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Comment by robertwiblin | Hacker News Reader

"One of Galinsky's more surprising findings centered around a question she posed to both children and parents: "If you were granted one wish to change the way your mother's/your father's work affects your life, what would that wish be?" Some 56 percent of parents anticipated that their children would want more time with their parents and for their parents to spend less time at work, yet only 10 percent of the children actually wanted more time with their mothers and only 16 percent wanted more time with their fathers. A far larger proportion, 34 percent, wished that their mothers would be less stressed and less tired, and 28 percent wished this about their fathers."

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/05/listen_to_the_c....

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This makes sense. I would much rather have less and more positive interactions with my parents than more or more stressful ones. Some people seem to have a "my parent was never around" complex but that usually seems to involve some combination of 1. Parent completely absent, not home at night, not reliable or away for extended periods working or 2. Parent missing key, meaningful events like the "dance recital" trope or 3. Parent outsources parenting to nanny and doesn't really monitor outcomes. If you are there for the important things, when you say you will be, and home for dinner (present, not just emailing on your phone) as often as you can be, that seems to matter more than working part time or other modern and progressive interpretations of being an engaged parent and with your kids.

I think that dependability is the key point. "My parents were never around" often translates to "my parents couldn't be relied on when it really matters". You don't have to spend 24/7 with your kids to establish the secure belief that you'll drop everything to help them; conversely, you can be present a great deal without ever giving the sense that you're a reliable resource.

I think this is what underpins the "dance recital" trope, or the similar "not getting picked up from soccer practice". It's not so much that you weren't there, but that you chose to prioritise something else or failed to honour a previous commitment.

Especially as children move into adolescence and start to develop independence, they want to know that their parents will provide a safe harbour to return to. I think that children are remarkably perceptive when assessing who can be trusted to get them out of a bad situation or handle a difficult conversation. Without necessarily realising it, parents send subtle messages every day about where their priorities really lie.

This, 100000 times : "Without necessarily realising it, parents send subtle messages every day about where their priorities really lie."

This. My dad worked 70 hours a week and travelled for work 30% of the time growing up, but we never felt “he was never around” because he made it to graduation events and little league and called us every day after school.

Things like frequent phone calls seen inconsequential, but: 1) They take significant dedication and scheduling on the part of the parent(s) and, 2) Have an outsize impact on the perception of your dependability. Huge from a kid's perspective.

This is true not just from a kid's perspective too :)

Works well for aging parents!

It doesn’t surprise me that kids don’t actually want to spend every waking moment with their parents.

Obviously this varies by age but they are little sentient beings who have their own agendas.

I have no idea why anyone would expect them to want the same one or two people in their mental space during every moment of “free” time.

Exactly. As a teenager I was more than happy to have my parents spend the day at work, as long as work-related stress didn't get brought back. It would have been quite annoying if they were around me all the time.

This lead me to think: "Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago" - well no wonder parents seem stressed and overworked!

Time for bedtime routine for my two children: 3-4 hours every evening.

You know, it doesn’t have to be this way. Make parenting work for you. After all, simply by making your children, you’ve already given them the incredible gift of life. There’s no need to also spend every waking hour attending to them.

What does the bedtime routine entail? I've never heard of such a long routine.

It's totally different as a teenager. Under age 5 kids are very emotionally dependent on their parents being around (even when not otherwise "needed").

I think the interpretation of this is off. Less tired and less stressed translates to "more time with their parents".

Or perhaps more "quality" time. If a parent is too stressed or tired to give their full attention and engaging with a child, then this really does translate to wanting parents to work less.

I think this is ignoring the many people that grew up poor, where your parents weren't writing emails or stressed about work. But rather weren't constantly stressed about not paying the bills putting food on the table, or keeping the heat on.

From the linked blogpost: > My interpretation: Spending time with our kids has become a chore because we're doing so much of it.

What a bizarre speculation, clearly a case of motivated reasoning. It's equally plausible that parents are working too hard/long and so when they see their kids they are cranky and irritable in the few moments they have with their children, and kids naturally want their parents to be better company before they become more frequent/enduring company. If parents had so much excess time hanging out with their kids, as the blogger wildly speculates, they probably wouldn't be so stressed and tired.

Your explanation is not supported by the data.

Firstly, the headline figure is that parents are spending twice as much time with their children, so this isn't simply a case of family time being squeezed by time spent at working.

Secondly, the average number of hours worked has been stable or slightly declining, with all but the most highly educated men seeing a reduction in working hours. Reductions in the amount of non-market work (shopping, household chores etc) mean that there has been a substantial increase in the amount of discretionary leisure time enjoyed by the average American. More women are participating in the labor market, but labor market participants of both genders enjoy significantly more leisure time.

Most Americans have more free time than ever before and are choosing to spend more of it with their children. The one exception is amongst the most highly educated, which (given the demographics of HN) may be why this fact jars with your personal experience.

https://www.bostonfed.org/economic/wp/wp2006/wp0602.pdf

That seems to resonate with me. I might want a little more time with my parents, but quite honestly, I'd rather they were less stressed and tired. Unfortunately, they are pretty headstrong so nothing I say would ever change their hours.

Isn't this actually the same thing, but from a grown-up perspective and from a child perspetive? If I say I want to work less, I would imply that I would be less stressed.

"Wish for" != "what is good for you"

I wonder if the age ranges were well-represented.

What I thought when I was 5 about my parents and what I thought when I was 13 were two totally different things.

I see this as an indictment of the common business management tactic world-wide to externalize the costs of rising expectations placed upon employees, without compensation, under the "do more with less" rubric. When even the children can see what is plainly in front of them, and express in honest language that their parents are bringing home work responsibilities and concerns, then the economic platform should be re-examined.

That's wildly speculative.

I find one of the most effective ways to do more with less is to ignore work after work, enjoy my life and show up the next day well rested and not stressed.

If it's important you'll get a call. When I do work at a place that prides itself on people being available around the clock, i'll delay send / reply to something right before bed and then plugging in my phone in another room.

Gives the appearance of working the most hours, interrupts other people / ruins their sleep, doesn't really affect my life in any material way.

> I find one of the most effective ways to do more with less is to ignore work after work

It's a shame that the concept of "having a life" as we pejoratively said in the 90s seems to have been forgotten.

Hah. Are you aware that there used to be a phrase everyone knew referred to as a 'speed-up'? It was the opposite side of the coin of a work slowdown. Everyone knows what a slowdown is. It's when workers try to get higher wages or apply pressure on their employer by intentionally working more slowly. And it used to be equally universally known that the opposite side of the coin was equally immoral and disgusting - for an employer to expect a worker to produce more value without the employer having to pay more for it.

That used to be something that society would spit in the face of the fat pigs for. But, now, it's considered sensible everyday practice that none would question. Of course Walmart lets the government shoulder a portion of the compensation of their workers through food stamps. Of course the fact technology enabled employees to produce 40% more value this year results in a raise of 1 or 2%, less than the cost of living increased. Of course they take and take and feel absolutely entitled to every penny of the billions in profit.

At the same time they claim to believe in the principles of a free market. At the same time the free market principles declare that all profit is a mistake, that all profit should quickly go to zero in any sensible market. Huh. Imagine that.

The 'Free market principle' does not necessarily imply zero profits. It's more along the line of: The profits should stay in line with the risks that the enterprise needs to take. More risky business sectors should (e.g. more upfront investments required) produce higher profits. Same as riskier bonds commanding a premium over t-bills.

But I agree that a lot of big players have managed to position themselves outside any 'free markets'

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