“Winding roads and large lots with trees, foliage, and ample lawns all were designed to suggest the virtues of a comfortable home nestled in benign nature. The goal of the idealized romantic suburb was an improved-upon naturalism. For housewives, living in such planned naturalism--the fresh air, wide vistas, and comfortable cottages--was to allow them to develop their spiritual, sentimental, and intellectual capacities. For the male, the home was to be a refuge from the crowded, dirty, noisy, and dense city.” (69) The division between work and life is emphasized from the start. The demonizing of the work environment seems to have been largely completed with the advent of the suburb. The male movement away from the city center might represent his disavowal of the ethical and moral environment of the workplace. At the same time, fathers begin spending "too much time at the office," suggesting that it is not an escape from the office that they seek, but simply the compartmentalization of the worlds. When "work" and "life" can be kept separate, it becomes necessary to consciously prioritize one's time around the two.

(Palen, J. John. The Suburbs. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995. Print.)