Civitas has produced some useful fact sheets on different areas of policy. It has also summarised the policy proposals of each party in each of these areas.
The figure that caught my eye from the 'family' section was:
Time spent caring for own children per day, UK 2005 [15]* Fathers - 15 minutes
* Mothers - 32 minutes
I find it rather shocking. British parents really seem to have contracted out the care of their children.
It would be interesting to see the amount of time divided up into family types and socio-economic groups.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Parenting
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That figure is patent nonsense. My wife and I both work full time in demanding jobs and couldn't manage to get out of the house in the morning without spedning more time than that with our kids. That doesn't even take in to account weekends and evenings.
Posted by: John at April 27, 2010 06:54 PM
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It may well be that parents only spend 15 - 32 minutes a day directly interacting with their kids, but a very large portion of the work done inside and outside of the home (earning wages, doing laundry) is done to care for children. I don't mean to apologize for parental neglect, but our arguments are more believable when we don't exaggerate them.
I love your blog. Please keep up the good work!
Posted by: davek at April 22, 2010 09:02 PM