Increasing research focuses on today's working families, how they're changing, and how they're juggling the relationship between home and work. Eighty-five percent of U.S. workers live with family members, which increases the day-to-day responsibilities away from their workplace. Research by the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents, Children, and Work has shown that the conflict between job and family causes both to suffer. Highly stressed workers are more likely to bring work home and feel angry and exhausted when they are home.

Your parents or grandparents may recall the days when dad brought home the bacon and mom stayed home to care for the 2.5 children. Less than 20 percent of today's workforce has such a “traditional” family structure. Most mothers are now working outside the home: 80 percent of working women are mothers. They're feeling the crunch. By a margin of almost two to one, young working mothers value flexibility over advancement at work. As the schedules of many middle school students grow to resemble those of busy CEOs, the shuttling and chaperoning duties fall to already overburdened parents. Add to that the fact that one quarter of U.S. workers provide care for an elder, and you have the ingredients for worker burnout.