<p>I don’t know how much time parents should spend with their children but an average of 19 minutes a day is not enough, especially when you realize that for every parent that exceeds the average there is another parent that has even less contact. I can imagine several scenarios - the parents are out-of-town, sick, etc. - in which parental contact would be limited for valid reasons. Nevertheless, I think it is possible this study is closer to reality than the 1950’s lifestyle alluded to earlier. As you say, just seeing each other over dinner would take that much time … except most families don’t even eat together now. I guess the difference between us is that I find it easy to believe this study is true.</p>
<p>I’m also skeptical of the article – I also think they were limiting the count to one-on-one time devoted only to child caretaking or playing with the child. So, watching t.v. with the child wouldn’t count. Going grocery shopping with the child wouldn’t count. (secondary activity) Baking cookies with the child wouldn’t count. (That’s cooking, not childcare)</p>
<p>If there is one thing that working moms know how to do it is multitasking.</p>
<p>DRJ:</p>
<p>Do we know that “most” families do not eat dinner together now? Do parents not see their children on weekends and do <em>something</em> together?</p>
<p>Calmom has a good point. If you do gardening with your kids, does this count as kid time or as gardening? If you go see a movie or a Red Sox game together or go bicycling or hiking, does that count as kid time or not? </p>
<p>I’m sorry to remain so skeptical of the statistics in the survey, but again, I do not know of any family that spends only 19 minutes per day with its children.</p>
<p>I’d hazard a guess that “most” American families don’t have dinner together “most” nights. Or maybe I should say many don’t. It seems among the people I know, we have dinner together as a family more than all of them, and we are still at only about half, to slightly more than half, per week.</p>
<p>While 19 minutes sounds ridiculous, I suspect there are people who spend under an hour a day with their kids. Not the parents on CC however. :)</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>I meant it when I said that you may be correct in questioning this study. My point is that, regardless of whether “19 minutes a day” is true, it is troubling in theory. </p>
<p>It’s not as if the study’s authors are speculating that most British children are being raised by space aliens or something equally ludicrous. This study, while it may be wrong, is not unthinkable. Therefore, the possibility that it might be true makes me consider the consequences to children if that is the case. Bottom line: I find it disturbing for children that it might be true.</p>
<p>But is it true? And if not, is there cause for alarm?
Let us say a child is 6 years old. If the child is not being raised by space aliens, who then is raising the child from, say, 6 to the time the child goes to bed if the parents spend only 19 minutes per day with that child? Who gets the child up in the morning, feeds him/her, helps the child get dressed, takes the child to school or to the school bus? The British nanny can only be afforded by a minuscule portion of the population (and even aristocratic mothers saw their child for a correct 30 minutes–see Winston Churchill biographies). And far fewer British children of the upper classes are sent to boarding school than in the 19th century. British chldren are no more able to fend for themselves than American children. </p>
<p>It took 5 minutes to walk my kid to the bus stop either way. Ten minutes already out of 19. I walked him to the bus stop until he was in 7th grade. And believe me, we did not walk in silence! Instead we had very interesting discussions on a variety of topics.</p>
<p>Now some posters have said that they do not have dinner with their kids every day–I suppose these must be teenagers rather than very young kids. Some of my S’s friends had to rehearse at 7pm and eat on the run; my S also had college classes that started at 6:30 1 or 2 days a week. But I assume this is not a daily occurence. 4 dinners a week at 45 minutes per dinner (unless everyone eats in silence) already exceeds the 19 minutes without taking into account any other interaction between parents and child. </p>
<p>So, I question the whole premise on which this thread is based. I just cannot swallow the 19 minutes.</p>
<p>I would rather ask, how much time should parents devote to their children? And what does this mean exactly? Does reminding my kid to get a haircut or asking whether he remembered to put his homework in his knapsack, or what would he like for dinner count? Or does it have to be some “meaningful” conversation (invarialy squirm-inducing in teenagers)?</p>
<p>
