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Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

economist.com

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Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

#111

Post by gajomi »

watwut wrote: post #81
gajomi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems improbable. Of course it depends a bit on the number of hours required to effectively helicopter parent, but the data for USA mothers indicates something like a 100% increase in time spent since 1965 resulting in two total hours a day, which seems far to little for any kind of omnipresence (similar results for fathers). Of course, these numbers are "on average" so you might argue that there are helicopter…

How do you count when stay at home mom (norm in middle class 50ties) does housework or reads/solves crossword while the kid is playing around and she is answering those "look what I done" requests? It is both speding time with kid and not spending time with kid.

This is a very good question and would seemingly be implicated in a critical view of the reporting methodology. I have been impressed with the work the NYT data team shows on their github (or whatever). It looks like the economist has an account: https://github.com/economist-data-team but in a few minutes searching around couldn't find any links to data sources. There was a footer mentioning that you could read more on the marriage special report, but I encountered a paywall :)

Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

#112

Post by jaclaz »

verifex wrote: post #55

I was going to initially say something about child-care, but then I read the article and saw that men child-care time was previously 16 minutes a day in 1965, and now is up to around 59 minutes. That actually seems like a positive trend; at least from a holistic and common-sense point of view. It seems pretty strange that the men would spend such little time with their offspring. Now, we need a study to see what affe…

I guess it depends greatly from the "business or trade" of the parents, beyond the periods.

Personally (and in the '60's) I had the great fortune of having both mom and pop working "on their own", (and not in a factory, in a public office or similar) so basically after school I went to either my father's studio or to my mother's laboratory, until I was 12 or so I made there my homeworks, or played there.

Even if it wasn't time "dedicated" to me, as they were anyway at work doing their jobs, one or the other parent was always present, at the most in the next room.

I could see the difference when compared to my friends/classmates (of course not their or their parents' fault) which had parents that went out in the morning and came back home only in the evening, due to their job.

A lot less communication between them and parents, and a lot less "experience" on what happens everyday in "adult's" life.

Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

#113

Post by tcfunk »

liveoneggs wrote: post #67
kelukelugames wrote: post #5

> One analysis of 11 rich countries estimates that the average mother spent 54 minutes a day caring for children in 1965 but 104 minutes in 2012. Men do less than women, but far more than men in the past: their child-caring time has jumped from 16 minutes a day to 59. I spend 100+ minutes every day changing diapers. Actually that's not true, most of my time is spent trying to put the stupid newborn to go to sleep. I…

you will be much happier if you accept that being a father is, at least, a 12-hour/day job and not try to rush things. Your kid can pick up on your anxiety and will not react well to being rushed. Feeling the weight of your little baby in your arms is fleeting so try to really experience it. After he falls asleep in your lap you can put on some headphones and look at your phone. From now on getting off the clock at y…

I remember the first time I noticed my son reacting to my mood, that was game-changing for me :( I felt really terrible, and have been more careful about revealing distress to him.

Obviously you can't just hide all your feelings, but I now try not to be as frustrated about things that I can't help.

Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

#114

Post by icebraining »

Balero wrote: post #102
cplanas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, I disagree. I spent most of my time playing videogames, and my childhood was during the 90s. Maybe because I was city kid.

I spent a lot of my teenage years playing videogames, but I was very rural, maybe theres a sweet village sized spot for it being safe enough to be outside, whilst also having people to be outside with.

I lived in a city (pop. 100k) and most preteens and older walked alone. You don't need a village, just safe roads (single lane, limited speeds) and parks spread throughout the city so that people (young and old) are around.

Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

#115

Post by callmeed »

jaymzcampbell wrote: post #88
callmeed wrote: post #72

Here's a few random guesses at causation: 1. Kindergarten redshirting 2. Most Kindergartens in the US now are half-day (EDIT: this is false) 3. Helicopter parenting 4. Family & Medical Leave Act ('93) + Longer maternity/paternity leave allowances by employees 5. An increase in single-parent households on some sort of welfare/assistance program (i.e. the single parent is at home and cannot work) 6. Increase in the num…

Bit OT, but I was unfamiliar with the term "redshirting" (apart from Star Trek connotations, which I assumed isn't what was meant :) For the non-US people: the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth [1] I remember hearing something about this sort of thing over here in the UK. I was surprised to see t…

Yeah, I should have clarified. The terms actually originates from college sports in the US. Its a way for academic freshman to practice with a team but maintain 4 years of athletic eligibility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(college_sports)

Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

#116

Post by SamBam »

dinoleif wrote: post #17
aidos wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe because fathers are much more involved than 50 years ago? There are probably a load of reasons and I don't think it's just helicopter parenting. My father in law never changed a nappy for any of his 3 children, and that was normal. It certainly isn't now.

