Mothers' versus Fathers' Time Spent Caring for Children

Excerpt from the liz library http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/custody-evaluator-questions.html.

Much research exists indicating that on average, fathers in intact homes spend far less time than mothers do in direct and indirect childcare. Recent research, however, has been touting an increase in father's participation but much of the research as designed appears to perpetuate the same lack of understanding of what constitutes primary parenting. See, e.g., W. Jean Yeung et al., Children's Time With Fathers in Intact Families, 63 J. Marriage & Fam. 136 (2001), finding that fathers in intact families spend 67% as much time on weekdays, and 87% as much time on weekends as mothers do doing childcare.

A closer look at the Yeung study indicates that no allowance was made for what the fathers versus mothers actually were doing in the time they were credited for, particularly for indirect care "accessibility", and moreover, no time was logged that included childcare activities (such as telephoning arrangements, cooking, laundry, and so forth) that did not involve either being "directly engaged" with the child or being "accessible" to the child (somewhere in the vicinity). Thus, fathers were credited for being directly engaged in childcare for such things as merely being present at a meal or accompanying the family to church. And mothers were not credited for a substantial amount of childcare activity. Fathers also were credited for being "accessible" merely by being in the home at the same time as another adult who was actively engaged in direct childcare and other chores, or else was similarly "accessible." For example, fathers were credited as performing childcare activities by being "accessible" while someone else actually fed the infant, and while other adults were present in the home while an older child did homework alone. Mothers' work thus was downgraded and minimized, while for the most part, fathers' was enhanced.

The researchers apparently were aware of the bias, but disclosed it in a way that only a sharp eye would be likely to notice -- as a lack of reporting on fathers' ostensible other caregiving activities and ignoring the impact this would have on mothers' comparable caregiving time: "The definition of fathers' involvement in this article is limited to those that require the physical proximity of the fathers, however. Thus, activities that may entail cognitive or emotional investment of fathers when they are not physically near their children, such as setting up a college fund or searching for a good health insurance policy for a child while he or she is at school, are beyond the scope of this article." p.137 (How often does a parent search for health insurance or set up a college fund... versus do the food shopping, prepare meals, shop for the children's clothing, arrange playdates, check in with the babysitter, do the laundry, purchase the child's school supplies, clean the child's room...? Specious.)

The Yeung study numbers were taken from daily logs of 1738 children's activities. The most telling data of the entire study is who completed those daily logs: "For the sample used for this article, 60% of the diaries were completed by the child's mother alone, 12% were completed by the mother and the target child, 6% were completed by the child alone (all of these children were 9 years or older), and 15% were completed by someone else in the household, such as a grandmother or other relative.

Information on who completed the instrument is missing for approximately 7% of the diaries." p.139. That mothers and apparently few or no fathers prepared or assisted with the preparation of the children's logs was, however, a negative in the eyes of the same researchers: "It therefore is important to bear in mind when interpreting the results the variation in respondents and the fact that data used in this paper were reported mostly by mothers." p.139-140.

To read more, go to Reevaluating the Evaluators: Rethinking the Assumptions of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in the Family Courts, at the liz library.