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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

#271

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #252
whiddershins wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This lead me to think: "Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago" - well no wonder parents seem stressed and overworked!

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

#272

Post by nkurz »

ovulator wrote: post #96
peeters wrote: post #57

OK I'll ask: what's the deal with Denmark?

The study only had two data points for Denmark, and extrapolated the rest from that.

I'm not sure if you are being serious or joking, but yes, this does turn out to be exactly the problem. The study only has data points for Denmark in 1987 and 2001, and the whole rest of the curve is extrapolated from the data from these two years.

France, the other extreme outlier and the focus of the Economist article, is extrapolated from 3 years. The original graph at least tries to show error bars, but the Economist's "cartoon" helpfully omitted them. Theoretically, there might be something useful hidden somewhere else in the paper, but the graph that the Economist focuses on is rubbish.

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

#273

Post by SubiculumCode »

I don't have a subscription. Does the author consider the broader historical context? For example, on near subsistence agricultural societies, I imagine that families spend a lot of time working together, for example. Same with hunter-gathering, or even son-as apprentice trade crafts.

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

#274

Post by stickfigure »

tomc1985 wrote: post #212
conanbatt wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids today learn faster than we did also. One they he will fix the breaker box for you and its GG dad. I truly consider that my kid will be able to use the internet against me in ways inimaginable. Its exciting!

My parents used to swipe critical computer parts from my machine as punishment, to take it away. Things like power cords, keyboards -- little stuff that cripples the computer. But I had spares for days, stuffed in a little box in the back of my closet :)

Growing up, I didn't need my parents to do that. Getting an IBM PC clone to play the latest games in the 80s required a constant effort of flipping dip switches, pulling jumpers, and reseating chips. Not to mention the whole EMM/EMS thing.

I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do for my son to give him the same... incentives.

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

#276

Post by zby »

andreliem wrote: post #255
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 a…

When you are on a safe playground you don't need to watch your child all the time. I read books at that time.

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

#277

Post by bjoli »

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…

Accepting that my needs come second and just generally trying to make things smooth for my son has made our relationship so much better.

I used to think that I would be able to get an hour or two of work done when he was asleep,but the result was never good. I was stressed out after my third month of paternity leave. For the remaining months (we get 195 days to use as we please at 80% pay in Sweden) I just called down and learned to be happy with my day if we managed to

1. Walk the dog for at least one 1-2hr walk

2. Have some kind of social inreraction with grown-ups.

I now just sleep/relax whenever he's sleeping. Good days he sleeps a good 3hr mid day, and those days I try to get things done, but depending on how the night was sometimes I just do 3hr of relaxing and doing things that I know are good for me.

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

#278

Post by roel_v »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #273

I don't have a subscription. Does the author consider the broader historical context? For example, on near subsistence agricultural societies, I imagine that families spend a lot of time working together, for example. Same with hunter-gathering, or even son-as apprentice trade crafts.

Somehow I don't think that tilling land with a baby strapped to your back would be counted as 'spending time with'...

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

#279

Post by chrisseaton »

ordu wrote: post #187
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…

I learnt from psychologist that there are ways to help newborn to get asleep. Newborn is in a very uncomfortable conditions for him. He used to be in a liquid environment. It was very noisy environment: there was a lot of sounds made by mothers body, digesting and more importantly heartbeat. It was dark there. But now he is on the air, he need to breathe, he hears silence with interruptions by some sharp sounds (in t…

Why do people write ‘baby’ or ‘newborn’ with no article like that? Surely it’s ‘a baby’ or ‘the baby’ or ‘your baby’ or maybe ‘babies’ if you mean in general. Just ‘baby’ sounds like broken English. You wouldn’t write ‘manager sent me an email’, you’d write ‘my manager’ or something like that with an article.

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

#280

Post by k__ »

I know many parents were at least the father started working more and often far away from their family.

Sure they need more money with children, but how good is the money if you only see them on the weekend?

Sometimes it sounds like an excuse so they don't have to hang around with them, but maybe I'm just bitter, because my father left me when I was 6 and even the years before I barely saw him :/

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