According to a recent British study, the average worker spends 19 minutes on average with their child.
PLEASE! Can someone get me a barf bag? It is "research" like this that just adds more fuel to the fire of mommy guilt that rages in the hearts of most moms that work outside the home.
I know that when I was still "doing it all" (and failing at it) there were some days that I barely spent time with my girls.
I find it hard to believe that any mother spends an "average" of just 19 minutes with their kids. The study was reported in a recent DAILY MAIL newspaper article. Here is a sample from the article:
A typical working parent spends just 19 minutes a day looking after their children, official figures revealed yesterday.
The startling research shows the devastating impact that working full-time has on children who hardly see their parents.
What do you WTMs think? Let’s hear it.
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{ 11 comments }
hahaha Karrie – 19 minutes per shoe, per toddler – so very very true.
They’re nuts. Anyway, doesn’t the Daily Mail just make stuff up all the time?
As a UK citizen, I know not to believe anything printed in the Daily “scare” Mail!!!!
I’d love to see the methodology for this obviously-flawed study. What researcher could possibly let something like that be released without a mom somewhere saying ‘This has got to be wrong’?
No way that is true.
Being a WAHM, I can say I have spent well beyond my prison sentence (I kid, I kid) with them.
But, even when I worked outside of the house – I still got a few hours of time in – even if it was doing baths, feeding or even keeping her awake longer just to see her.
My girls wake themselves up and get ready for school. We see each other for seven minutes in the morning before we get in the car to go to school, another four minutes to get there. After school, four minutes to get home. Then I do dinner and they do homework. (We’re at 15 minutes here people.) My oldest(10) helps her younger sister(5). While they eat, I clean the house, laundry, whatnot. Then they take showers/baths, and by then, it’s bedtime. Hugs and kisses probably take three minutes. 18 minutes, folks! Weekends are much much better…
You’ve got to be freakin kidding me here!! 19 minutes a day!!! I’m not only a Mom, but a SINGLE parent at that and I certainly spend more than 19 minutes with my 5 year old. Including time in the morning getting ready, and the time I have her “help” me while making dinner, to eating together, to bath time, to play time and story time…you’ve got to be kidding me.
That’s not even mentioning the time spent on weekends, when it’s special “Mommy and Bella time”!!!
Grrrrr…people are so dumb…who did they get info from anyway!?!?!?! Certainly no parents I know!!!
Complete and utter BS.
I put my baby in the highchair in the kitchen while I cook so I can spend MORE time with her. And I only work part time at that.
Whatevs, Brits!
Nineteen minutes my ass. I’d like to know what criteria the researchers used for the term “looking after their children.” Is it activities that allow us to enrich our relationship with our kids? Or is it the endless tasks of wiping their butts? Listen, I’ve been both a working-outside-the-home monm and am currently a stay-at-home mom. I can tell you that I spent just as much time with my little darlings/demons when I worked outside the home as I do now. In fact, I might have spent even MORE quality time with them when I worked outside the home because I didn’t have to spend the entire day cooped up with them, listening to their bickering, whining and complaints that I’m not spoiling them as much as other stay-at-home moms. But I digress.
HUH???? 19 minutes? That doesn’t even make sense – I work full time, and it takes me longer than that to get my 4 year old ready in the morning (at least 1/2 hour, plus the drive to daycaer). I get home at 5:30, and she goes to be at 8:30 – uh, that’s almost 4 hours right there!! Apparently they do things differently in the UK….
Sounds flawed to me. (The link is not working, so I could not read the entire piece.)
It takes 19 minutes just to get one shoe on a toddler.
Please. I work full time – and I spend way more time than that with my kids every day, not to mention weekends. These goobers need to remember that “working mom” encompasses alot more than full time exec types or the mom working 3 jobs to put food on the table. There are alot of us that just work a 40 hour week – with plenty of time with our kids.
Hmph.
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