Busy Lifestyle
The research encountered some similarity among participants regarding their lifestyle. All participants reported being working parents. Some of them also described themselves as having a busy schedule around their children’s after-school activities. This busy lifestyle routine can be seen in the following excerpts.
Monica described experiencing a lifestyle full of events during the day.
Sometimes we’re rushed. (Monica, 2nd interview)
Sally reported a routine where family leaves in the morning and returns early night.
Um, so we’re a household of four, uh, my husband and I and our two kids, ages 8 and Um, we’re a busy household, uh, so two boys. And, um, we, uh, you know, the typical household of two working parents. Um, we, we’re all out in the morning and, uh, so are the children. Um, it’s busy. We don’t come back until just before dinner and we squeeze everything in and, um, just try to manage, and it’s go, go, go in the evening until bedtime. And, uh, that’s sort of the nature of our lives. (Sally, 1st interview)
She reported getting home after 6:30pm on the majority of the days.
Um, you know our kids go to an after-school program so by the time they come home it’s uh 6:30 at least. (Sally, 2nd interview)
Allison reported an active lifestyle.
Life can be very busy when you have one going to hockey and one going to dance. (Allison, 1st interview)
When reflecting about taking her children to after-school program, she described she runs.
Life is so rushed. (Allison, 1st interview)
Allison’s routine is not calm.
Um I find that that is-is much more difficult one goes, one works and then he wants to go exercise and the other one goes to dance and things like that. So we try to make um like you-yesterday for example we ate earlier cause the one doesn’t like eating so late so we ate with him and then the other two came home and so we sat with them as well. (Allison, 2nd interview)
Um . . . I think it’s because it’s . . . sometimes during the day with how busy things get if it wasn’t for the mealtime they probably wouldn’t um … have those moments right? Because the-they do talk but I mean they come in at different times. The one’s, like I said, one’s at hockey, one’s at this. So I guess it’s-it’s a conscious effort to sit down and actually, and they actually look forward to it too like. Like-y-y-y-you don’t really realize all that until you start thinking about it. (Allison, 2nd interview)
Olivia reflected on the importance of dinner since it’s difficult to administer other meals together with her family members.
I think that mealtimes are very important. We have dinner together almost every night. We don’t usually manage to have breakfast and, at lunch, we’re all in different places, so we really make a point of having our dinners together. (Olivia, 1st interview)
We’re, we’re quite busy. (Olivia, 2nd interview)
Brie also described having a busy routine.
We’re pretty b, busy family. (Brie, 1st interview) My my kids are very uh busy. (Brie, 1st interview)
