A recent study about parents’ effects on childhood ill health found that unemployed mothers spend about seven hours a day doing chores related to their children’s diet and exercise (such as grocery shopping, cooking, and playing with children), while employed mothers spend about five. On the other hand, both employed and unemployed fathers spend less than an hour on these tasks.
Let’s play a fun game of Guess The Headline:
A) Fathers put less effort than mothers into their kids’ diet, exercise.
B) Fathers perform fewer routine child care duties than mothers.
C) How can we get fathers more involved in their children’s health?
D) Working mothers spend less time daily on their kids’ diet, exercise.
If you picked D, congratulations, you understand how the sexist mind works.
Are men incapable of cooking? Grocery-shopping? Playing with children? Surely not. And at least two of those can be deeply gratifying. (Well, grocery shopping on a budget can be fun too– it’s like a game!– but very few people cite that as important.) Instead of blaming employed mothers for not being able to make their children’s health basically a full-time job the way that unemployed mothers do, we should be asking why moms with jobs put in more than four times as much effort into their children’s health as dads without jobs.
Some of the reasons may be fairly benign, such as fathers tending to do other household duties, or employed men being likely to work more than employed women. Some are not, such as the incredibly awful idea that if men try to take care of children there will be poop on the ceiling and the six-year-old will still be awake at 2 am. (Or men who have internalized sexism to the degree that they believe it is perfectly normal and acceptable for a father to be completely incompetent at childrearing.) Nevertheless, nearly all of them are probably rooted in sexism, and it is something that should be eradicated. Not erased by blaming mothers.
Photo– Jeda Villa Bali/Flickr. A father holds his daughter.
About ozyfrantz
Don’t confuse the headline with the study. The headline may be sexist, but the study, as presented here only demonstrates a difference in time. Dads should spend more time with their kids, but to suggest they don’t because of a culture of sexism alone is fallacy. It ignores other social pressures, demographics, neurology, and so much more.
True, but the headline is remarkably sexist. Both groups of women spend WAY more time with their kids than either group of men. Yet the headline completely ignores that difference and focuses solely on the difference between employed and unemployed women, as if all those daddies didn’t exist. I find that deeply offensive, and I’m not even one of the men being erased (I’m not a parent at all, but would like to be one someday).
In fact, when you juxtapose the working mom’s child-rearing hours (5/day) with the unemployed dad’s (<1/day), it becomes even more clear that Something Is Wrong in our society. Why is a woman who already has a job expected to do that much extra work on top of that, while a man who has no job, and doesn’t need to spend more than a couple hours a day looking for one, isn’t really expected to be involved with his kids’ lives at all? It’s like all the problems from “Cat’s In the Cradle” turned up to 11.
It doesn’t say that though, it says men spend less time with the kids FOR health and exercise, whilst comparing it to women who are just with the kids?
“Why is a woman who already has a job expected to do that much extra work on top of that, while a man who has no job, and doesn’t need to spend more than a couple hours a day looking for one, isn’t really expected to be involved with his kids’ lives at all? It’s like all the problems from “Cat’s In the Cradle” turned up to 11.”
From what I see of the study, That’s not happening….They aren’t listing the time the man spends with the kid in other ways, non health-related ways.
I believe in the western countries also the time spent with kids is far more proportional, but remember that there are a lot of single mothers vs single fathers so the non-custodial father will have less time with the kid too. I’m not sure if all of these variables were taken into account or if it was just looking at couples that remain together.
The study itself is behind a paywall. And the reporting on it is sexist TO MEN by trying to say men do less by comparing women’s time with kids, to mens EXERCISE and HEALTH time with kids, not the rest of child rearing?
Does it only count fathers and mothers that are still together? Could be that unemployed men are more likely to be away from the family home, divorced, split up, etc?
Another potential is handling of depression, fathers may be more likely to seek solace than mothers. Could also be that they are busy doing fix it up jobs around the house which could be dangerous for kids to be around but that wouldn’t explain all of it.
Did the researchers ask the fathers about it?
“Overall, according to the full paper, they found that “The average number of total minutes per day spent with children is 410 min for non-working mothers and 277 min for working mothers.”
As the second paragraph explains, “Employed fathers devote just 13 minutes daily to [chores related to children's diet and exercise] and non-working fathers contribute 41 minutes.””
Not sure if anyone pointed it out but the 13 and 41 minutes can’t be compared to 410 and 277 minutes, one describes time alone with kid, the other describes time on the healthcare. I can’t see where you are getting the 4x less from though, I can’t see the original data as it’s behind a pay-wall, where are you getting it?
Probably from the hour numbers. 1 hour is less than one-fourth of 5.
But…wow, now that I see the minute numbers, it’s really more like one-tenth!
I think I agree with Archy that one cannot compare those two numbers. One-tenth doesn’t seem to jive with the numbers from the US Time Use Survey 2011: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t09.htm
The linked table states that men spend 0.88 hours per day caring for children as a primary activity while women spend 1.71 hours per day (both numbers for persons in a household with children under 18).
This ( http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t10.htm ) table for childcare as a secondary activity (done while also doing something else like cooking etc) shows that men spend 4.19 hours per day while women spend 6.1 hours per day doing this.
A discrepancy, but nothing like one-tenth.
