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Some powerful numbers from historian of marriage Stephanie Coontz, writing in the Times:
Parents today spend much more time with their children than they did 40 years ago. The sociologists Suzanne Bianchi, John Robinson and Melissa Milkie report that married mothers in 2000 spent 20 percent more time with their children than in 1965. Married fathers spent more than twice as much time.A study by John Sandberg and Sandra Hofferth at the University of Michigan showed that by 1997 children in two-parent families were getting six more hours a week with Mom and four more hours with Dad than in 1981. And these increases occurred even as more mothers entered the labor force.Of course, the picture looks different when it comes to single mothers, who need to work more hours to support their kids, and are often younger and poorer. But that's not a reason to rail against working moms, as conservatives are wont to do. Rather, it's a reason to promote contraceptives, higher levels of educational achievement, and delayed marriage.--Dana Goldstein
