The Equal Opportunities Commission has just published a report entitled the 'State of the Modern Family'. This is a wide-ranging report into various subjects based on 19,000 children born in the UK between 2000-2001.
The biggest conclusion of the study is about as startling a revelation as H from Steps revealing he was in the gays; namely that less-well off families spend less time with their children. If you ask me, that pretty much stands to reason. Without meaning to be harsh, it is also something that is going to be difficult for many of those families to address - after all, if they were able and willing to get better paying jobs, one assumes they probably would.
Perhaps more interesting from the perspective of this Blog, is the fact that paternal absenteeism during birth and the first three years of a child's life can have significant implications for the child's emotional and behavioural health. Previous research has - 'no shit Sherlock' moment - revealed that a mother's presence is very important to a child's health, but no previous study has shown the effects of paternal absenteeism.
Changes in the amount of flexible-working arrangements available to fathers over the past decade have increased the amount of time new fathers can spend with their children, but despite this and the fact that 63% of new fathers say they don't get to spend enough time with their babies, fathers are less likely to take advantage of the opportunities open to them to rectify the situation.
For those of us who are able to earn a decent salary and are lucky enough to work reasonable hours to do so, stories such as these should make us feel fortunate indeed.
In the past few days, Olivia has become significantly more alert and, frankly, nosey. When she's not held rapt by a bottle, booby or father showing that he can't sing nursery rhymes, her eyes are flicking around the room to latch on to whatever is interesting to a baby. She's starting to smile and even laugh now, and she's has periods where she hangs on my every word.
Who wouldn't want to go home from work for that? Not exactly a hardship, is it?
With thanks to our most splendid friend S_ for pointing this one out to us.
The biggest conclusion of the study is about as startling a revelation as H from Steps revealing he was in the gays; namely that less-well off families spend less time with their children. If you ask me, that pretty much stands to reason. Without meaning to be harsh, it is also something that is going to be difficult for many of those families to address - after all, if they were able and willing to get better paying jobs, one assumes they probably would.
Perhaps more interesting from the perspective of this Blog, is the fact that paternal absenteeism during birth and the first three years of a child's life can have significant implications for the child's emotional and behavioural health. Previous research has - 'no shit Sherlock' moment - revealed that a mother's presence is very important to a child's health, but no previous study has shown the effects of paternal absenteeism.
Changes in the amount of flexible-working arrangements available to fathers over the past decade have increased the amount of time new fathers can spend with their children, but despite this and the fact that 63% of new fathers say they don't get to spend enough time with their babies, fathers are less likely to take advantage of the opportunities open to them to rectify the situation.
For those of us who are able to earn a decent salary and are lucky enough to work reasonable hours to do so, stories such as these should make us feel fortunate indeed.
In the past few days, Olivia has become significantly more alert and, frankly, nosey. When she's not held rapt by a bottle, booby or father showing that he can't sing nursery rhymes, her eyes are flicking around the room to latch on to whatever is interesting to a baby. She's starting to smile and even laugh now, and she's has periods where she hangs on my every word.
Who wouldn't want to go home from work for that? Not exactly a hardship, is it?
With thanks to our most splendid friend S_ for pointing this one out to us.
Hmmm.
ReplyDeleteIs it really as easy as the government would like to think for fathers to do flexible working? Some other survey said a large percentage of fathers who did ask to be flexible were turned down. And mothers can find their careers still-born by having to leave at a certain time to pick up little Johnny every day. Don't think the culture has changed that much yet (not for want of trying by many concerned, of course).
It's not just low-paid jobs that will keep fathers and mothers away from their children but also those who do shift work or long hours including lawyers, doctors etc.
I agree with the idea that these sorts of things illustrate again the gap between rich and poor, but also think such surveys can all too easily be turned into Daily Mail-style scaremongering rants to make working parents feel as guilty as possible about having to leave their kids for a few hours a day in order to afford to provide them with a roof over their heads etc.