Mothers today spend more time with their kids
"For married mothers, the time spent on child care activities increased to an average of 12.9 hours a week in 2000, from 10.6 hours in 1965. For married fathers, the time spent on child care more than doubled, to 6.5 hours a week, from 2.6 hours. Single mothers reported spending 11.8 hours a week on child care, up from 7.5 hours in 1965."
The news reports I've read seem to treat this trend as uniformly positive. The underlying message: Hooray, working mothers are NOT neglecting their kids!
While I'm glad to have a study that combats the criticism of working mothers, I wonder if all this attention we're lavishing on our kids is so positive. What are we giving up in exchange? The study reports women are spending less time on housework. Well, no big loss there. But my guess is we're also giving up adult time- time alone with our friends, ourselves, and our spouses. And that can't be good for the parents...or the kids.
Stumble It!
posted by pam at 2:35 PM
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