2-Career Family Dilemma: Balancing Work and Home : Poll: A substantial number would quit work and stay home with their children if they had the opportunity.

Haunted by anxiety about spending too little time with their children, nearly 40% of fathers and 80% of mothers in Los Angeles and Orange counties say they would quit their jobs, if they could, to rear their children at home.

Most parents say they are often overwhelmed by the responsibilities of child-rearing and worry about whether they are doing a good job of it, according to a Los Angeles Times-commissioned survey of 1,000 households in the two counties.

Some social historians say the findings reflect a “new realism” about the financial and emotional toll that an 80-hour work week inflicts on dual-earner families.

“We’ve reached a time when we’re more realistic of what the costs are of full-time employment for two-earner families,” said Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, a social historian and consultant with the Chicago-based Public Policy Assn. The top two responsibilities of parenthood--providing financial security and passing on values--are on a collision course that will continue at least through the decade or until the economy eases, she said.

The telephone poll, conducted July 19-23 by Irvine-based Mark Baldassare & Associates, surveyed an equal number of men and women, evenings and weekends, in English and Spanish. The margin of error is 3 to 5 percentage points.

Among other findings on the state of the family:

* Many cannot live up to their ideals of even the most mundane family traditions, such as eating dinner together.

* Los Angeles County parents perceive crime as the top problem threatening their children, while Orange County parents think substance abuse is the greatest threat.

* Parents are apparently motivated to join the rat race by what is also one of their biggest concerns in rearing children: money.

“Every day is a challenge and a balancing act,” said single mother Linda Sonnonstine, 42, of Irvine, who left a corporate communications job in Los Angeles for one in Long Beach to reduce her commute and have more time for her son, Benji, 13.

“Something suffers, either the child, the relationship with your significant other, or the job,” she said.

On the bright side, the poll suggests that Southern Californians, whether mainstream or non-traditional, care profoundly about family life.

Altogether, about eight in 10 said the most important things in their lives are family and children, marriage and love, and financial security--more important than work and career or leisure time. Two-thirds also called family and love life the most satisfying aspects of their lives.

But that focus often turns to guilt for spending too little time with the children, according to 57% of the fathers and 55% of the mothers.

For Benay Clark, facing her 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Mallory, before her husband takes the girl to day care each morning is “a real struggle.”

Sometimes, Mallory clings to her; she says she’s scared; she asks why Clark has to have a job.

“I’ve cried on my way to work many times,” said Clark, a 35-year-old administrative clerk living in the West Hills area of the San Fernando Valley.

Irene Quintanilla Smith, who runs the child-care center where Mallory spends her days, said she often sees tears on parents’ faces as well as children’s. Mothers and fathers tell her they “had a parent home when they were children and they wish they could do the same. But they can’t,” because their financial situation forces them to work.

Eighty-six percent of residents in Los Angeles and Orange counties agreed with Smith and said two incomes are necessary.

Working parents, particularly men, believed strongly that the demands of the job are taking a toll at home. A little more than half of the men said the job they are doing as a parent has suffered “a lot” or “some,” contrasted with 39% of the women who felt that way.

In 1983, Pat Donovan, 42, was divorced and given custody of his two children. For two years, he continued to work long, erratic hours at Bendix Field Engineering near Barstow, squeezing in trips to the beach and the zoo on the one weekend a month he had off.

Five years ago, he decided that his children needed him more than he needed his job: “If you neglect your car long enough, it’s going to break down. If you neglect your children, something down the line will happen you’ll be sorry for.”

So Donovan moved his family to Morrisville, N.Y., took a job with better hours and devoted more time to his family. With his children in their teens, he has returned to California and a better-paying job in Pasadena with his former employer.

Donovan realizes that his salary has suffered as a result of his focus on child-rearing. But the daily rewards of watching his children mature, seeing his daughter in her dance recitals and his son in wrestling tournaments more than compensate for any slippage on the career ladder, he said.

Psychologist and syndicated columnist Dr. Joyce Brothers attributed the closeness many men feel to their children to changes in domestic attitudes and behavior. In America today, only 10% of the homes fit the traditional “breadwinner” model where the father goes off to work and the mother stays home to take care of the children, according to a study by the Ford Foundation.

Fathers have “held more crying infants in the middle of the night; they’ve fed them, rocked them, changed their diapers, to say nothing of talking with school and camp counselors and attending PTA meetings,” Brothers said.

Unlike Donovan, only 28% of the fathers reported the demands of parenthood have hurt their work careers, while 41% of the mothers believe family priorities have forced them to scale back their careers.

