We Spend a LOT of Time With Our Kids These Days – LBF
Hey everyone! Busy day today because:
a.) everyone is getting fired for sexually harassing women
and b.) I have spent the past three hours entertaining Lucy because it’s ANOTHER HALF DAY IN PUBLIC SCHOOL LAND.
(Side note: I should be at parent/teacher conferences today but I totally forgot to sign up and all the slots are taken.)
Mother of the Year.
But maybe I am? A new study says at least we moms are WAY better than the moms of yesteryear.
Why?
The amount of time we spend with our kids has LITERALLY DOUBLED in 50 years.
NO WONDER WE ARE EXHAUSTED.
From The Economist:
“PARENTS these days spend a lot more time with their offspring, or at least middle-class parents do. 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.”
104 minutes? Almost two hours? Um, I spend a LOT more time than that. But Lucy also spends a lot more time on a Kindle than a kid did in 1965. (I know there were no Kindles in 1965. But YOU SEE WHAT I’M GETTING AT.)
I also think we spend a lot more time with our kids shuttling them to activity after activity.
Also no one leaves the house anymore because they are Facetiming the people they want to see.
And because many parents both work full time, the time we have with the kids is actually something we look forward to – unless there’s a new season of Stranger Things on. In that case, I want zero minutes with Lucy and thousand of minutes with Netflix.
As I said, Mother of the Year.
Here’s the study:
