Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 336 posts

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

#251

Post by whiddershins »

robertwiblin wrote: post #64

"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…

It doesn’t surprise me that kids don’t actually want to spend every waking moment with their parents.

Obviously this varies by age but they are little sentient beings who have their own agendas.

I have no idea why anyone would expect them to want the same one or two people in their mental space during every moment of “free” time.

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

#252

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

whiddershins wrote: post #251
robertwiblin wrote: post #64

"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…

It doesn’t surprise me that kids don’t actually want to spend every waking moment with their parents. Obviously this varies by age but they are little sentient beings who have their own agendas. I have no idea why anyone would expect them to want the same one or two people in their mental space during every moment of “free” time.

Exactly. As a teenager I was more than happy to have my parents spend the day at work, as long as work-related stress didn't get brought back. It would have been quite annoying if they were around me all the time.

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

#253

Post by astura »

linkregister wrote: post #221

This article is half-baked. How were parents spending less time with their children? Day-care facilities have greater attendance than ever. Were relatives watching the children? What age ranges were covered? Without more information, the graphs are meaningless. Maybe it's due to children having more unsupervised, outdoor play. Maybe it's due to relatives watching children more. If the age range is 0-5 years, the resu…

This is not surprising. When I was growing up kids mainly entertained themselves or each other the vast majority of the time. When I was a kid 99.9% of the time I did my own thing and didn't interact very much with adults.

Now people want to entertain their kids all the time.

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

#254

Post by andreliem »

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…

Interested in the age range as well. Huge difference between infants, prek, k-middle school and beyond.

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

#255

Post by andreliem »

baldfat wrote: post #7

The 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 :(

That's definitely the modern day problem! Can't believe how often you go to playgrounds and a parent is on their phone the entire time. It makes me self conscious every time I need to use my phone for something important, as I don't want to be that parent although I have been in the past. I removed the Facebook app from my phone and that's helped, among removing push notifications, putting it on silent etc... phone addiction is a real problem, as is social media consumption.

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

#256

Post by astura »

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.

Limit their access to these devices. After a pre set amount of time you take away their devices or data and they have to figure something else to do.

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

#257

Post by astura »

junkscience2017 wrote: post #169
colordrops wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you give them continuous phone and steam access?

Because otherwise they will be loners. All of their friends are online. If you are offline, you are alone. I don't like this but in 2017 it is the reality for teens.

The question was why do you give them continuous phone and steam access? - continuous being the key word here. Limiting their device usage to a few hours a day does not make them socal outcasts.

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

#258

Post by ddeck »

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…

I believe this is the source for the article:

Educational Gradients in Parents' Child-Care Time Across Countries, 1965–2012[1]

It's behind a paywall, but the PR from the UCI study states:

Study findings were based on the Multinational Time Use Study Harmonized Simple Files, which focused on parents between the ages of 18 and 65 living in households with at least one child under the age of 13 [2]

[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12305/full

[2] https://news.uci.edu/2016/09/28/todays-parents-spend-more-ti...

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

#259

Post by astura »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #176
dragonwriter wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not, because unmarried long-term cohabitation has exploded.

How long term? As long as a whole childhood?

Unsurprisingly most unmarried parents break up before their kid is an adult.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-gaspard-msw-licsw/livin...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004878/Unmarried-pa...

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

#260

Post by astura »

tomc1985 wrote: post #237
thriftwy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read in some paper about Ice Cream Test: Whether your 7 years old can get to the corner store and back after buying an ice cream there without encountering any dangers such as traffic. Immediately thought that you could be jailed for that in some jurisdictions. Having said that, I think the number of people who let their kids free-range is decreasing everywhere unfortunately.

There was always some stigma against free-range parenting (think the grocery store scene in Home Alone) but it's gotten much, much worse

What we would now call "free range parenting" was normal until recently.
Post reply on HN