Strained life of the nonstop American family

The families reflect LA’s ethnic stew: Anglo, black, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Indian and others. Two families had same-sex parents. They lived all over greater Los Angeles, from the ranch house subdivisions of the San Fernando Valley to the gang-plagued streets of Compton.

Some facts of LA life, like traffic, could not be avoided. Yet the scientists believe they structured the study so it examined the interior factors of everyday life that are just as true in Fort Wayne, Ind., or Yakima, Wash.

Lifestyle studies typically rely on participants filling out questionnaires and diaries. But let’s be honest: Most people fib, or say what they think researchers want to hear.

By using cameras, the scientists documented the families’ real reactions and conversations as the day unfolded. Or, detonated.

Kevork Djansezian / AP Madison Zeiss, 10, left, catches up on her homework as her brother Jake, 8, holds up a book while they travel in the family minivan to Jake's hockey practice.

Each family was observed over a week’s time. Researchers would stick with the families from the morning’s first pot of coffee to bedtime. They followed a simple rule: Knock first.

Their method invites comparisons to the landmark 1973 PBS series that documented the lives of the Loud family, from dance recitals to a gay son to the parents’ divorce.

But this is Ph.D.-style reality TV. It’s not a portrait of a single family. The UCLA researchers’ observations won’t wind up on late-night cable.

In 1,600 hours of digital video, scientists captured moments of unfiltered joy — but also of sorrow, anger and frustration.

Scientists say there were so many home visits that it was impossible for reluctant family members to pretend for long. Messy people couldn’t remain tidy. Unhappy people couldn’t hold back tears.

Other scientists who have conducted family studies are intensely interested in the results but doubt cameras can eliminate bias entirely.

“I’m sure these families never forgot the camera was there, and would play to it,” said San Jose State University anthropologist Charles N. Darrah. For more than a decade, an SJSU team has been studying 12 families in Silicon Valley, a project that also receives Sloan funding.

“And,” Darrah said, “the researchers can’t help but look at the people and think, 'What is my family like?’ It’s people studying people.”

'Not just a middle-class phenomenon'
Darrah says the UCLA study reinforces larger questions about why American life has become so hectic.

“It’s not just a middle-class phenomenon,” he said. “Things that happen in society get played out in the family.”

The UCLA study isn’t ranking families from best to worst. Instead, scientists are asking how families are coping.

In a word, barely.

For Ochs, the most worrisome trend is how indifferently people treat each other, especially when they reunite at the day’s end.

With a mouse click, she summons footage from the project’s vast archive. Some of it is hard to watch.

• A man walks into the bedroom after work as his wife folds laundry. There is no kiss, or even a hello. Instead, they resume their breakfast argument virtually in mid-sentence about who left food on the counter to spoil. (He did.)
• An executive mother wears a silk suit and a pained smile as her daughter refuses to meet her gaze. Finally, the embarrassed nanny prompts the girl to speak while buttoning the girl’s pajamas.
• A big bear of a man squeezes into his cramped home office where his son is playing a deafening computer game with two pals. He rubs his son’s head, but the boy doesn’t blink. As the father shuffles out, the son gestures toward the computer and mutters, “I thought you were going to fix this.”

Something's gone awry
Ochs says other human cultures — even other species like wolves — greet each other in elaborate ways that reinforce social bonds.

In her view, the chilly exchanges repeated in so many of the study’s households suggest something has gone awry.

“Returning home at the end of the day is one of the most delicate and vulnerable moments in life,” Ochs said. “Everywhere in the world, in all societies, there is some kind of greeting.

“But here, the kids aren’t greeting the parents and the parents are allowing it to go on,” Ochs said. “They are tiptoeing around their children.”

The Zeiss family, however, is positively tribal with hugs and shouts. Their packed schedule just means they reunite in the car or parking lots.

After a 40-minute drive to the ice rink, Madison races to the snack bar while Jake drags his hockey equipment into a musky locker room.

He plays for the Junior Kings, an all-star team affiliated with the city’s NHL franchise. He skates on the same ice where pros drill (that is, before the NHL season was canceled) and world champion figure skater Michelle Kwan rehearses triple-jumps.

Elbow-to-elbow, Kim and 20 other mothers strip their sons down to their Spiderman undies and strap on pads the size of sofa cushions. After double-knotting Jake’s skate laces, she slaps his helmet and he waddles out toward the ice.

“When they turn 10, they dress themselves and moms can’t come in,” she says, squatting on a duffel bag to catch her breath. “None of us want to see that day. What else am I going to do — sleep?”

Less unstructured time
Kim’s remark raises a second trend emerging from the UCLA data — little time for dreaming.

Ochs laments how few people have any unstructured time. In just one of the 32 families did the father — a freelance film animator — make a habit of taking an evening stroll with his son and daughter. Hand-in-hand, they dodged vacant lots and broken glass in Culver City while chasing fireflies and making up stories.

Similar Sloan-funded studies launched in Italy and Sweden hint that families in those countries stay home more. The American kids spend less time at home and virtually no time in the yard. Play time tends to be organized and supervised by adults.

Kim and Gary Zeiss are keeping their children busy by design. They believe it’s a key to being a successful adult in a culture that rewards multi-taskers.

“You know the old saying,” says Gary, a 47-year-old attorney. “If you want something done, give it to a busy person. They’re learning how to be that.”

A typical Monday for the Zeiss family has four or five after-school events. They are in constant touch by cell phone, Blackberry and pager.

It’s very different from how they were raised in Miami in the 1970s. Gary wasn’t allowed to play football; his parents feared for his safety, but he remembers feeling unchallenged.

Now he is reviving his interest in fencing, which he shares with Madison, who’s ranked No. 5 nationally in her age group. Academically, she’s near the top of her middle school, too.

“The kids are doing well,” he says. “They are getting good grades. They’re not obese. At the end of the day, this is good for them.”

Kim’s mother was divorced, and Kim spent afternoons alone watching television and doing homework. Some days she would ride her bicycle 15 miles to the beach.

She pauses, bothered by the memory. Nothing bad ever happened, but it could have.

Now 43, she worked as a television producer at MTV and ESPN until Jake was 2. Recently she became an administrator at Madison’s school. She is fond of saying that she is “producing a family.”

At hockey practice, Kim is the only parent to sit on the chilly bleachers near the ice. “Our kids are never alone,” she says. “They haven’t even walked down to the Burger King. It’s only a couple of blocks. But this is a big city.”

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