fellow associates in similar functions are paid 4-5x. :)
Unless his kids are planning to become professional American football or lacrosse players, his justification seems very weak to me.
He's also very wealthy and can afford to give all his kids personal language tutors if he/they want to learn another language. The value of knowing Portuguese in the US is generally not that high (although obviously he's an outlier). They can travel internationally whenever they want. If they moved there, they wouldn't be living or going to school with your average Brazilian, they'd be living in a wealthy neighborhood and going to an English-language international school. They live in one of the wealthiest places in the US, so they probably attend very good schools right now.
Since they're Mormon, many of these kids will end up being missionaries in foreign countries and learning another language anyway and getting a decent perspective on the world outside Connecticut since their living environment as a missionary will be roughly equivalent to the average person wherever they're assigned.
Don't underestimate the importance of high school sports to kids that love them and are in high school. I'd rather my kids have four years of positive team sporting experience than learn Portuguese. One can learn and grow from sports in many ways even if they don't become a professional athlete.
As for what will best help their career, it's probably the stable familiar living environment they currently have at a private school that will best prepare them to get into a good college and do well there. Being good at sports doesn't hurt either for getting into good colleges.
Finally, he can easily sleep in first class for the two direct flights he takes per week and he can spend (potentially, we don't know how much he works on the weekends) Thursday (not sure how much of the day), Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with his family. He can also potentially video conference with them every other evening. And they've probably come with him on occasion.
Here is a question, how many middle level managers or engineers are doing these type of crazy commutes in the US?
The whole conceit of the Concorde was Executives could live in New York and work in London or vice versa.
In your example, you're talking about people for whom the choice of living closer never presents itself, due to unaffordability.
The former is a luxury choice, the latter is a forced circumstance.
It's also amazing to me that after 30+ years, the suburbs are barely built up. It's somehow economically sustainable to move a bunch of people from point A to point B but not to have point A built up with more shops, industry, etc.
I would of waaaay rather of lived in a trailer, and grown up actually having a father around, instead of some distant workaholic male figure that is the "great provider" that allowed an upper middle class lifestyle.
For some I feel being far away making money to send home is the easy way out of having to actually be a parent.
I mean, look around you, there are usually plenty of people who had it damn easy in life. this generates weakness. I am very happy I had to work my way up by myself, no cash cushion, no free apartment when turning 18 etc.it builds character to rely only on oneself, a priceless and one of most important lessons in life.
I say give kids good sporting equipment, give them free quality education (tricky bit in some places, but more expensive isn't automatically better for them), love them, support them and give them freedom, and you are excellent parent. rest is up to them.
While I understand it is not fair to trivialize a typical stay at home mother, it seems we've pushed the pendulum too far to the other side, where the typical working father is damned if he works a lot to pay the bills, and damned if he cuts down in order to take over more parenting duties. He's either a workaholic male or a deadbeat. Can't win.
And yes I realize that some two parent families have reversed gender roles, but the statistics still show the stay-at-home mother and working father are typical, at least in the US.
Taking a 10-hour flight on a weekly basis would be too much for me, but then again he is the founder of an airline, so maybe he enjoys the flight!
I have as of now, approx. 20 minutes with the subway which I think is kind of long. But in my new job (in the process of changing it) it will be less. At summer time I will be able to bike to work in about 20 minutes.
Also, it is a more meaningful place of work IMO. You can do that kind of change too.
You can love your family more than anyone else, but you still don't want to do the chores.
It doesn't make any sense.
In the past, they were workaholics. Now they're just considered to be "passionate".