More working parents play 'beat the clock'

Scott Fulgham, a night-shift police officer in Chattanooga, Tenn., knows a lot about strange schedules. He eats breakfast when he wakes up at 2 p.m. He joins his family for dinner at 6:30 p.m., then grabs "lunch" on the job at 2 a.m. When the sun comes up, he pulls down the shades and goes to bed.

"My sleep cycle gets a little crazy," says Mr. Fulgham, a patrol sergeant who spends 10 nights on duty, then four nights off. "Your body's having to adjust all the time."

That isn't the only adjustment taking place in the Fulgham household. Like many families living with America's 24 million shift workers, his wife, Kathie, and two daughters must adapt their schedules to accommodate his. "It puts challenges on the whole family," Mrs. Fulgham says.

By one count, 40 percent of employed Americans work late hours or weekends or both. As more families like the Fulghams inhabit a topsy-turvy world that turns nights into days and weekends into just another time to punch the clock, some are paying a price.

These unconventional schedules can "undermine the stability of marriages, increase the amount of housework to be done, reduce family cohesiveness, and require elaborate child-care arrangements," warns Harriet Presser, a sociologist at the University of Maryland.

Parents working nights are more likely to separate or divorce than those on other work schedules, she finds.

As the ranks of extended-hours employees grow, so does the recognition among sociologists, labor specialists, and employers that off-hour workers and families need more attention than they are getting, says Dr. Presser, author of the book "Working in a 24/7 Economy: Challenges for American Families."

For decades, nontraditional schedules were largely the province of blue-collar workers, many of whom had a family history of shift work. Today, half of those on nonstandard hours are white-collar, technical, or service-industry workers.

"It's a huge change," says David Mitchell, director of publications for Circadian Technologies in Lexington, Mass. "A lot of these people just don't think of themselves as shift workers." Because these new white-collar employees have no personal or family history of shifts, he adds, "it just slams them. The expectations are so different from what all their years of education led them to expect."

The Fulghams both have college degrees, as do their parents. Referring to her husband's schedule, Mrs. Fulgham, public-relations director of the Tennessee Aquarium, says, "We weren't prepared for it."

Neither was Kacey Powers of Bakersfield, Calif. A week after she and her husband, Chris, were married 10 years ago, he started a job at a shingle manufacturing plant.

He works 12-hour shifts, rotating between days and nights. This involves four nights on the "graveyard" shift from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Then he has 1-1/2 days off, after which he works 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for three days. After two days off, he puts in three graveyard shifts. Then he has 1-1/2 days off and four days on, capped by a meeting day that starts at 7 a.m. A calendar by the phone keeps the family on track.

"The kids are used to it," Mrs. Powers says of their two sons, ages 6 and 7. "They know when he sleeps graveyard. They're quiet. They tend to play outside."

But that kind of easy acceptance can be harder for adults. Powers observes a high divorce rate at her husband's plant, as well as other problems. "I've seen men lose their jobs because they're losing their family," Powers says. "They neglect their work, call in sick, and have high absenteeism."

To resolve problems, she says, "You have to talk, you have to relay things to each other. A lot of wives don't get up with their husbands at 5 a.m. I try to go the extra mile, and he does the same for me."

They also carve out family time. Two weeks ago they visited Universal Studios. On Mr. Powers's weekends off, they set aside a day with their sons, perhaps going to a lake or renting videos.

For two-career couples and single parents, nonstandard schedules make child care complex. Nearly a third of extended-hours employees have children under 18. And more than a quarter of employed women regularly work nights, evenings, and weekends, when quality care is least available.

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