Word: moms
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...instance, both types of mom drive their children to activities on average almost three days a week. Both types of mom get their children to help with chores almost five days a week. Both eat dinner with their kids nearly five days a week. Both moms - in combination with the dads - help kids with homework more than six times a week...
...first I thought the battle line was day care. Should a kid be with mom or go to preschool? But I looked at the research numbers, and now I'm confused again. Because 48% of stay-at-home moms send their 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds to preschool. Which is not that different a percentage from working moms, 53% of whom send their pre-Ks to preschool. This whole war can't be over that 5% difference...
...this war must be about how much time kids get with their parents. The sociologists keep meticulous track of this. For decades, they've had moms fill out time diaries, chronicling how they allocate their minutes. This research makes an important distinction between accessible time and engaged time. Accessible time is when the parent is present, but the kid is playing or watching television while mom cooks and cleans. Engaged time is direct interaction - snuggling, talking, reading books, eating together, and checking homework. A fascinating report on this came out last week from Suzanne Bianchi at the University of Maryland...
...might wonder how could it average only 42 minutes difference, when mom is home for nine hours. Remember that stay-at-home moms send their children to school, and often to after-school enrichment programs. Working moms, meanwhile, really kick it up a notch when they come home. They pack a ton of direct interaction into those three hours before bedtime...
...recognize that there will always be a war over who is the better mother. I've read enough war coverage to know this has no ending. But I think a kid is lucky to have either type of mom, and so I'm not going to pick sides. I'm with the grandparents. Neutral as the Red Cross...