Creating a better life.

In reading [John] Robinson and [Geoffrey] Godbey's article entitled "The Increasing Prospects for Leisure" (Parks & Recreation, June 1997, pp. 74-82), I was struck by the fact that my own observations over the past 25 years indicate just the opposite. Aren't all of us experiencing a time crunch at work and at home, or is this just an illusion? I would recommend Juliet Schor's bestseller, The Overworked American, which explains that defining the subjective nature of leisure is "analytically suspect and operationally flawed." Professor Schor reaches the opposite conclusion of Robinson and Godbey, by identifying two kinds of work in American society: paid labor and hours of household labor. Household labor consists of hours spent for child care, car maintenance, shopping, cleaning, cooking, traveling to and from work, medical care, caring for the sick and elderly, etc. Using this definition, Americans are actually working hundreds of hours more than they did in 1969.

We have a rich tradition of leaders fighting for a better life for Americans. Our pioneers were there applying political pressure for improved working conditions in the sweatshops in the Northeast at the turn of the century. During the Depression, recreation programs and facilities were looked upon as a pressure valve for millions of Americans without jobs. Now we seem to have a self-imposed gag order because we are part of an institutionalized political environment. Again it is time for us as a profession to capture the imagination and support of the American public. What better way than to fight for more leisure time, more benefits, and more jobs for the American worker? We can enlist the support of our fellow recreators in the YMCAs, YWCAs, Boys and Girls Clubs, and a variety of other nonprofit agencies providing recreation activities. Since so many other industries have a recreation component, we need to enlist their support, as well. Even the travel agency industry recognizes what a shorter week and longer vacations, on the European scale, would do for their industry.

With this free time, we must also lobby for less commercialism and less commercial consumption of leisure. Surprisingly, even disagreeing with Robinson and Godbey's article about the increasing prospects for leisure time, we have arrived at the same conclusion, but for different reasons. Namely, that recreation and park professionals must become an active force for change in the movement for more leisure time. As Robinson and Godbey explain, "Issues such as longer vacations, changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act, the four-day work week, daycare, prompting TV-free days or TV diets, are ones where the NRPA and other professional organizations should be involved, not only in reacting to legislation, but proposing it."

It's time for the NRPA to do something bold, capture the American public's imagination and increase the momentum for public support for what we do. Leading the way for a shorter work week and more vacation time should translate to more public support for parks and recreation. Also, it would help our profession to enable professionals to argue for practicing what we preach. Telling the American public that the benefits are endless, supported by a national campaign to give the American worker more time to enjoy those benefits, would be dramatic and creative. It's good for Americans, good for our profession, and good for our future.

--Jim Stamborski, CLP 

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