Self-induced Mommy Guilt?

Special thanks to all the eagle eyes out there for sending in this latest "Mommy Guilt" piece from the Washington Post about the increased hours today's working moms spend with their kids (yes, you read that right!  We're feeling guilty even though we're spending MORE time focused on our kids than our stay at home mothers!)

According to a University of Maryland study, today's mothers spend more hours focused on their children than their own mothers did 40 years ago, often imagined as the golden era of June Cleaver, television's ever-cheerful, cookie-baking mom.

In 1965, mothers spent 10.2 hours a week tending primarily to their children -- feeding them, reading with them or playing games, for example -- according to the study's analysis of detailed time diaries kept by thousands of Americans. That number dipped in the 1970s and 1980s, rose in the 1990s and now is higher than ever, at nearly 14.1 hours a week.

This is especially striking because it is at odds with how today's mothers view their own lives: Roughly half of those interviewed said they did not have enough time with their children.

This actually doesn't surprise me, and the article mentions some of the following factors:

• Scheduled activities are way up which entails a lot of chauffeuring around (but is this really over-scheduling or a necessity due to safety issues?).
• Working moms don't have random face time during the day (i.e. being in the house with the kids all day, but not necessarily interacting with them), so they overcompensate at off hours with "in their face" time.

One thing they didn't mention was that the schools seem to ask for much more parental involvement than when I was growing up.  Maybe this is adding to the guilt?  But on the flip side could all this "in their face" time, be why we're turning out kids who are never taught that they are NOT the center of the universe.   

So, where is this extra time coming from?  Turns out women are cutting out housework, sleep and their own personal time.   The good news - the men are having more face-time with their kids, too.  Now, if we could just get them to help with the housework!