The obvious answer is “As much time as they need, whenever they need it” but that doesn’t fit with our modern lifestyles. Children are one more task to add to our multi-tasking lives, and I say that in all honesty and without snark. My spouse and I both work and have worked during our children’s entire lives. Both our children spent time in daycare, with nanny-equivalents, and extended family. They have attended school since age 3. I’m not blaming or critiquing these lifestyles but, having lived this life, I can safely say it is not conducive to quality child-focused interaction even if it works for the parents. Further, it’s the rare child that times his or her needs to precisely that moment when the parent is available.</p>
<p>We’ve sacrificed our children to our busy lives. They’ve adjusted well and I don’t think we can or even should go back to a 1950’s lifestyle. Nevertheless, I fear that we’ve not only relegated our children to a compartment of our busy lives but we’re eroding the time we give that compartment. </p>
<p>Based on my experience with support staff and similar employees, they and their families are even harder hit than professionals. Our female employees - all mothers - leave their houses at 7 AM or earlier to take kids to school. They run errands after work and pick up their children at daycare, get home around 6:30 or 7 PM, cook/eat, watch TV, and go to bed. Their children often have group sports, scouts, or other extracurricular activities in the evenings, followed by a bath and bed. Then they do it again the next day. I agree that we can have meaningful moments with our children while we are doing other things but the lifestyles many people lead don’t even allow time for that.</p>
<p>
I worked full time until S1 was 2 1/2 and part time for another year. I found it very difficult to cede any child-raising duties to anyone, even though they were watched by grandparents. For several years, I felt tremendous guilt that I didn’t immediately quit my job when S1 was born. </p>
<p>Fast forward 17 years. Having been a sahm for all this time, I will tell you that most of us don’t spend all of their time playing enrichment games with children. Most of the time, we are cooking, cleaning, shopping for bargains, supervising homework etc. And when I think back, my sahm didn’t spend a lot of time playing with any of us during the 1950’s and 1960’s. We were expected to do chores, complete our homework, clean up our own messes and not be a pest to our parents. This image of a “Leave it to Beaver” childhood is not what I remember. Of course, I believe that children should have all of the time and attention they need – I just don’t think that it is good for them to be the center of attention all the time. </p>
<p>When my kids were young, I read several books by John Rosemond. One thing sticks in my mind. To paraphrase, he said that attention is like food. Children need enough, but not too much. Many moms my age feel that our children are our universe. Is that healthy? I’m happy that I was able to stay home with my kids, but I think that they often just need the presence in the house, while they do their own activities. I don’t think this study can possibly be accurate, and I think it’s time moms got a break.</p>
<p>DRJ:</p>
<p>My experience seems to differ quite a bit from yours or from that of your employees.
As I’ve mentioned, I went back to work full-time when my children were 6 weeks old. My H took them to day care at around 8:30 and picked them up from work at 5:30 or so. We still managed to spend lots of time with them–far more than the 19 minutes of the survey. Did we miss their first step? Possibly. But not by much, and I don’t set much store by being the first…, seeing the first… My kids and their friends, children of dual working couples or of single mothers, seem to me very well adjusted and not in the least deprived of parental contact. If kids have ECs in the evening, it’s probably because they want to rather than because their parents press them to.<br>
So another question to ask is: How much time do kids want to spend with their parents?</p>
<p>In your previous post you said your children were in daycare from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Your babies went to daycare when they were 6 WEEKS old. I would have to wonder if you could read any “study” like this and not have a very defensive reaction.</p>
<p>My mother stayed home with me, so she saw me from the moment I woke up until when I went to sleep pretty much every single day until I started kindergarten. My father worked 6 days a week, so naturally i saw him much less. I wouldn’t want to entrust the raising of my children to a nanny. If you don’t want to spend time with your kids, why did you have them?</p>
<p>In addition, it’s perfectly plausible that a career-driven mom (as opposed to a mom who must work for the survival of her family - literally) can morph into a helicopter parent when her child reaches college age. I’ve known quite a few.</p>
<p>I don’t have a “defensive reaction.”