The findings helped confirm a June survey by Catalyst, a New York-based not-for-profit research and advisory group that found a majority of corporate human relations professionals still perceive work and family conflicts to be a “women’s issue.”

“There’s a lot of pressure now for men to say they would like to spend more time with their families,” but little evidence showing they do, said Mary Mattis, vice president of research for Catalyst. “For the most part, women are still working two jobs.”

Dr. Rebecca Wexler had just begun a residency program in radiology when her second child, Rachael, was born last year. There was no question what she would do: “I wanted to be at home with her when she was little.”

The Pasadena resident knew she might not be able to get back into the extremely competitive radiology program. “People may look down on the fact that I interrupted this residency,” she said.

She and her husband, Tony, who is completing his doctorate in mechanical engineering, are also well aware of the financial implications of their decision. “The mean salary for radiologists is $160,000 a year,” Tony said with a smile.

Tony believes he devotes more time to child care than his peers. He feels close to his children. But he would not have made the career sacrifice Rebecca made. He is unsure why, but suspects that his wife, by bearing and breast-feeding the children, developed a stronger bond. “Women’s stake is much higher,” he said.

For her part, Rebecca remains strongly committed to her career. When the children are napping, for instance, she reads her radiology journals. But she does not regret her decision.

Parents who were polled tended to idealize family togetherness, ranking family activities as highly important.

For instance, 95% of respondents agreed in theory that a good chat about school or other children’s issues is important, 86% believe in the importance of having regular family dinners, and 82% say that families need to go to the movies or the beach together. But in practice, many fell short of reaching their ideals.

Only three-quarters said they managed to talk with their children about school and other children’s issues. Single parents said they talk less with their children, and attach less importance to doing so. And only 66% said they have a regular dinner hour together.

The largest gap fell between those who felt it was important to attend church services, 65%, and those who said they actually attended, 48%.

The poll also confirmed what is already apparent to many--that family forms are changing.

Three in 10 households with children are so-called “blended families”--including children from previous marriages; 18% of the parents are rearing their children alone and often facing even more difficulties than their peers in two-parent families.

Melissa Thompson of Altadena is studying at Cal State Los Angeles to be a teacher. The 22-year-old woman also works full time at the Caltech Children’s Center in Pasadena. But she cannot afford to send her children there.

So each morning she drops her 5-year-old off at a public school and her 6-month-old at a baby-sitter. After work, she picks up the children and takes them to her mother’s house, where they remain while Thompson attends classes. At 9 p.m., Thompson picks up the children and returns home, “and then the children want time with me.”

“Sometimes, when I need to get somewhere and have absolutely no one to turn to to baby-sit, or I’ve just been paid and I know money has to go to rent, bills, car payments and I need to go to my mother for food, I think, ‘Goodness gracious, is it worth it?’ ”

Invariably, she said, she looks at her children and concludes that it is.

Residents in Los Angeles and Orange counties responded almost identically on most questions, such as considering two children the ideal family size or giving television the lowest priority as a family activity.

But Los Angeles residents were more disappointed with their finances, careers, love lives and families than are Orange County residents.

Orange County residents--particularly women--ranked leisure time as more important than did their counterparts in Los Angeles or either group of men. In fact, 75% of the Orange County women rated it as a “very important” feature of their lives.

Nearly one-third of Los Angeles residents said Los Angeles County is a “poor” place to rear children, contrasted with only 12% in Orange County.

In both counties, childless families perceived drugs and alcohol as the biggest problem for parents rearing children today. Parents in Orange County agreed, but Los Angeles parents said they were most concerned about crime.

Peach Manion, 67, was born in Los Angeles and has seen the stresses of city life influence three generations. Her parents lost their Silver Lake home during the Depression. As Peach and her husband, Pete, reared their own five children, now ages 31 to 44, they worried about alcohol and, later, drugs.

Now, Manion finds herself waiting up and worrying about gangs and crime and other urban problems until her 18-year-old grandchild, who lives with her parents across the street, comes home at night.

Still, she thinks growing up in the city has been good for the girl, as it was for her children, giving them a rounded and realistic view of the world, said Manion, adding, “I love this community.”

In both counties, parents also worry about schools and lack of time in rearing their children. In Orange County, twice as many people as in Los Angeles worry about the expense of rearing children. Several of them--including the most affluent--complained about pervasive materialism.

In the affluent community of Fullerton known as Sunny Hills, homemaker Cindy Huff, 39, said all the teen-agers have their own cars, Nintendo sets and the equipment and lessons for any sport to which they’re drawn. Her three sons have all been to private schools, taken lessons in violin, swimming, gymnastics, performing arts and various sports.

