Busy lives mean empty meeting halls and families not eating supper together.
“I’ve seen many mothers creating a dust storm on a gravel road trying to get a child to band practice in time,” said Doris Pattison, past-president of the Saskatchewan Women’s Institutes.
Speaking to the recent Western Canadian meeting of the Associated Country Women of the World, Pattison said balancing work and family is not easily achieved.
“Would we take away teaching Sunday school or give up WI because we’re leading the 4-H club? You do what you have to do.”
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SWI president Doreen Holden added that years ago “WI ladies enjoyed their afternoon out to discuss sewing and cooking and see how we all thought the same way. Now, a day off? Let me stay at home.”
Delegates suggested various solutions: Using neighbors if relatives aren’t available to look after sick children; tapping a new source of volunteers with the early retirees in their fifties who move out of the city to acreages; getting more job flexibility from employers; and respecting, not blaming, others for their busy lives.
