More working parents play 'beat the clock'

"People are really struggling with the question, What do you do with your kids?" says Netsy Firestein, executive director of the Labor Project for Working Families in Berkeley, Calif. "They're making all kinds of informal arrangements, whether it's early in the morning or in the evening. There are no great solutions to this."

Teri Ransom, director of Happy Kids 'Round the Clock Child Care in Denver, says that because parents have such difficulty finding after-hours child care, she even accepted children on Mother's Day this year. "Restaurants are open then, and waitresses have to work," she explains.

Yet even extended-hours care does not solve all problems. Most parents do not want their children to spend all night at a center.

To avoid such dilemmas, a third of married mothers with preschool children say they and their spouses deliberately work different shifts so their husbands or parents can care for the children. Yet most married mothers who work evenings, nights, or weekends do so because the job demands it, Presser says. Many parents simply cannot choose their schedules.

When parents work different shifts, Presser wonders whether the father or mother who worked all night is coming home and sleeping, leaving the children essentially unsupervised,

She does find some benefits when parents work different shifts. Child care costs less. Fathers often spend more time with children, and many men do more housework. Mr. Fulgham, for one, cooks dinner more than half the time, shares the grocery shopping, and does some laundry. He picks up 5-year-old Jilly after school, and in the evening gives her a bath and reads to her.

Still, "tag-team parenting" can create its own challenges. Jo Browning, who works at the B.F. Goodrich plant in Opelika, Ala., watches husbands and wives who work on different shifts meeting in the parking lot or at the time clock. "There's no family time together when you both rotate," she says.

Divorced and the mother of a 13-year-old daughter, Ms. Browning also knows how nonstandard hours affect parents with older children.

"If you're a single mom and you have a 14-year-old, what do you do?" she asks. "You don't want to hire a baby sitter, but you don't want to leave them alone, either. You depend on family and friends and neighbors to help you."

Health concerns also rank high for some shift workers. Because sleep deprivation is common, a handful of companies are starting to teach these employees how to sleep in the daytime. The average man who works nights sleeps 5.5 hours during the day, Mitchell says, while the average woman on the night shift sleeps only 4.8 hours because of domestic responsibilities.

Some employers are also educating night workers about nutrition. "They're eating the wrong food - fried chicken, spicy burritos, and coffee," Mitchell explains.

But even practical help like this doesn't address other issues affecting many employees on nonstandard hours.

"When he works 10 days straight, it's a strain," Mrs. Fulgham says. "It's not just a lack of intimacy. It's a lack of communication. You just seem to be speaking in this code of getting through life."

Challenges can be even more acute for single parents. Forty percent of single mothers work shifts, and more than a third work weekends. They are also more likely to hold lower-paying jobs with fewer benefits and less flexibility.

Researchers still have much to learn about the ramifications of these schedules, Presser says. This includes their long-term effects on children.

Noting that many shiftwork families lose their dinner hour, she says, "Dinnertime is the most important family ritual in togetherness time. Working evenings clearly leads to the absence of a parent during dinnertime."

Presser expects jobs with off-hours schedules to increase. "We like stores to be open around the clock, medical services to be available continuously, and people to answer the phone when we make travel reservations late at night," she says.

For now, some parents take a philosophical, you-do-what-you-gotta-do approach. As Mr. Fulgham puts it, "You've got to look at the positives. You've got to manipulate the negatives and make them more positive."

To which his wife adds, "In a family like ours, everybody learns that they're all part of the solution. Our family has adapted."

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