Here come mom and dad.Welcome back to the good old days of family life. Children in two-parent families now spend more time with their mothers and fathers than children did 20 years ago, concludes a study slated to appear in DEMOGRAPHY demography (dĭmŏg`rəfē), science of human population. Demography represents a fundamental approach to the understanding of human society. . The time kids spend with their mothers in single-parent families single-parent family Social medicine A family unit with a mother or father and unmarried children. See Father 'factor.', Latchkey children, Quality time, Supermom. Cf Extended family, Nuclear family, Two parent advantage. has remained constant over the same period, say John F. Sandberg and Sandra L. Hofferth, both sociologists at the University of Michigan (body, education) University of Michigan - A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. in Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, city (1990 pop. 109,592), seat of Washtenaw co., S Mich., on the Huron River; inc. 1851. It is a research and educational center, with a large number of government and industrial research and development firms, many in high-technology fields such as . Children ages 3 to 12 in two-parent families spent about 31 hours a week with their mothers in 1997, compared with 25 hours in 1981. The kids' weekly time with fathers increased from 19 to 23 hours. Children in the same age range spent about 21 hours a week with single moms in both 1981 and 1997. The amount of time fathers spend with their children rose most sharply in two-parent families with working mothers. Fathers often take up the child-care slack 1. (operating system) slack - Internal fragmentation. Space allocated to a disk file but not actually used to store useful information. 2. (jargon) slack when mothers work outside the home, Sandberg suggests. The data for the study came from nationally representative samples of families that researchers had contacted in 1981 and 1997. Information about how much time parents and their kids spent together came from activity diaries the family members filled out. |
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