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About MARIAL MARIAL in the News
Little rituals save time, build ties The Boston Globe Quick and simple, these daily habits — rituals with a small ‘‘r,’’ according to anthropologist Bradd Shore — are powerful tonics for children and often lifesavers for time-crunched working parents. ‘‘You cannot do without the rituals that you don’t even think of as rituals,’’ says Shore, director of the Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life at Emory University in Atlanta. ‘‘They generate a sense of continuity. They are the engines to create culture itself.’’ Alyzandra Brioso, a single mother of six in Cambridge, stumbled upon a way to make it through the week with a lot less sibling warfare and lost kid stuff. She began equipping her youngest three — ages 3, 5, and 7 — with themed belongings. Her toddler has Dora the Explorer towels, dishes, sheets, toothbrush, backpack, and even wrapping paper, while the next two oldest are outfitted with SpongeBob SquarePants and Strawberry Shortcake. The ritual saves time, which translates into more togetherness. ‘‘This gives them a sense of their own belongings, and it helps with the schedule,’’ says Brioso, an administrative assistant with Cambridge Health Alliance, who also has children ages 11, 14, and 16. ‘‘The best reward is when I have those small moments with my children.’’ On laundry night, Brioso’s kids eat dinner and watch a movie in the van while she tackles the washing at a laundromat. Without fail, she also fixes a big Sunday breakfast before church, with eggs, bacon, sausage, home fries — the works. ‘‘We talk about how the week went, whatever is on their minds,’’ says Brioso. Although more parents work and work harder than ever, they’re also spending more time with their children, according to sociologist Suzanne Bianchi and her coauthors of the recently published book, ‘‘Changing Rhythms of American Family Life.’’ Married moms spend 51 hours weekly with their children, up from 47 hours in 1975, and married dads show even bigger gains, according to the research. Parents often manage this by cutting back on time together, leisure activities, and by multitasking. Multitasking is a shortcut that often backfires, fragmenting togetherness, focus, and reflection, mainly because we’re usually shortchanging our attention for another when we’re doing it. But if a banal routine can be spiced with a bit of fun — singing a silly song while dressing, lighting candles at breakfast on a dark winter morning — that’s a positive kind of multitasking. Better yet, call it layering life. This isn’t usually what we think of as ‘‘quality time,’’ but it’s essential for strong families. ‘‘Parents think of quality time as being perfect,’’ says Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute. But life also means working out problems and challenges, she says. Kids predict that they’ll long remember everyday family traditions, not splashy, rare events like trips and shows, according to Galinsky’s research. One of Lauren Puglia’s fondest memories from childhood was making pizza with her grandmother. Now she tries to inject fun into chores, singing G-rated sea shanties with her 5-year-old twins, Sarah and Jonathan, when they’re in the bathtub, and playing make-believe games to inspire them to get up and out in the morning. ‘‘The point is, we play games to get things done,’’ says Puglia, a partner with the Boston law firm Sassoon & Cymrot. ‘‘I’ve never bought into this quality time. What will stay with them is that you’re trying to spend as much time as you can with them.’’ Rituals, which seem daunting, dance on the cusp between predictability and improvisation, says Shore. They help make order out of the chaos of life, and yet shouldn’t be rigidly etched in stone. Think of the ritual as a seed bed for togetherness, and see what grows from there. Cynthia Crocker, a San Francisco-area human resources executive, and her 11-year-old daughter Sophie get their hair cut together once every couple of months, then go out for Korean food. To Crocker’s delight, she never knows where the discussion will head. ‘‘It’s connecting on a number of levels,’’ says Crocker, whose family originally came from Korea. ‘‘It engenders discussions about the family, or family history. It’s something that needs to be done, but we tend to have a really good time.’’ Balancing Acts appears every other week. Maggie Jackson can be reached at maggie.jackson@att.net. < More MARIAL in the News |