Fathers can't be involved if they aren't around. Single motherhood rate in 1950: 5% Single motherhood rate in 2010: 41%

There's quite a difference between the 5-41% jump in this first comment, and the 8-23% jump you read in the stats dragonwriter posted.

That was precisely dragonwriter's point in the other thread (I can't nest there any further): your unmarried statistic was not particularly germane.

Further, your comment don't quite make sense in context. OP shows how the statistics in the article shows fathers have become more involved. You say they can't actually be more involved because they're not around?

Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

#117

Post by ChuckMcM »

junkscience2017 wrote: post #22
tomc1985 wrote: post #2

Probably because helicopter parenting is in vogue (at least in the US). It is seriously messed up that you can have CPS called on you for letting your kid wander freely in the neighborhood

I can't get my kids out of the house. I try. All of their friends are on SnapChat and/or Steam games. No one leaves their rooms. It is really depressing. Kids are not getting fresh air anymore.

One of the things our kids did was Riekes Nature Studies[1] which gave them one day a week where they spent in a variety of activities with other kids in a large park nearby (Huddart Park in Woodside). This became one of their favorite things to do because not only were many friends present, the facilitators were excellent at engaging the interests in a wide variety of kids. I remember "forcing" my youngest daughter to go and once she went she couldn't stop talking about how great it was and developed many friends that persist to today.

As a parent I came to realize that kids are unlikely to try new things spontaneously if they already have an activity they could be doing which meets their expectations of interest. So as a parent it was incumbent on me to give them the exposure to new experiences in order for them to develop their own understanding of what they did and didn't like.

[1] http://www.riekes.org/nature/

Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

#118

Post by callmeed »

learc83 wrote: post #87
callmeed wrote: post #72

Here's a few random guesses at causation: 1. Kindergarten redshirting 2. Most Kindergartens in the US now are half-day (EDIT: this is false) 3. Helicopter parenting 4. Family & Medical Leave Act ('93) + Longer maternity/paternity leave allowances by employees 5. An increase in single-parent households on some sort of welfare/assistance program (i.e. the single parent is at home and cannot work) 6. Increase in the num…

>Most Kindergartens in the US now are half-day The trend is towards full day Kindergarten not the other direction. More than half of Kindergarten programs are full day now, which is much higher than 50 years ago.

My bad. At least where I live (California central coast), all public school Kindergartens are half-day. The only full-day options are private school.

Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

#119

Post by rjzzleep »

watwut wrote: post #93
azernik wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But probably different people. Communities are very capable of holding conflicting viewpoints.

The point is, only angry and negative people voice their opinions and positively minded people don't. If you look at threads about something else, (say economy or politics) there are typically both optimostic and pessimistic people and even some discussions between those groups. When it comes to parenting and children, positive opinions are rarely heard.

Honestly, if you want to make a point, you should work on the way you phrase it.

> only angry and negative voice their opinions

i.e. bad people

> positively minded

i.e. good people

I know you probably didn't think about it that much. Personally, I could start a rant about toxic culture now, but I'll leave it at that.

If you don't want to create an aggressive response, maybe refrain from calling people that disagree with you angry and negative.

EDIT: here's a suggestion for a good way to phrase the actual meaning you might have been thinking about:

People that are happy about the way something is, are less likely to complain about it. Yes, true, but that by itself doesn't make the thing either good or bad.

Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

#120

Post by pchristensen »

ashark wrote: post #4

1) What's the age range for children, here? All, 0-18? Something else? 2) Is this per kid or per parent? That is, do you get more "points" if you have three kids and spend an hour with all three than if you spend an hour with just one of them, or does it count the same? Per kid the latter'd be lower averaged over the three, per parent it's the same. Looks like it's per-parent but I'm not entirely sure. [EDIT] notably…

Per #2, families are much smaller on average now so even if they count that way, I don't think that would contribute much.
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