How is this even possible when nearly all households requiring dual incomes?
Weekends.
Dad used to fiddle in the basement or go golfing, now he goes to soccer practice or the park.
Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago
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Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago
#172This is a bad thing. Children are being straight up stifled and their ability to develop independence being actively and aggressively destroyed. We will pay a very steep price for this.
I've been tossing this idea around actually. Gotta find some way to put my anthropology minor to use :P
All unsourced speculative thoughts:
So, traditionally, across all early human civilizations (including pre-ag revolution), my understanding is that kids weren't "raised" by their parents - everyone just kind of hung out in their villages, doing misc tasks/work, while the children ran free. The "raising" was done by the village as a whole, with the village elders taking an authoritative stance.
Unlike in today's society, there isn't this massive, silo'd burden of ensuring a kid grows up sane / well adjusted / useful to society lumped onto two people who have literally never done it before and have to juggle the responsibility with as much as 8 hours a day or more of work to provide food/shelter for the kids. On average, these couples get about 1.5 "kids" worth of "raising kids" experience, and then that knowledge just dies off because they don't raise any more kids and don't really participate in the raising of their grandchildren.
Compare that to a village where everybody is involved in raising kids, in particular the elders who might have seen tens of children growing and developing, from birth right up to adulthood.
I guess my point is I'm not sure we're really doing "raising kids" in the best way anymore - I don't understand how it's acceptable that
1. Parents need to spend the majority of time away from children to provide food and shelter for the children
2. Two people with minimal "parenting" skills are entrusted with the raising of children from birth to adulthood
EDIT: These thoughts apply to American white culture. Asian cultures still involve grandparents heavily in raising the child (grandparents raising the kids while parents are at work - I got my own issues with that as well but this isn't the place for it) and pockets of Black American neighborhoods where kids are raised by the community / large family units. (There's actually really great books written on how Black American kids grow up super socially adjusted, verbose, and confident because of how much time they spend hanging out with various adults)
Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Corner store? You mean the Mega-lo-mart only accessibly after hopping on the free way?
Where I live my kids can go on a 5 minute walk through a quiet neighborhood then cross one street to get to McDonalds. If they go a different direction they wind up at Subway. In 10 minutes they can go to a wide variety of places, everything from IHOP to a dollar store. Albertsons is an 11 minute walk. Less if they run. More if they stop and play at the park on the way. Not all of suburbia is big box malls off of fre…
That's anecdotal.
10 minutes of walking won't even get you out of my subdivision. Plop down a 15-minute radius on my map and there are literally zero places of business anywhere in it.
This is largely due to zoning. There is a strip of land zoned for local businesses a mere 10 minutes away, but unsurprisingly, no one has chosen to build anything on it.
You can't always prioritize walkability if you have a limit on your housing budget. My current place costs $11k/year, and the commuting to work by car isn't entirely horrible. But walking anywhere is really out of the question.
Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Do you really think most unmarried families have both mother and father in the household, though? Regular contact with the father would be a lot more difficult if he's not around except on weekends.
From the numbers, back in the 50s kids probably only saw their fathers on the weekends in married families. It is startling to see how much more time fathers get with their kids nowdays.
Whilst now we're much more progressive and kids don't see either parent!?
Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago
#175I spent a lot of time with my parents. Lots and lots of time splitting wood, tinkering on equipment, toiling in the garden, working in the yard. At the time, I would have loved to spend less time with them.
Looking back, what about now? Overall, are you happy with the amount of time you did spend with your parents?
Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago
#176Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago
#177The problem is that 90% of the time the parents are now on their phones. Seriously I find myself on my phone and not interacting with my kids at times and I am super sensitive about phones. I don't allow phones during meals, during family time and not when someone is talking with you. I break my own rules a ton :(
Two of my buddies had kids when they were 19-20, when I see one of them his daughter is basically watching youtube videos all the time sitting on the couch. The other guy does not really let his kids around phones or tablets, they can watch TV, but thats also heavily regulated. But usually when we are around, they hang out with us and work on cars. Its really fun to teach them stuff about cars even if they are only 5…
> on a side note does anyone else find those youtube videos for kids hella creepy?
Yes, and there was a recent discussion on HN about it, too [0].
Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago
#178Probably 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 think it is less in vogue than you imagine. Every single parent I interact with via my son's activities expresses a lot of distain for it and generally promotes free time for their kids.
I think the tide is turning back to free-range parenting.
Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago
#179Here'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…
How about
1. Increase in private schools: no school bus for kiddo, but a parent as chauffeur. (A woman I knew claimed to have done 200 miles per day for some period. She had four kids.)
2. Increase in organized sports from an early age. Again, a parent as chauffeur, bystander, and sometimes coach or assistant coach.
Re: Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago
#180"One of Galinsky's more surprising findings centered around a question she posed to both children and parents: "If you were granted one wish to change the way your mother's/your father's work affects your life, what would that wish be?" Some 56 percent of parents anticipated that their children would want more time with their parents and for their parents to spend less time at work, yet only 10 percent of the childre…
This makes sense. I would much rather have less and more positive interactions with my parents than more or more stressful ones. Some people seem to have a "my parent was never around" complex but that usually seems to involve some combination of 1. Parent completely absent, not home at night, not reliable or away for extended periods working or 2. Parent missing key, meaningful events like the "dance recital" trope or 3. Parent outsources parenting to nanny and doesn't really monitor outcomes. If you are there for the important things, when you say you will be, and home for dinner (present, not just emailing on your phone) as often as you can be, that seems to matter more than working part time or other modern and progressive interpretations of being an engaged parent and with your kids.