I didn’t find statistics on this in the US, but in the nordic countries’ time use survey I’ve seen there is an increase in men’s overtime after they get children while there is a reduction in hours spent working for women after they get children. The uncharitable way of looking at that is saying that men shirk their domestic duties when they get children and that they use work as an excuse to get away with it. Another way is that men step-up to the breadwinner role trying to increase the household income (also to compensate for less hour worked by the mother).
The original press release were considerably more moderate than the headline indicates and included statements like these:
Besides that I find the implied connection between time spent grocery shopping and the nutritional value of the food purchased to be rather spurious.
This is a joint study between Cornell & Shanghai Universities, which explains why the sample is limited to households with “one child under the age of 18.”
It may also bias the study as a result of the vastly different cultures of China and America.
While I appreciate any work aimed at the pursuit of knowledge, w/o seeing the actual study and w/o providing sufficient data from the study in the abstract, this does more to harm and bias that pursuit.
I hope this criticism is taken in the spirit of helping one another improve our understanding of these subjects, and the effort we put in to that end.
So is it only chinese familes, or both countries?
I spose that also highlights another form of sexism. Showing misogynist attitudes in one country and trying to compare it to others.
It’s not a matter of which Nation. It’s the additional qualifiers brought to bare when looking into cross-cultural analysis, the data of which is missing from the best abstract I was able to find without paying $40+ . Add to that the same lack of data on either Nation/culture in the same abstract.
For example, in the original study, were income levels accounted for? Or education level? Perhaps, but neither the abstract nor the article(s) gave clear reference. I’m certainly not denying sexism in America (be it at home or the workplace.) I simply think drawing broad conclusions from a single abstract on a poorly titled study is a mistake.
Yeah that’s the problem. So many studies get reported on wrongly or with bias.
This is honestly one of the reasons I don’t want to have children. I’ve noticed (anecdotally) that the men in my peer group are, on average, much more enthusiastic about the idea of having kids compared to the women. I think they tend to picture the fun, easy parts of parenthood, while women tend to be much more aware of the incredibly hard work they’ll be expected to do while their male partners get applauded for “babysitting” the kids every once in a while.
Also, Ozy, I have access to the full paper if you’d like me to send it to you.
For those who are wondering, this is based off an time-use survey of Americans with at least one child, not just one child (contrary to what Bryono Carter is saying above).
Does it differentiate parents who don’t live with their kid?
Theoretically, there are other possibilities that would have to be taken into account, however unlikely people may think they are:
Maybe men are a little more efficient or realistic about childrearing. They are less likely to be helicopter parents or smothering or obsessive about spending time with their children. (Okay, they can’t be 400% more efficient, but maybe a little bit!?)
Perhaps past a certain point there are diminishing returns, and more time does not always translate into a better job of parenting.
Perhaps unemployed women simply have more time to spend with their children, but the extra time makes no real difference.
Men and women may report their hours differently. A stay-at-home mother might double-bill her hours, while a stay-at-home father might not. He watches TV and doesn’t count it as babysitting, but she watches TV and does count it.
Perhaps the gold standard for childcare should NOT be based on what unemployed mothers do. Maybe we shouldn’t assume that women are the best parents, and men can only be as good if they parent the same way as women.
How dare you suggest women may be more likely to be helicopter parents or spend unnecessary amounts of time with the kids:P. But I think you may have a point, men could be doing things more efficiently or allow their children more time without strict supervision.
“Men and women may report their hours differently. A stay-at-home mother might double-bill her hours, while a stay-at-home father might not. He watches TV and doesn’t count it as babysitting, but she watches TV and does count it.”
I think that could very well be true, if I am watching tv with the kid near me I’m not sure I’d call it baby sitting? Could be that she is spending more time with both him and the child as well, whereas when she is around he takes a break n goes to do other stuff….which isn’t bad if she is ok with it, people need time to chill out. I think men are also more likely to seek solitude to unwind, some will say men goto their cave and it’s a vital part of men unwinding for the day. Could be that the women don’t need as much time to unwind in a solitary manner, or that they unwind by being around others more? (of course when I say men n women here, I mean the average man or woman and not all of them).
There are many variables to take into account and trying to get a clue of life from a few questions isn’t a great idea…
1) I misquoted the abstract when I said it stated single-child households.
2) The abstract also states that it (the paper) takes socioeconomic factors into consideration.
3) The abstract strongly suggest that the paper focuses on American households.
The abstract also states the data was amassed from multiple sources, from ’04 to ’09, I believe. It does not clearly state the number of children, the offsets used, whether the paper itself is restricted to American households, etc. So, to maintain intellectual honesty in & integrity, those of us without the paper itself must approach the articles & abstract with reasonable skepticism.
To do otherwise undermines scientific inquiry as well as the goal of understanding & addressing gender bias.
Again, I agree that the title of the paper was poorly chosen for a western audience. That, juxtaposed with the abstracts clear suggestion that the disparity in female/male time spent with children is or can be a significant factor in childhood obesity, using the ATUS as a guide, suggests that any gender bias is confined to the papers title, not it’s content.
So again, without more data (the paper) the articles are in a way potentially harmful to gender equality, as they are antagonistic in nature.
But they’re comparing 2 different activities of the mother n father…women’s is listed as all time spent with kid, men’s is listed as health n exercise only?