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Australian families are increasingly reliant on two full-time incomes while taking on more parenting, supervision and emotional support responsibilities. Experts say time-use data shows parents have spent more time caring for children since the 1980s, reflecting intensive parenting, greater anxiety and reduced independence for children.
Have you ever experienced the Sunday spirals, where you wake up and within a few minutes it feels like the day has already been sucked away by a whirl of responsibilities?
In today’s newsletterAs a reality TV contestant, I was allowed one 15-minute FaceTime call a week. Even at 3am, Chris would always pick upIt’s a combination of a crazy economy, that means that families have to have two full-time incomes or very close to it in order to make things work, and not taking our foot off the pedal when it comes to domestic labour.
For the first time in history, more Australian families have two full-time working parents than any other configuration. So there’s more paid work, but care work – the amount of time we spend parenting – has gone up too. We’ve dropped a little bit of housework, which is great. More power to that.
But care work’s gone up and paid work’s gone up. And there’s not really space to pull back. Time use surveys suggest people spending more time parenting than they used to. And what I want to know is: what were parents doingI went to multiple experts to sense check this, asking: “This feels wrong.
Is this wrong? Can it possibly be right that we’re doing more hours of parenting every day than parents did in the middle of last century? ” But the numbers in Australia and across the world track upward from about the 80s. There’s been an increasing tendency towards intensive mothering – the idea that it requires more input from us if we want our kids to get the best out of the world.
Whether that’s reading to your child, or talking with them, helping them to emotionally regulate, or being very present and intentional in the way you parent. There has also been a big increase in supervisory care. So in previous decades, it might have been that you’d say to your kid, “walk home from school by yourself” or “go play with your friends by the creek”. Now there’s more anxiety on a couple of levels.
One is to do with stranger danger and the other is to do with road safety, and the way our cities are built, which makes it unsafe for kids to wander unsupervised. And that’s both good and bad. It’s obviously got that helicopter parent edge – the lack of resilience and freedom for exploration. And yet on the flip side, there are times when parental anxiety is appropriate.
The good old days actually had a lot of dangers in them. I’m definitely not saying millennial parents have got this balance right, but I think that’s the space they’re playing in, and it does have an impact on how much time kids can spend independently. Obviously, we don’t believe in individual solutions to structural problems, but you’ve been talking to a lot of people who are deep in this. Can you tell me some corners they’re cutting?
It’s actually one of my favourite questions to ask people who have young children: what balls are you dropping? One friend told me that on multiple nights a week she serves her children Weet-Bix for dinner. There was a Facebook post on a very popular mum’s group, asking: “How do I do this? I’m about to go back to full-time work.
I’ve got two little kids …” And I think one of the really telling things is that all of the solutions offered are little hacks. Things like “put your kids to bed in their clothes for the next day”. So, after bath time, straight in their school uniforms. Or batch cook, or buy a whole lot of liquid breakfasts.
And, yes, some of these systems can be mildly helpful. But I think if we’re thinking these are the answers, it’s like we’re arranging our chairs in the nicest configuration on the Titanic. – but Tom Cruise’s latest movie, about an oil tycoon responsible for a huge climate disaster, was bound to be divisive.
I think it is wonderfully weird and worth seeing, especially if you don’t like the look of the trailer has just earned a rave review from our critic Patrick Lum. The visuals and mechanics are thrilling and, perhaps more surprisingly, the plot is good too. Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s fusilli with zucchini and creme fraiche now.
If you use rennet-free parmesan, it can be vegetarian, and the recipe only takes about 30 minutes to cook.after three years out of action. Next weekend they’re putting on Housewarming, a series of variety shows featuring music, dance and theatre. The performances are free,There’s been a lot of chat about bogong moths in the office this week, as swarms of them begin their annual migration.
Since I learned that the best way to remove them from your home is by, I’ve been looking at lamps. In the entirely hypothetical scenario where my place is inundated with winged things, I’ve settled on this indoor/outdoor rechargeable table lamp from. Its form is inspired by forest sponges, and I think it would look quite spooky-chic with a few moths trailing behind it.
I ran this prospect past Donna Lu from our environment desk, who said it might work if you turned off all your other lights first.found that it couldn’t be delivered to Australia after all. I emailed the manufacturer asking for alternatives, but they said for the moment they only distribute in France. So if you know someone going there, ask for a souvenir.podcast.
Lamott is a beautiful writer of some books I have loved over the years and feels like an old, wise, eccentric and very funny friend. Balm for the soul listeningLast week, I asked you to share things that gave you joy that you’d spotted while out and about lately.saw this display at the entrance to the Archaeological Museum of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges while on a camping trip in France recently.saw: “A security guard all in black, very muscle bound, tough looking and complete with bulletproof vest, sucking a strawberry milkshake through a straw.
”: “There should be an amnesty each year when we confess our administrative stuff-ups so we wouldn’t feel so alone. ” So, in that spirit, tell me about the skeleton made of undone chores that’s hiding in your closet. I’ll go first: I have not cleaned my oven in more than five years. I cook with it pretty regularly, and every time I do, it smokes.
Share your own by replying to this email, or contacting savedforsunday@theguardian.com. I’ll keep you anonymous if you prefer. The moment I knew: As a reality TV contestant, I was allowed one 15-minute call a week.
Even at 3am, Chris would always pick upFrom urban rooftops to working cattle farms: Australia’s best home gardens – in picturesShaun Tan: ‘We’re always only seeing a thin skin of reality’Cheaper chips and melty mint slices: I try making five common ultra-processed foods from scratch – without the additivesMy mother’s phone calls became stranger, but I couldn’t visit. A rescue dog helped me reach her
Australian Families Dual-Income Households Parenting Time Intensive Parenting Childcare
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