Families who choose Montessori school for their children usually avoid them have access smartphone, TV or internet in general.
Also, they are often in the wealthy, upper class so can enforce that kind on environment.
Also, they are often in the wealthy, upper class so can enforce that kind on environment.
Families where grandparents can afford to retire and / or move closer to their grandchildren are operating on an entirely different level financially. As are families where the parent or parents can work from home. As are families that can afford childcare which can easily cost as much or more than a mortgage in California at least. Even after public Kindergarten or TK becomes available these are mostly only half day coverage (again in CA) and you are completely on your own to figure out how to cover (pay for) the rest of the time if both parents work and there aren't other family members in the picture.
So in summary, I never would have realized that regardless of how much screen time you want your kid having the reality has shown itself to be that there is a direct correlation between relying on screen time and the financial standing of you and your extended family, for better or worse.
I was very lucky to have remote work when I had a kid, but my parents couldn't / can't afford to retire and that has had a huge financial impact on us. If I had an in-person job we would have had to rely a lot more on screens to fill in the gaps.
In any case no complaints I absolutely love having a kid and am glad to pay for good quality school / childcare and I don't really believe there's anything wrong with screen time anyway.
Watching 3-6 hours of TV a day after school while my parents worked and did whatever adults did in the 90's didn't seem to do as much harm to me mentally as I would have thought. It seems insane in retrospect.
Giving a phone to a 5 years old solves the symptom but it certainly doesn't fix the problem.
But I think I'd look at it the other way. The only category on here that's really "discretionary time" is "Leisure and sports". Across the board, parents are averaging about 12% there. The average across the population (including parents) is 22%.[0] This is also averaging everything across weekends as well. Expectedly, people have more free time on the weekends[1].
I'd also point out the footnote:
> NOTE: A primary activity refers to an individual's main activity. Other activities done simultaneously are not included.
There is nothing I do while my kid is (1) home and (2) awake that doesn't involve her taking up a large part of my time and attention.
When it's a dark evening in the middle of winter and I'm setting up a ladder in three feet of snow to climb up on the roof and run an auger down the sewer vent on the roof... I'm still spending probably a third to half of my time on her.
When I've got two pans on the fire, something in the toaster oven, and I'm trying to mind a pot I'm filling up with water to turn into supper... I guess, yeah, running back and forth to try and clean up some spilled juice and get her changed out of the wet clothes while I don't let anything burn or overflow is still technically mostly "food preparation and cleanup".
I don't even know where "planning child's birthday party" fits into this whole thing, but it's not something I'm doing _with_ my kid so it doesn't seem to be caring for household children by the general phrasing of these options. (And you might think "yeah but that only happens once a year" and you'd be right... but it's always something.)
And yeah, after she was asleep I did a bunch of "housework" and at some point I sat down for an hour and "watched TV" while I poked away at a bunch of other smaller things that needed doing. At some point I feel asleep in a chair so I'm not sure whether my primary activity was "sleep" or "watching television".
So that's a rundown of a recent evening of mine which had around 0 hours spent on childcare and an hour on TV.
Obviously "lived experience" is not "data", but that's at least _a_ perspective--yes, by the numbers I probably spend more time watching TV than caring for my kid but no, she's still the main time sink on my day outside of sleep and work (and sometimes not even sleep) and I certainly do not have a bunch of free time I could be allocating to childcare so she spent less time watching TV.
[0] https://www.bls.gov/tus/tables/a1-2023.pdf [1] https://www.bls.gov/tus/tables/a2-2023.pdf
They have 5 kids + 1 foster.
All have iPads. The eldest kid does double duty as nursemaid and has done since she was 7 or so.
Poverty = Kids iPad for me too. I dunno why. Its cheaper than childcare I guess.
Also if you're a kid in a low income area where maybe it's not safe to go play outside or you need constant supervision to be safe you don't go out much and therefore screens become the default indoor play. My kids have a big backyard they can go out and ride bikes around and swingset and spaces to dig and play and get dirty in the backyard because I make enough to buy a house like that.
We’ve gone out with multiple sets of parents who send their kids to Montessori labeled schools, and they whip out iPhones and iPads to placate at the first sign of trouble.
Not to mention that I can’t figure out what a Montessori school does differently anyway, other than charge a higher tuition, thereby selecting for a group of kids with higher socioeconomic status parents.
Prior Montessori HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33622295
I ran the hiring processes for a Montessori school my wife and I helped run, and the difference in even Montessori-trained and very experienced teachers was stunning. If you want the real experience, you really have to find one that lives and breathes the principles.