Have you added up how long it takes to dress a baby, feed him, undress him after he got home (this is NE), bathe him, feed him dinner, tell him stories, sing him to sleep? Not to mention getting up in the night until S1 was 9 months old and S2 was four years old. On top of that, both my babies did not like to go to sleep until fairly late, so several hours of the evening were spent with them.</p>
<p>What I’ve done is question the validity of the 19 minutes. Not being superwoman, I could not do all the activities mentioned above in 19 minutes. Indeed, I do not think I could do ANY of the activities in 19 minutes.</p>
<p>If you left out telling him stories and singing to him (which, unfortunately, many moms do not do), and if you had a child who early on slept through the night, it is possible the AVERAGE amount of time spent with your child could be around 19 minutes a day.</p>
<p>Okay, no singing, telling stories, and putting the kids to bed as soon as possible. How long does it take to breast feed or to feed a child solid food (granted my children were finicky eaters, but still…)? to bathe a child and change him? I must be slow, because I still don’t see how the average amount of time is 19 minutes. And don’t forget that on weekends, children do not go to daycare. Of course, there are chores to be done, but they do not take up all waking hours. </p>
<p>When my children started going to school, I would escort them to the bus stop: 5 minutes each way meant 10 minutes per day. It isn’t possible to do the rest of what needs to be done for a child in 9 minutes per day (including weekends). I just do not see it.</p>
<p>Hey, hey , hey…how about a little tolerance for working moms? Each family, given certain economic conditions, may make this choice for themselves. marite is questioning the 19 minutes–only. If you said working moms spend 90 minutes with their children, she might not have an argument with that figure. </p>
<p>No question, working moms spend less time with their children. However, my time at home is free of laundry and ironing and cleaning and–from time to time–cooking and grocery shopping–and always has been. I set that up for myself and paid for it with earnings from my own business. We have also always taken 6 to 8 weeks of fabulous family vacation per year. That’s what the boss gets to do.</p>
<p>Working moms don’t morph into helicopter parents anymore than stay-at-home homeschool moms. We have children because we have sex and sometimes get pregnant. Besides that, we love and enjoy children and (gasp!) teenagers. </p>
<p>In our home, we’ve have had more children and teenagers hanging out, enjoying our family lifestyle, than most of the other families I know. Our friends call my husband the ‘baby whisperer’. My boys love our lifestyle and so do their friends. I am second mom to another half dozen boys. I get "I love you!"s and kisses every day from my grizzly 17 year old boy. I get “I love you so much!” in every phone call with my grizzlier 20 year old. Even with full time nannies, they adore me and I adore them.</p>
<p>Ladies, who said I was intolerant? I was just pointing out that I think it is possible that the study has some validity. Did I misread the study, or did the 19 minutes NOT include things such as escorting to the bus stop (i.e. interacting with the child while doing other things). I also think there is a distinction between “working moms” (those who work because they HAVE to), and “career moms.” I think it’s probable that career moms are more likely to morph into helicopter moms for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>Cheers:</p>
<p>I want to say thanks before I go do the laundry and start dinner 
I think 90 minutes are doable. But in my house, it’s always been more than 90 minutes on average. It the weather were not so lousy, tomorrow, H and the guys would be out hiking and not be back home for 3-4 hours.
Okay, off to make Ss’ favorite meal.</p>
<p>90 minutes a day bonding with an infant = fabulous.</p>
<p>The results are in the finished puddings, hereshopping. Thus far, marite’s guys appear to be magnificent contributions to the human race. Let’s talk in twenty years and weigh up the situation.</p>
<p>Besides, the mythical days of a happy (and very white) June Cleaver in suburban America are the anamoly in human history. Females have always been strapped with multiple responsibilities. Besides, many non-white cultures do not aspire to the June Cleaver lifestyle nor have they subscribed to the primordial authority of the nuclear family. Some of those cultures are represented on CC.</p>
<p>Working moms may have more in common with our ancestors than June Cleaver. A social scientist might even observe that women were built to lead working, multi-tasking lives. In terms of the history of women and evolution, June Cleaver may be the radical, not the other way around.</p>