Parental Involvement

"Despite the surge of women into the work force, mothers are spending at least as much time with their children today as they did 40 years ago, and the amount of child care and housework performed by fathers has sharply increased, researchers say in a new study, based on analysis of thousands of personal diaries." said the NYtimes today. Read times article here

If you look closely at the chart, what they found is that mothers have replaced hours doing housework with paid work. They spend three times as many hours working and half as many hours cleaning. And they continue to spend about the same time with their children. Dirty dishes plus income = more time with baby, with appropriate gadgets (exersaucers, babybjorns, fancy italian strollers, etc.) to make it more fun.

The article goes on to quote at least one conservative source crowing about how smart women are to realize they need to be with their children, working or not.

And fathers? They seem not to have come to the same conclusion. Fathers, yes, have doubled their time with children, though it's only from 6% to 12%, but continue to spend only half as much time with the kids or taking care of the house as women do.

OK, so what does this all mean?

First, don't kids need Daddy time too?

Second, it means this feminism stuff you learn in college is all crap. Working women do all the stuff they did before, and more. Men do less childcare, less housework and work nearly twice as many hours as working women on average. They are still in primary wage-earner mode. The women are schizophrenic, trying to do three jobs nearly equally well, as the colored bars for 2000 show. But they are the supporting earners.

And also that very very few people experiment with other models, as we are doing.

Again, from the article:

"Over all, the researchers said, employed mothers have less free time and “far greater total workloads than stay-at-home mothers.” The workweek for an employed mother averages 71 hours, almost equally divided between paid and unpaid work, compared with a workweek averaging 52 hours for mothers who are not employed outside the home.

On average, the researchers said, employed mothers get somewhat less sleep and watch less television than mothers who are not employed, and they also spend less time with their husbands."

So it seems that working women have the toughest job of all. Less leisure and pleasure, more scraping by. I have to say this jibes somewhat with my view of Moms I have met here. Most of the stay at home moms, once they get into a groove, seem very organized and in control. They spend their days with the kids and take evenings to go out with the girls, scrapbook, and curl up with their husbands.

Maybe it's just me, but I never feel organized and in control. One missed nap and I have missed a call or a deadline. One extra bump in deciding with my husband who's going to take care of the kid, and I am no longer in the mood to write that draft. My husband and I do shifts with the child during the day and a lot of our work at night, and every once in a while we manage to watch the same show for 30 minutes together.

As with all of these studies I also wonder how many of these women working 20 hours per week have pre-school aged kids. My theory, completely unexplored, is that many women take a 5-10 year window to make babies and work less or not at all. Not many NY or LA women, to be sure, but certainly most other American women. How else do you get the 23 hour work week as reported above? Just imagine a work culture that would support women in doing so. Have a pay scheme for "0-5 Parents," that rewards them for job-sharing or part-time work. Give spouses who are working when the other is at home a bit extra during that period only. Extra pay, extra vacation time, you name it. Why? Well, for one, all the retirement calculators I've ever seen ignore the fact that women are the ones likely to live the longest and also the ones who are likely to take hiatuses from retirement contributions. They should let you schedule in your 5 years off, and calculate the effect on your money.

And because, god-*** it, children need some quality time with their dads too. And Dads should feel proud of their added family responsibilities, not ashamed of the extra time they need.

Our culture is a bit nuts.