Today's working mothers spend slightly MORE time with their kids than the stay-at-home moms of previous decades. Dads are doing more parenting and housework, too:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/us/17kids.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087%0A&em&en=07f78e2f77facfe9&ex=1161230400
This data confirms a few things I've long suspected. What have working mothers lost the most of in the last 40 years? Time for exercise and personal relaxation. Working fathers are picking up the slack when it comes to childcare and housework--my parents always seem surprised at how much my husband cooks, for example, but it seems normal to me when I look at my friends' families.
Also, working mothers work more hours at paid and unpaid labor than stay-at-home mothers do. This makes sense to me because the unpaid labor tasks at home don't disappear when a woman goes to work. I know when I take time off when Miranda's sick, the house gets cleaner and I seem to have a bit more time on my hands at the end of the day after she's in bed. This is not meant to diss on stay-at-home moms in the least--they're still working 52-hour work weeks with no pay or benefits, while I get both as a woman in the workforce. Just saying there are reasons that lifestyle looks good to me sometimes! I am looking forward to reading the whole survey to see the data that underlie these conclusions.
2 comments:
That's a very interesting article - thanks for the link. I guess I'm just confused about what the mothers in 1965 were doing with the rest of their time if only 10 hours counted as "childcare". Houses were cleaner then, but 32 hours a week? What could you possibly clean for that much time? And where were the kids during that?
Not really expecting you to have all the answers. Those were just the first questions that came to my mind, and I don't have time to research them myself right now :).
I just hope that the reason parents spend more time with kids isn't because kids are getting less time to themselves: playing outside, unstructured activities, etc. Maybe the soccer mom should put her feet up and have a rest while the kids play in the street for a while.
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