Includes index.

Machine generated contents note: pt. ONE TIME CONFETTI -- 1.The Test Of Time -- 2.Leisure Is For Nuns -- 3.Too Busy To Live -- 4.The Incredible Shrinking Brain -- pt. TWO WORK -- 5.The Ideal Worker Is Not Your Mother -- 6.A Tale Of Two Pats -- Bright Spot Starting Small -- 7.When Work Works -- Bright Spot If The Pentagon Can Do It, Why Can't You? -- pt. THREE LOVE -- 8.The Stalled Gender Revolution -- 9.The Cult Of Intensive Motherhood -- Bright Spot Mother Nature -- 10.New Dads -- Bright Spot: Gritty, Happy Kids -- pt. FOUR PLAY -- 11.Hygge In Denmark -- 12.Let Us Play -- Bright Spot Really Plan A Vacation -- pt. FIVE TOWARD TIME SERENITY -- 13.Finding Time -- Bright Spot Time Horizons -- 14.Toward Time Serenity.

Can working parents in America--or anywhere--ever find true leisure time? According to the Leisure Studies Department at the University of Iowa, true leisure is "that place in which we realize our humanity." If that's true, argues Brigid Schulte, then we're doing dangerously little realizing of our humanity. In Overwhelmed, Schulte, a staff writer for The Washington Post, asks: Are our brains, our partners, our culture, and our bosses making it impossible for us to experience anything but "contaminated time"? Schulte first asked this question in a 2010 feature for The Washington Post Magazine: "How did researchers compile this statistic that said we were rolling in leisure--over four hours a day? Did any of us feel that we actually had downtime? Was there anything useful in their research--anything we could do?" Overwhelmed is a map of the stresses that have ripped our leisure to shreds, and a look at how to put the pieces back together. Schulte speaks to neuroscientists, sociologists, and hundreds of working parents to tease out the factors contributing to our collective sense of being overwhelmed, seeking insights, answers, and inspiration. She investigates progressive offices trying to invent a new kind of workplace; she travels across Europe to get a sense of how other countries accommodate working parents; she finds younger couples who claim to have figured out an ideal division of chores, childcare, and meaningful paid work. Overwhelmed is the story of what she found out.