‘Workism’ appears to be a term coined in 2019 by Derek Thompson, a writer for The Atlantic.
Not ‘wokeism’, mind you. “Wokeism” is an entirely different problem, and one that Governor DeSantis and the state of Florida seem to have a handle on.
We’re talking today about “workism”.
In a January posting, the Pew Research Center shared a poll of American parents, where they asked:
What is most important for your children to do, when they become adults?
Nearly nine in 10 American parents named financial independence or “jobs or careers [our children] enjoy”… as the parents’ highest wish. That’s, like, four times more than the share of parents who said it was “extremely important” or “very important” for their kids to get married, or have children.
Marriage? Is that even a thing, nowadays?
Also in the Pew survey, a satisfying job and financial independence appear to be significantly more important than children who are “honest,” “ethical,” or “ambitious.”
I have a job that I enjoy, which does not necessarily imply financial independence. In fact, I wonder what “financial independence” even means. Independent from your parents? That’s a nice thing to wish for, but I’m not sure it’s a practical outcome for kids in 2023. My own kids are constantly ‘borrowing’ money from me, and I bet they would be happy to move in with me, if I had more than a studio apartment.
In his new book, On Work: Money, Meaning, Identity, Derek Thompson makes the case that Americans have become less dependent upon religious organizations to fulfill their need for human interaction — only about 30% of Americans attend church or synagogue regularly — and that we’re finding our identity, and meaning, and sense of community in “work”.
76% of Americans went to work last week. Way more than twice the number who go to church. In the choice between God and Mammon, we’ve chosen to worship Mammon.
American men on average spent slightly more hours worshiping Mammon — 40.5 hours a week — than American women — 36.6 hours a week. (We’re talking “paid employment” here, not “hours spent doing unpaid work”. For some reasons, the US Bureau Labor Statistics tracks only “paid work”.)
Unfortunately, for a lot of us, Mammon looks a lot like a computer screen.
Granted, of course, that our computer screen is often less frightening than some of the illustrations of Mammon that we can find on the internet.
According to Derek Thompson, the people who are working the longest hours, and who he thinks are most addicted to “workism” are rich American men. So once again, I thank the Lord I am not rich.
But let’s get back to those parents, who think “jobs and careers” are so important for their children, and getting married and having kids was really not important…
When the folks at Pew Research asked these same parents — who gave such miserably low marks to the importance of getting married and having children — asked them how they felt about the importance of their own “work” raising their own children, these same adults thought raising kids was just about the most important thing in the world.
Like, 87 percent thought so.
Like I said, I’m pretty much done raising my kids — when is a parent ever done, really? — and like I said, they are trying to be more or less financially independent, and my parental wish is that they someday find a job or career they enjoy.
If they want to get married and have kids, I wouldn’t mind being a grandpa someday.
But am I going to put any work into it? Probably not.
After all, I have another humor column to write, for next week…
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.