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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

#291

Post by ido »

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.

It's totally different as a teenager. Under age 5 kids are very emotionally dependent on their parents being around (even when not otherwise "needed").

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

#292

Post by sitepodmatt »

thriftwy wrote: post #8
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'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.

I think the word we're missing is pedophiles, we don't let kids roam far due to the increase fear of pedophiles - although I suspect the risk level havent changed as much as the publicity. Im probably better with traffic back then than I am now. Back in my day say when we were 9 or 10 so, we're be away from home for several hours at time during school holidays, sometimes we'd venture a little further than we'd admit to our parents - and bunk on a train to nearby city to cause a bit mayhem there etc.., we're try a get back before tea time incase the parents started calling each other and stories weren't solid. At age of 7 we certainly accustomed to the local shops and parks. I speak to parents now and the phrase often is 'the world is a different place' they mean there a new awareness of nonces. That's the unfortunate truth, of course there were still extremely cagey parents back then too, I felt sorry for those kids.

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

#293

Post by wiz21c »

jdietrich wrote: post #286
sbinthree wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think that dependability is the key point. "My parents were never around" often translates to "my parents couldn't be relied on when it really matters". You don't have to spend 24/7 with your kids to establish the secure belief that you'll drop everything to help them; conversely, you can be present a great deal without ever giving the sense that you're a reliable resource. I think this is what underpins the "dance…

This, 100000 times : "Without necessarily realising it, parents send subtle messages every day about where their priorities really lie."

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

#294

Post by _pmf_ »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #271
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Time for bedtime routine for my two children: 3-4 hours every evening.

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

#295

Post by devdad »

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…

Isn't this actually the same thing, but from a grown-up perspective and from a child perspetive? If I say I want to work less, I would imply that I would be less stressed.

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

#296

Post by ordu »

chrisseaton wrote: post #279
ordu wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm really glad to get feedback from English native. I'm even more happy because your feedback confirms my expectations: articles are really hard for me, because my first language does not have them.

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

#297

Post by rvanmil »

Illotus wrote: post #285
Troyboy wrote: post #19

How is this even possible when nearly all households requiring dual incomes?

What? Working 8 hours a day leaves about 8 hours of freetime to spend with your kids even leaving 8 hours for sleep. Even if you change the numbers there is plenty of time to spent, it is just matter of prioritizing.

This doesn’t make any sense. Kid wakes up at 7:00, you have 1 hour for breakfast and to get ready for school/work. Then you’re back home at 6:00 and you’ll have another hour for dinner and getting your kid ready for bed. So this leaves about 30 minutes to spend time playing with your kid on an average weekday.

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

#298

Post by liveoneggs »

bjoli wrote: post #277
liveoneggs wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dow…

I got 15 days and thought it was generous.

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

#299

Post by snarfybarfy »

otakucode wrote: post #219
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find one of the most effective ways to do more with less is to ignore work after work It's a shame that the concept of "having a life" as we pejoratively said in the 90s seems to have been forgotten.

Hah. Are you aware that there used to be a phrase everyone knew referred to as a 'speed-up'? It was the opposite side of the coin of a work slowdown. Everyone knows what a slowdown is. It's when workers try to get higher wages or apply pressure on their employer by intentionally working more slowly. And it used to be equally universally known that the opposite side of the coin was equally immoral and disgusting - for…

The 'Free market principle' does not necessarily imply zero profits. It's more along the line of: The profits should stay in line with the risks that the enterprise needs to take. More risky business sectors should (e.g. more upfront investments required) produce higher profits. Same as riskier bonds commanding a premium over t-bills.

But I agree that a lot of big players have managed to position themselves outside any 'free markets'

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

#300

Post by nhumrich »

If this article is accurate (data source looks shady and lacking statistical significance) I believe it. I think for me, the main thing that would explain the increase is that you now have to watch your kid. What I mean is, when my parents were growing up, they would just wander the streets, hang out with other kids, and generally raise themselves. But now in days (at least in US) parent supervision is required for just about everything, and parents are afraid to let kids just go and wander (for good reasons).
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