“If you can buy shoes for it, we’ve done it,” she said. “It’s a very ‘have’ society, and it’s difficult for them to understand that somebody worked for these things, and they were expensive and that not everybody in the world has them or is entitled to them by birthright.”

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How the Poll Was Conducted

The Family Poll was conducted July 19-23 for the Los Angeles Times by Irvine-based Mark Baldassare & Associates. The telephone survey used a computer-generated random sample of listed and unlisted telephone numbers to contact 1,000 households, including 500 in Orange County and 500 in Los Angeles County. For analysis of the two counties, combined results were statistically weighted to represent the actual distribution of population in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Interviews were conducted evenings and weekends, in English and Spanish, and included an equal number of men and women. All respondents were guaranteed anonymity. However, some agreed to be reinterviewed for news stories. The margin of error is 3 percentage points for the total sample and 4.5 percentage points for each county. For subgroups, such as parents, it is 5 percentage points. Results may not add up to 100% because of rounding.

POLL RESULTS

OVERALL IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY LIFE

“In general, how important are each of these features of your life--are they very important, somewhat important or not important?”

Percent Very Important Men Women Family and children 80% 87% Marriage and love life 81 79 Financial security 82 85 Work and career 76 58 Leisure time 61 63

PLACES RATED FOR CHILDREN

“How would you rate Los Angeles County (Orange County) as a place for family life and raising children?”

Los Families With Children Angeles Orange Excellent 6% 22% Good 22 43 Fair 42 22 Poor 30 12 Don’t know -- 1

BIGGEST PROBLEM FOR PARENTS

“What do you think is the biggest problem for parents who are raising children in Los Angeles County (Orange County) today?”

Los Families With Children Angeles Orange Drugs and alcohol 24% 23% Crime 27 10 Schools 13 13 Lack of morals 6 8 No time 6 8 Expense 6 13 Divorce 2 3 Other 12 16 Don’t know 4 8

ATTITUDES TOWARD FAMILY LIFE

“For the typical family to be able to afford to live in Los Angeles County (Orange County) today, both the husband and wife have to work full time.”

Agree: 86% Disagree: 12% Don’t know: 2% “Family life is less important to people today than when I was a child.”

Total Agree 63% Disagree 35 Don’t know 2

“Parents today spend too little time with their children.”

Total Agree 81% Disagree 17 Don’t know 2

PARENTS’ ATTITUDES

“I often feel the responsibilities of being a parent are overwhelming.”

Fathers Agree: 50% Disagree: 49% Don’t know: 1% Mothers Agree: 71% Disagree: 29% “I often worry about whether I am doing a good job as a parent.”

Fathers Agree: 64% Disagree: 35% Don’t know: 1% Mothers Agree: 72% Disagree: 27% Don’t know: 1% “I often worry about what my children are doing.”

Fathers Agree: 59% Disagree: 40% Don’t know: 1% Mothers Agree: 56% Disagree: 43% Don’t know: 1% “I often feel guilty about devoting too little time to my children.”

Fathers Agree: 57% Disagree: 41% Don’t know: 2% Mothers Agree: 55% Disgree: 45% FAMILY VERSUS CAREER

“If you had the choice, would you prefer to stay home and raise your children or work full time outside the home?”

Men Women Stay home 39% 79% Work full time 53 11 Other 7 7 Don’t know 1 3

“How much do you think the job you are doing as a parent has suffered because of the demands of your work career?”

Men Women A lot or some 51% 39% A little 24 19 Not at all 24 40 Don’t know 1 2

“How much do you think your success in your work career has suffered because of the demands of raising children and having a family?”

Men Women A lot or some 28% 41% A little 25 17 Not at all 46 41 Don’t know 1 1

WORK STATUS OF MARRIED COUPLES WITH CHILDREN

Both Employed: 65% Husband Only: 32% Wife Only: 1% Neither Employed: 2% IMPORTANCE AND FREQUENCY OF FAMILY ACTIVITIES

“How important do you think it is for a family to do each of the following activities?”

“How often, if at all, does your family typically do each of the following activities?”

Total Importance Frequency Have talks about school 95% 75% and other children’s issues Have a regular dinner 86 66 hour when everyone is together Go out to movies, the beach, 82 47 restaurants together Visit friends, neighbors 69 53 or relatives together Attend church, synagogue 65 48 services together Stay at home watching 44 51 videos and TV together

All percentages reflect combined Los Angeles County and Orange County responses except where noted.