The Parenthood Divide
Over the course of the past half-century, American society generally has seen a dramatic rise in single-parent families. Children born to unmarried mothers have soared from 10 percent of the total in 1969 to an astonishing 41 percent in 2008. Meanwhile, the share of children living with two married parents has fallen from 77 percent in 1980 to 65 percent in 2011.
The Real Problem With Helicopter Parents: There Aren’t Enough of Them | The Atlantic
A few days after I wrote up my thoughts on being part of an epidemic, this article gets published. It’s an interesting read comparing low-income parents with college-educated parents now to years prior, but the above paragraph really stood out for me. I knew people were trending towards single parenting, but that’s quite the shift within a few generations.
The other line that stood was this:
The time that college-educated dads spent with their kids rose from 5 to 10 hours, while for less-educated dads the increase was from around 4 hours to around 8 hours.
That’s in a week. I spend 10 hours with my daughter in a day for three or more days of the week (this week while she’s been sick, it’s up to 60 hours already). I know this will change when she is in school, but it helps put the amount of time I spend with her into perspective and why I do tend to get some weird looks when in the park or when people make comments about how often they see me out with my daughter.
The times they are a changing.
