Working Moms Lose Lots More Sleep To Child Care Than Dad
RedTracker| The first American study of working parents with young children, analyzing time-diary data from about 20,000 working parents over the period 2003-2007 finds that women are not only more two-and-a-half times likely to get up at night to care for others, their sleep interruptions last longer.
The gender gap in sleep patterns was greatest during the prime childbearing and child-rearing years.
Women face greater fragmentation and lower quality of sleep at a time when their careers are in the critical initial stages. The researchers were surprised to find that even when the woman was the sole breadwinner of the family, 28 percent of them were also responsible for getting out of bed at night for child care, compared to four percent of men.
The research was conducted by sociologist Sarah Burgard for the U-M Institute for Social Research. via Science Daily
Share Article Thu, December 30, 2010 4 Comments in Women's Lives tagged gender gap, parenting, sleep, sleep patterns
Reader Comments (4)
Yup, I'd say true enough, and call it solid evidence in support of the idea mothers should not need to work for money, that for the health of the society rearing children should take absolute priority and all things of an economic nature adjusted to match that need. Of course, fact is society has migrated around and vibrated down to where most mother's must work outside the home even when the children are very young, a fact which is easily seen as compromising the long term health of the culture. Day care just flat sucks by comparison to Mom care, and even the best of day care will produce the assembly line syndrome, to many kids raised exactly alike to produce a viable range of personalities and abilities. This is yet another sterling example of how America may have lost it's long term viability as a culture as a consequence of having won WW2.
Your comments are always interesting, Cyranos. Do you have any knowledge of whether the day care assertion is correct in Scandinavia? I honestly don't know the answer but for me, Scandinavia is the best place to examine a new society based on new principles of gender relations.
I share your priority of children and you know that I agree with your concerns about the long term viability of American culture, based on our current values system.
Now the Tea Party people say the same words. What we need are visions that are articulated in intellectual depth, not simple words. If Mom care is run by the Texas school board vision of American textbooks, I probably don't buy into the premise.
Happy New Year. Anne
*chuckle* I probably shouldn't, but... sure. Why not.
Anne, I have no clue how Scandinavia wandered in, but no matter. I can say with empirical certainty if their day care equals the nurture of a mother's care it then follows the Scandinavian people must have been homogenized beyond any discernable individuality for an institution to successfully replace a parent. But I doubt such is the case. From what I've heard (not that much but all of it good) I'll agree if the objective is a solid test platform for social theory the Scandinavian peoples would be an excellent choice: as nations they have managed well over a century of non-aggression, economies among the most balanced and sustainable on the planet (fiscal maturity indicating emotional stability), seems I recall they did a good job of addressing the social manifestations of sexuality with a bit of mature wisdom rather than hysteria transformed into litigated denial. Sure, let the Swedes take a swing at it if they're of a mind to. Now, what exactly are we trying to demonstrate?
I wish I could say I see a working value system in the American culture. Speaking with the detachment of a historian from our future, say one from the century known to Captain Picard, I would have to say the value system of this culture has been shattered and dispersed, no one segment of the culture in possession of enough shards to effect a workable replacement. Heavy subject, this one, and waaaay too long winded for tonight. A very big part of why I'm here, educating myself to as many facets of our society as I can get a line of sight on.
Fair warning, Anne. I've been called a pragmatic idealist, and it's a good description. I chuckle at the liberals, mourn the fate of the conservatives (we so very much need both!) and am looking for an excuse to shoot at the bushites (those who betrayed the conservatives near to death, whose ultimately loyalty is not to a land or a people, any land, any people, but rather to their corporations who sponsored the most serious threat ever mounted against the Constitution of the United States in the form of an attempted coup by media manipulation). I do share in many of the same objectives as the conservative side of the world, but being PI in most cases I'm in disagreement with them as to how our society should set about translating our desires into reality. I think I'm a little deeper than they are into the thoughts of how to make things balance into full justice, the dynamics of heart and soul, psyche and spirit considered at the same depth an engineer considers mass and inertia, enthalpy and entropy when the objective is to build an engine. You'll have to tell me when I've worn out the soapbox.
Oh, and as for textbooks from Texas? Yup, Winston Smith himself would be proud of the Texas school board. Where I live you can pretty well fly a kite 365 days a year, because even when Kansas isn't blowing Texas still sucks.
Happy New Year to you and yours, and may the days be remembered by the delights that were savored.
Happy New Year to you as well, Cyranos. I brought up Scandinavia for the reasons you stated and also the fact that fathers are much more involved in child care in those countries. And yes, day care is also more advanced. I would have to do the research or ask some of my friends in Europe, but I believe more Scandinavian men get up in the middle of the night, because they have assumed more responsibility for child rearing.
A 2008 night in LA is coming back to me now. I was dining at the Finnish embassy residence with several Swedes present -- men and women -- and we fell into long conversation at the table on this topic. All the Scandinavians felt that gender relations and child care were much more a shared focus in those countries. Just being with that group of people, who were business professionals, was inspiring. Very different values.
You've not worn out the soapbox! Happy New Year! Anne